what is or would be your favourite macro lens(nikon fit)

iwols

iwols

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hi just wondered what your favourite macro lens is or would be and why,just a little survey thanks guys
 
I've only had a few but so far... Sigma 150mm f2.8. It's a bit big and the focus isn't lightening quick but for macro / pseudo macro stuff it is IMVHO just great.
 
For me, the Sigma 105 OS. Absolutely stunning IQ.
 
thanks guys just using the tamron sp di f2.8 macro 1:1 lens and seriously wondering about upgrading to the sigma 105 or nikon105,but theres always the doubt about how much i will gain cheers
 
I have the Sigma 105, Venus 60 and the MPE-65. The latter is by far the best and most flexible being 1-5x magnification but can be a devil to use at times. I love it tho and is the Holy Grail of Macro lenses imo.
 
Still doesn't change what my favourite macro lens is ;)

If you are asking what macro lens should you get, that's a very different question!
 
Tokina 100mm 2.8 - Mainly because it is still sharp a few stops lower ( f16 ) than any other macro lens I know, allowing a larger depth of field. CA is a bit of a bugger though at times.
 
If I was doing pure macro of bugs 'n stuff I'd get a Nikon 200mm f4. I've used the last two versions of the Nikon 105 (VR & AFD) the VR has quite quick AF but I felt the AFD may edge it slightly in IQ terms ... I've used a Sigma 105 and it was fine, I really liked the Tokina 100mm I had and have used the last but one Tamron 90 which is excellent too. Currently have the Nikon 60mm AFS as I don't do serious macro and just use it as a close up lens.

I honestly don't think you can lose with any of them, they are all sharp and fit for purpose. Only issue with Nikon is they don't have an MPE equivalent, and nor I believe do any third party makers.
 
natureiser said:
Tokina 100mm 2.8 - Mainly because it is still sharp a few stops lower ( f16 ) than any other macro lens I know, allowing a larger depth of field. CA is a bit of a bugger though at times.
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Not true. Also impossible, due to diffraction.

iwols said:
cheers anyone have comments on the sigma 150
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There are no poor macro lenses. Seriously, they're all either very good or excellent. 100mm-ish is an easy focal length to design and f/2.8 is not an ambitious aperture for a prime like that.

I'd get one with image stabilisation (as per your other thread) then it's mostly down to focal length as that determines the working distance for a given magnification - distance from front of the lens to subject. Manufacturers always quote minimum focusing distances from the focal plane/sensor, which isn't very helpful for macro.

With crop-sensor cameras, in effect you get a bit more working distance anyway so 90-105mm works out well. The Sigma 150/2.8 OS is certainly a very nice lens indeed. Also consider secondary use, and a lot of people use a 100mm-ish macro as a nice portrait lens.
 
You seem willing to spend the money but you could also consider an older (and cheaper) manual focus lens as most macro/pseudo macro will probably be MF anyway.

I currently have an old film era Sigma 50mm macro and I find it pretty hard to fault.
 
HoppyUK said:
Not true. Also impossible, due to diffraction.


.
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My own tests, and DXO Mark, disagree. I will show you the DXO Mark data, From the lenses tested on the Nikon D810 :

Nikon - borderline unacceptable at F22 and F16 sharpness is starting to become an issue

GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


Tokina - Still acceptable at F22 and at F16 sharpness is only just starting to be an issue.
GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


Sigma : totally unacceptable at F22, very borderline at F16 and also note the low sharpness at f2.8, making it less useful as a portrait lens than the other two above.

GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


This picture was taken at F22, it is a picture of a flying queen ant that landed on a rival nest and being pulled apart by workers. I would rather take a little theoretical sharpness loss over a great depth of field for this type of picture anyday.

Ant_attack2 by Nature Ist, on Flickr
 
natureiser said:
My own tests, and DXO Mark, disagree. I will show you the DXO Mark data, From the lenses tested on the Nikon D810 :

Nikon - borderline unacceptable at F22 and F16 sharpness is starting to become an issue <snip>
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Most good quality lenses deliver peak sharpness, in the centre, around f/5.6 - the best ones around f/4 and at a higher peak. Thereafter, diffraction affects all lenses, regardless of quality. It's a fact of physics and certainly by f/16 there will be nothing to choose between them. That doesn't mean they're not any good at f/16, just past the peak and all impacted by diffraction to the same extent.

Any significant difference between lenses can be down to all sorts of things and different aspects of the test procedure, but in a true like for like comparison the conclusion you're making is usually down to the accuracy/inaccuracy of the actual aperture size. It's very common, meaning that when the lens is set at f/11 say, it's actually nearer f/10, and f/16 actually f/13 etc. At high f/numbers, tiny mechanical variances can make a notable difference. I can't speak for DxO and there could be many reasons why those graphs appear to say different, but if you're concluding from them that the Tokina has some magical diffraction beating qualities, it doesn't.
 
iwols said:
cheers guys looks like a hunt for a 150 is going to start
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The 105mm might be more useful if you wanted to double it up as a portrait lens? I find the 150mm a touch too long for that.
 
natureiser said:
My own tests, and DXO Mark, disagree. I will show you the DXO Mark data, From the lenses tested on the Nikon D810 :

Nikon - borderline unacceptable at F22 and F16 sharpness is starting to become an issue

GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


Tokina - Still acceptable at F22 and at F16 sharpness is only just starting to be an issue.
GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


Sigma : totally unacceptable at F22, very borderline at F16 and also note the low sharpness at f2.8, making it less useful as a portrait lens than the other two above.

GLOBAL_PERC_MPix.png


This picture was taken at F22, it is a picture of a flying queen ant that landed on a rival nest and being pulled apart by workers. I would rather take a little theoretical sharpness loss over a great depth of field for this type of picture anyday.

Ant_attack2 by Nature Ist, on Flickr
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DXO mark talk utter cobblers.
 
odd jim said:
DXO mark talk utter cobblers.
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I agree that DXO Mark tests don't tell you the whole story about a lens, how it handles, if it suffers from zoom creep, if the autofocus is inaccurate or slow or other issues that effect lenses. However I buy a lot of second hand lenses, and always shoot them against an iso 12233 pattern to check for autofocus problems and decentering, and I have found a 100% matchup in DXO mark data and my own tests. If they say a lens is soft at f4 and sharp at 5.6, I find the same. If they say there is Cromatic Abberation at a certain aperture, I find the same. If they say one lens is soft at the edges, and sharp in the centre, I find the same. The empirical data they present is very useful and very reliable, and you can easily cross check it yourself.

Hoppy may be right, that the Tokina 100mm is not really F16 when you stop it down, and this results in the variation in the graphs above. I may run another test to see if changing from F8 to 16 really does quarter the available light, so I know if the aperture is accurate. I do know that setting the Tokina to F16 and even F22 results in acceptable sharpness, as I have tested it myself.
 
natureiser said:
I agree that DXO Mark tests don't tell you the whole story about a lens, how it handles, if it suffers from zoom creep, if the autofocus is inaccurate or slow or other issues that effect lenses. However I buy a lot of second hand lenses, and always shoot them against an iso 12233 pattern to check for autofocus problems and decentering, and I have found a 100% matchup in DXO mark data and my own tests. If they say a lens is soft at f4 and sharp at 5.6, I find the same. If they say there is Cromatic Abberation at a certain aperture, I find the same. If they say one lens is soft at the edges, and sharp in the centre, I find the same. The empirical data they present is very useful and very reliable, and you can easily cross check it yourself.

Hoppy may be right, that the Tokina 100mm is not really F16 when you stop it down, and this results in the variation in the graphs above. I may run another test to see if changing from F8 to 16 really does quarter the available light, so I know if the aperture is accurate. I do know that setting the Tokina to F16 and even F22 results in acceptable sharpness, as I have tested it myself.
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Whatever the reason, the fact is that diffraction at f/16 knocks everything down to the same level. That's not me or DxO or whoever saying that, it's physics.

Here are some numbers I just dug out for interest. They are my own Imatest MTF test data that I do for various photo magazines. They are all tested on the same camera, in the same way, to the same standard, and are all directly comparable (you can't say that about many other published tests, so beware when making comparisons). These are all % MTF at 24-lines-per-mm, at f/5.6 (Sigma 180 at f/4) and f/16, field centre. A difference of less than 5% is very hard to detect visually, yet here they're all within 2% at f/16.

Canon 100/2.8 L, 85% @ f/5.6, 71% @ f/16
Sigma 105/2.8 OS, 88% @ f/5.6, 72% @ f/16
Sigma 150/2.8 OS, 87% @ f/5.6, 70% @ f/16
Sigma 180/2.8 OS, 89% @ f/4, 72% @ f/16
Tamron 90/2.8 VC, 80% @ 5.6, 70% @ f/16
Tokina 100/2.8 AT-X, 83% @ 5.6, 71% @ f/16
 
iwols said:
Wow thanks for all input from everyone,im now confused more than before thanks :D
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Don't be :) - you already have a superb macro lens, the others you mention are not an upgrade per se, just a change. If you need more reach, get a longer focal length lens. If you feel you will benefit from stabilisation get one with VR/VC/OS - either way optically they are all excellent.
 
HoppyUK said:
Whatever the reason, the fact is that diffraction at f/16 knocks everything down to the same level. That's not me or DxO or whoever saying that, it's physics.

Here are some numbers I just dug out for interest. They are my own Imatest MTF test data that I do for various photo magazines. They are all tested on the same camera, in the same way, to the same standard, and are all directly comparable (you can't say that about many other published tests, so beware when making comparisons). These are all % MTF at 24-lines-per-mm, at f/5.6 (Sigma 180 at f/4) and f/16, field centre. A difference of less than 5% is very hard to detect visually, yet here they're all within 2% at f/16.

Canon 100/2.8 L, 85% @ f/5.6, 71% @ f/16
Sigma 105/2.8 OS, 88% @ f/5.6, 72% @ f/16
Sigma 150/2.8 OS, 87% @ f/5.6, 70% @ f/16
Sigma 180/2.8 OS, 89% @ f/4, 72% @ f/16
Tamron 90/2.8 VC, 80% @ 5.6, 70% @ f/16
Tokina 100/2.8 AT-X, 83% @ 5.6, 71% @ f/16
Click to expand...

Further to this, and I'm not sure if it's relevant here, but worth noting anyway.

At 1:1 with a macro lens, the f/number rises two stops from the normal-distance setting, eg f/8 is actually f/16. (F/numbers are only correct at infinity focus setting.) Nikon reports this change, while Canon does not, ie when a Canon lens reads f/8 at 1:1 it is actually operating at f/16 (though the exposure is automatically compensated anyway) whereas when a Nikon lens says f/16, that's the true working aperture.
 
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Well, I borrowed my friends copy of the Nikon 105, and spent some time doing some back to back tests, using a pair of flashes in manual slave mode to keep the light consistent. Turns out you are right Richard, the Tokina is not really f16 ! - the apparent sharpness boost is due to the aperture not fully closing to the marked scale. Interestingly, both of them also overexposed at f11, the Tokina by approx. 2 stops, and the Nikon by 1 stop.
 
Link in the siggy to 105mm macro nikkor (d I think) lens.
Best friend :) Very good coupled with extension tubes. I use the wobble method to take pictures. The photos on the link are mixed from 105mm and 105mm plus extensions. But gives you an idea :)

Tamron 90mm is just as good or even better. I always wanted to try the sigma 150 though, just for more working distance (105mm is about 5-10cm, with extension tubes more like 2-4cm)...
 
Another vote for the Sigma 150mm.. Also find it works ok as a portrait lens too, however this is on FF & not crop sensor.
 
thanks for all comments, still looking for a 150mm they are like rocking horse muck:D
 
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