Which Macro Lens to Keep???

[seand]

No post processing done other than the mentioned crop and resize. Color, white balance, and everything else were left alone.

I'm basically deciding between these 2 lenses and possibly considering the highly lauded Canon 100mm EF Macro.

Each pairs of images were taken from a fixed tripod. Manually focused in portrait mode on a Canon EOS 20D.

TAMARON SP AF Di 90mm F/2.8 Whole image resized to 800 pixels wide


Canon EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Whole image resized to 800 pixels wide


TAMARON SP AF Di 90mm F/2.8 Full size 850x600 crop


Canon EF-S 60mm F/2.8 Full size 850x600 crop

[seand]

FYI:
I tried to focus on the branch that is in the lower center of the full size crops. I think the Tamaron was easier to see thru the viewfinder.

I included the resized images to get an idea of the field of view and depth of field.

[Al G. Eaton]

The first thing I would do is purchase a flash suitable for your camera. You should be shooting at f16 or f 22 not f2.8, or you just won't have the depth of field that those really well composed and focused pics that people like Gary Lange take. In my opinion, the circa 100- 105 mm macro lens is the best for fish photography as it allows you to work farther away from the fish tank and also allows for even lighing. Both the portrait lens and flash are well worht the money if you are serious about taking good pics. If you are trying to use the little pop up light with a normal macro lens, circa 50-60 mm or so that micro light wont even illuminate the area you are photographing in many cases. Don't shoot your photos on automatic, but use aperature preferred so you have optimized your depth of field.

[seand]

I've been toying with Aperature Preferred. Thanks for the suggestion.

I don't think a flash will help me. The pigments in the corals react differently to different lights. They basically look dull and brownish under 6500K or lower kelvin temp light.

Besides, the auto flash doesn't go off anyway with 1250W of metal halide 14,000K lighting (primary output at 455nm) over the tank.

[seand]

I returned the other 2 lenses and got the Canon 100mm USM Macro.

This was the least overexposed (at f/32) I could get the white tips to be. Clearly the Depth of Field is better at this aperature, but the exposure time was long. That explains the streaks from floating particles in the water and a slight blur on the left from a fish that passed nearby and created a quick glare.

I'm still learning, but it gets more techie and fun the deeper you get into it...

[Verse914]

Good job on the macro shots seand. I think the 100mm is a good lense distance. I have the Tamron 90mm f2.8 and it does a great job. I think the distance from the fish is just right.

I believe I took these with my 90mm macro...
http://www.verse914.com/mara_close1_D70.jpg
http://www.verse914.com/flavimanus4.jpg

[seand]

Hey Aaron-

Yeah, I love the 100mm. Especially the easy transition from AF to MF. I played around with Phil's remote flash the other day, and now I have to get me one of those...


I'm still a little worried about using a flash on the corals since the flouresceing pigments in their tissue responds very differently to different wavelengths of light. I have corals that are dayglow pink under 14K lights (450nm spike) and look orange under my 470nm LED moonlights, but drab pink under 10K (420nm peak), and downright ugly brown and grey under 6500K lights.

However, the flash is clearly worth it for fish pics...

[Verse914]

Great shot sean! Yeah, the flash makes a huge difference in fish pics. Im not sure about corals, but its worth a shot. You might have to play with the white balance to get the corals looking right.