CANON LENS CHOICE

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TerryMartin

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I have just purchased a Canon 1D body and wish to use it for pen photography. My Sony DSC-F717 is a great camera for all occasions but I know the 1D will do a much better job. My question is what would be the perfect lens for pen photography?

Terry
 
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Boy is this ever a loaded question. There are a couple of forums on the net the deal with nothing but canon slr's. Fred Miranda has one and I don't remember the other one. They have reviews of lenses and about any other info you could want. Most of them are professional photographers. This is where my wife went searching when she bought hers. I myself am camera dumb and just point and click. 1D I do know is a great camera and takes excellent macro pictures and about anything above. I do know that the "L" lenses are about the best money can buy or so the wife tried to sell me on.
 
I recently posed this same question to Gerry Rhoades (gerryr) who responded as follows. If you are a point-n-shoot guy, prepare for sticker shock!
http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3253&navigator=5 It looks like this is a manual focus lens, but for macro that’s how you should focus anyway

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/lenses/lenses_all_details.asp?id=3283&navigator=5 Probably more highly regarded than the previous lens, plus it will autofocus if you want.

This is a Tokina, also a very good lens. The downside to Tokina is that everyone says they make crappy lens hoods.

http://www.tokinalens.com/products/tokina/afl-m100-a.html

And also two Tamron lenses

http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/90mm.asp

http://www.tamron.com/lenses/prod/180mm.asp

It would be hard to go wrong with any of these lenses.
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Any DSLR can take great macro photos and photos of pens too, IF you have a good lens and know how to use it. The lens is more important than the camera body. Any of the lenses that mentioned to Lou will be more than adequate for taking pictures of pen, but a lens longer than 100mm becomes a bit problematic with a DX size sensor. Because of the multiplication factor, the camera will have to be further away from the pen, unless you want to take two photos and stitch them together. So, I wouldn't recommend the Sigma 150mm or the Tamron 180mm for a camera with a DX size sensor just because the camera would have to be several feet away from the pen.

If you follow those links, you will see prices that start around $500. Just remember that those are the manufacturer's suggested retail price, not the street price from somewhere like B & H.

Almost forgot to mention that you don't need to worry about buying macro lenses from these companies. Some of their other lenses may verge on being junk, but these macros are very well accepted and considered just as good as Nikon or Canon macro lenses.
 
Daniel was close, I would start with a zoom/macro lens that has a bit shorter starting focal length. e.g. 35 or 50 mm. Stick with better brands. If you are gearing up for just pens, a fixed focus lens in the 28 to 55mm range with bellows extension or tube extension would work excellently also.
 
A bellows is a really good idea, if all you want to do is photograph the nib![:0] Bellows are used for larger than 1:1 magnification and would be a total waste of money. Extension tubes are also a waste of money for photographing pens. In either case, the front lens element has to be much too close to the pen to ever get the entire pen in the photograph.
 
Originally posted by gerryr
<br />A bellows is a really good idea, if all you want to do is photograph the nib![:0] Bellows are used for larger than 1:1 magnification and would be a total waste of money. Extension tubes are also a waste of money for photographing pens. In either case, the front lens element has to be much too close to the pen to ever get the entire pen in the photograph.
Click to expand...

All those decades that I used tubes photographing all kinds of objects with my Pentax were wasted? [:0]
NOW he tells me. [;)]
 
I do agree with Frank in theory, I can only theorize as i don't have a zoom lens that is lower then 70mm. and it requires being pretty far from the pen. 35mm would allow for some interesting creativity.
 
Andrew,
That's basically the size I use, a 55mm Micro-Nikkor. It is incredibly sharp and works great as it is. But with the extension tube, I get life size images and it's really hard to stuff a 4-5 inch long pen into a space about 24mm long.[;)]
 
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