What lens do you use?

Just curious, what lenses do you guys use for close up pictures of torches and other things? I just bought a Nikon D90 with a 18-200VR lens. Do I need a macro lens? If so. which one would be the most useful? I'm just getting into photography, so be patient with me.

Lens which gets used mostly is Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens, pretty sharp lens for its price!
I don't think that you are going to need a macro lens, because that lens you got should be good for taking close-up pictures from torches.

I personally carry two lenses with me, a 50mm F/1.8D and a 55-200mm VR. I also have an 18-55mm VR, but I don't carry that one unless I am doing indoor candids, wide-angle landsapes, or something of that sort.

Both are Nikon brand, and I personally would not recommend buying a Tamron, Sigma, or the like as while those lenses depreciate in value and lack the backing of a company that has pioneered lens design, the Nikon brand ones keep, or even increase their value over time, and are almost guaranteed to "not suck," for lack of a better phrase.

And no, you don't need a macro lens. For a fraction of the cost of a Nikon macro lens, you can buy the 50mm above, and have a fantastic, small, take-anywhere lens that has a minimum focussing distance of .45 feet.

I find myself taking most of my shots with either a 28mm or 105mm lens.

Stranded with only two lenses they would be a fast Nikon 18mm rectilinear and a 80-300 fast nikon zoom or a fast 300mm Nikon.
That's for 35mm sized sensors. I find 'normal' focal lengths boring.
If only one lens, I'd jump for the wide.

I have a few that I use. One is the 60 mm AF Micro Nikkor- I use this one for close up's. The other is a Nikon ED AF-S 28-70 mm which is kind of a medium range lens and the last is the Nikon AF-S 18-200mm VR for long range.
All of these fit my D-80 and D-300.
I don't really know why I chose Nikon , I think Cannon makes a good camera as well!

I only own one lens, a Canon 50mm f/1.8. Works fine for my product photography needs.

Go for the Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 D. Cheap and good, will cover most of your needs.

Most of the time I uses a Nikon 60 mm Micro for closeup, but I have also used a Tamron 90 mm Macro.
Another solution is to buy a diopter for you lens, you can get one cheap from DX, just remember to get the right diameter for your lens.
Macro lens will give the best result, other lenses will usual have some barrel or pincushion distortion, especially zoom lenses.

Canon macro 50mm f/2.5 and the life size converter. Also have 12mm and 25mm extension tubes.

Frequently use these on the 1ds mark 3, 1d mark 3 and the 1d mark 4.

Matt, it really depends on what you want to shoot and what you expect of the lens. For serious Macro work, it is hard to beat Nikon's 105mm 2.8 VR, but this lens is more expensive than many peoples camera bodies.

The 18-200mm VR you already have is an excellent all around lens that can do most things well. If you just want to take pictures of torches, etc, it should do just fine...

Dave Allen Photography

Nice post X-Racer.

matt_o,
Before considering a new lens, see what you can do with the one you already have.

Learn the capabilities and limits of your current equipment. Figure out what you want to do.

That said, if you are interested in macro shots of very small items, a decent point and shoot with good macro capability (less than 1/2 inch) could cost less than a DSLR macro lens and a set of extension tubes.

Very handy for shooting circuit boards or small details. Great depth of field due to the small sensor, and the quality (though this is subjective) decent enough for viewing on a screen or uploading to websites .

Archie Cruz said:

Stranded with only two lenses they would be a fast Nikon 18mm rectilinear and a 80-300 fast nikon zoom or a fast 300mm Nikon.

Click to expand...

I've never heard of a 'fast 80-300', or any kind of 80-300 for that matter :thinking: If one existed, I would have it

Nikon makes a 70-300mm, but it and fast don't belong in the same sentence, lol...

Thanks for all the replies. I have been playing with my camera a little bit lately. Here are a couple of pictures I've taken with the 18-200VR lens. I have to zoom in a little bit to get it cropped close. See what you guys think.

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8 L unless I have cause or need to use the 50mm f/1.8 or 60mm f/2.8 Macro.

I think you will be real happy with the Nikon 60 mm micro. It is the lens I use almost exclusively when I shoot flashlights and critters around the yard. Last year I picked up their other micro lens, the 105 mm to give me and the critters some more space but the 60 is still the default lens for above water shots. It's also a nice portrait lens. I may be wrong, and if so would appreciate instruction, but I still think fixed focal length lenses have an advantage over the zoom lenses?!?

McGizmo said:

I think you will be real happy with the Nikon 60 mm micro. It is the lens I use almost exclusively when I shoot flashlights and critters around the yard. Last year I picked up their other micro lens, the 105 mm to give me and the critters some more space but the 60 is still the default lens for above water shots. It's also a nice portrait lens. I may be wrong, and if so would appreciate instruction, but I still think fixed focal length lenses have an advantage over the zoom lenses?!?

Click to expand...

I also love the Nikon 60 mm, but for portrait my 70-200 f/2.8 is my preferred lens.
The Nikon 14-24 mm lens is sharper than almost all fixed focal lenses.

Matt, I also have the 18-200 VR, but I use it on my Nikon D5000. I also do not have a dedicated Macro lens, as I don't have a grand to spend on another lens right now. I simply bought a set of 3 diopters from my local camera store. They are 4x, 2x and 1x. They can be piggybacked on top of one another. Of course, you'll end up with a bunch of cropping and after-work to do. I took 2 shots indoors, under flourescent lighting. For the purpose of this post, I did not do any post-processing at all. The first shot is from the 18-200 VR AF-S lens, at about as close as you can get. You would have to digitally manipulate the photo later in post-processing to zoom in closer, resulting in image pixellation.


Here, I have screwed on the 4x diopter onto the front of the lens. (I left my UV filter on too). As you can see, the diopters are great for getting up close like if you wanted to photograph bugs, etc.


At $40, the diopter set of 3 is good for the money. However, just be aware that the outer edges of your shots will be warped and you'll need to post-process every photo to remove that. If you just use 1 of the diopters, rather than stacking them together, the problem is less noticeable.

I use a Nikkor 60mm 2.8 Macro for most of my close up work(equivalent to 90mm on my 200). Other lenses include, Nikkor: 12 -24/f4; 28-70mm/f2.8; 70-200/f2.8 VR (an amazing lens!)

to DoctaDink --


Simply Beautiful !


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