 Kathy L. Pollick |
And another thing.... what is a Macro lens? and what is the purpose of having one?
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Peter M. Wilcox |
It allows you to focus on subjects very close to your camera (<9"), and make magnified images of them. Your typical bug or flower picture is made with a macro lens.
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Kathy L. Pollick |
I wondered how people did that!! I tired it once & only got a big blurry splotch on the page!!! Can you use them for anything else? How do you know what size macro to buy? especially if you don't know what you're going to use it for.
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Peter M. Wilcox |
As with everything, which macro to buy depends :). I might be able to give a specific opinion if you have a particular camera in mind (or I might still be clueless :). In general, assuming you have a removable lens camera, I would get a normal length lens (50mm for 135 film), or medium telephoto (80mm or 100mm equiv) as a second choice. If your camera does not have a removable lens, you may be able to get a slip on lens to provide close focusing. In that case you will probably have only one or two relatively inexpensive options. Get both. As a further complication, if you have a removable lens (SLR or the like) you can get extension tubes or bellows which allow a standard lens to focus at near distances. They are not as good as a dedicated macro lens in quality or convenience (you give up infinity focus, bulky, very shallow DOF, etc...) but are often used with a macro lens as well to get even closer. People with a macro lens will often have extension tubes as well.
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Kathy L. Pollick |
I currently have a minolta 5000 maxxum. I only have 2 lenses right now. The 50mm and a zoom 28 - 200mm. Except I didn't know you were to use the zoom with a tripod. I hated that my pix were always a tad blurry, so I quit using the zoom as I thought it was the camera...lol. (Operator error)!!! I'd like to get a couple more versatile lenses but not sure what would be good. I thought about the 28-135 macro & a 28mm for wide angle shots. I would also like to get a fisheye, just for fun. And as everyone seems to suggest a polarizer. Are there any other lenses you would suggest? (I know very little about camera equipment anyway) Thanks
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Peter M. Wilcox |
I'm not familier with the Minolta system, but on my Olympus OM systems I found that my most used lens was a 35mm to 70mm zoom, followed by a 65mm to 200mm zoom. Then a 50mm macro and a 28mm wide angle. A good fisheye is expensive, and maybe not used very often once the novelty wears off. You see very few award winning pictures shot with a fisheye... My new digital has (135 equivalent) 28mm to 90mm and 80mm to 300mm zooms, and an adapter to allow manual use of my older OM lenses. My next lens purchase will be a native 100mm equivalent macro lens, followed by a either fast normal zoom or a wide angle zoom. As far as zoom blur, the rough rule of thumb is to keep the shutter speed above 1/(focal length), i.e. 1/200 for a lens at 200mm. 28-200mm is a very wide range, and I don't see it listed on the Minolta site. Was it a third party (Sigma) lens by chance? The blur may not have been entirely your fault. Sigma (and others) make reasonably priced lens for their quality, but there is a reason why OEM lens often cost more, and people are willing to pay the price... Polarizers are fun to play with and can increase blue saturation in the sky, and remove reflection from non-metalic surface (e.g. a pond, or other standing water).
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Kathy L. Pollick |
The 28-200 zoom I have is a Kalimar AF. How does the standard 50mm differ from the 50mm macro??? I also don't understand the "focal length" thing yet. I use my camera on automatic all the time. I used the manual setting a couple times but didn't see any difference in the pix, so I just put it back on auto. I do want to learn all the things you can do differently using manual settings though. I just need time to play around with the camera. So with a polarizer, you're saying if I want "ripples" in my water, DON'T use the polarizer? I do want to get the blue sky though.
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Peter M. Wilcox |
The 50mm macro will focus down to around 9", the normal 50mm probably down to about 18". What focal length does to your camera is change the angle of view. I.e. a long lens will only see the very center area of what a shorter lens will see. There are equations to go along with this, but I don't remember them off the top of my head (CRS), so I won't embarress myself by providing exact, incorrect, figures :). Depth of field also changes with focal length. Automatic lets the camera pick aperture and shutter speed, that may not give you the results you want, although I would expect the camera to favor fast shutter speeds when long focal lengths are selected. It is tough to hand hold a 200mm lens steady enough for a crisp shot. Although if you also saw blurring at the wide angle end, it wasn't you, it was the lens. A very simplified explaination: you pick shutter speed to freeze or blur action, aperture to increase or narrow depth of field (front and back extent of focus). The wider the aperture (smaller number) the shallower the DOF. One affect the other in an inverse relationship. Double the shutter speed, increase aperture by one F-stop (1/100 -> 1/200 and f11 -> f8, for example). The polarizer removes reflections, allowing you to photograph what might lie under or behind. Such as removing a reflection from a glass window. It would make ripples less noticable. The polarizer is two pieces of glass, you must rotate one of them to get the effect you want - i.e. not just point and shoot anymore. You probably want a circular polarizer to make sure your autofocus still works (there are two types), check the camera manual.
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Kathy L. Pollick |
I read somewhere that for portrait taking, one would get good pix with a 28mm, 1/15th. I don't know what this 1/15th means. My daughter is getting married in a month & I want to get some good shots for myself (aside from the photographer), but I'm not sure what type of lens to use in a Church.
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Peter M. Wilcox |
28mm is probably too wide, unless you get really close, the people (the reason for the shots to begin with) will be realy tiny... 28mm might work for group shots, but 100mm or so is usually considered a portrait lens length. You'll probably want a fast lens (low maximum f-stop, 2.8 or better) and high ISO setting (400 perhaps), even if you can use flash. Outdoors, not a problem. There are probably some good articles on photographing weddings on this site.
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Kerry L. Walker |
Peter, glad to see another OM user here. Kathy, you don't want to use a 28mm for portraits, unless you are talking about group shots. Otherwise, you would get a lot of perspective distortion. Something in the range of 80 to 100mm is best for portraits. I use a 150mm on my Pentax 645 (35mm equivalent is 90mm).
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Kevin Ekstrom |
100mm for Portrait is a good choice. You dont want to be in the models face with your camera. I found that I use my Sigma 28-80 macro lens more often than any other. This is clearly a personal choice. My Sigma lens is a rather good lens for the money I pluncked down on it.
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