Which lens to use for your FP

[Phthalo]

I currently have a Sigma 105 f2.8 Macro lens, which I love, plus I also use the classically cheap-yet-brilliant Canon 50 f1.8 on my Canon dSLR. Both lenses frequently annoy me when I do pen photography though... the 50 is really too short, and while the 105 is far more practical, so I may add the Sigma or Canon 60 / 2.8mm Macro to my collection at some point. I'm as terrible with accumulating lenses as I am with accumulating pens, though, so perhaps you should ignore this post...

 

With my manual Canon gear I used to use extension tubes a lot - with great results.

 

Also, if I'm really inspired / bored, I’ll use a M42-EOS adapter, a couple of tubes and some Pentax lenses from the 1960's - all on the digital body. Hours of good, cheap macro fun right there!

[kkhardwarestore]

I think for most applications Sigma or Tamron lenses are quite suffecient and save quite a lot over Canon or Nikor. It is hard to beat a Canon L series lens in the quality department but most non-comercial shooting can be done well with a less expensive option. The Canon 50 f/1.8 is a great lens for 50mm shooting for $100..it really isn't so good for macro work (unless it is mounted backward to the face of another lens).

 

Ansel Adams once said (paraphrase) "A pinhole camera is far better than most photographers abilities".

 

It comes down to using and understanding the equipment you have, this is 49% of the battle toward producing excellent shots. The other 51% is understanding lighting IMHO.

[wimg]

One of the problems with small apertures, like F/36 and smaller (larger number is smaller aperture and less light), is that due to diffraction the image starts degrading again, and become less sharp overall. It may not be so noticeable in relatively small images, but in larger ones it clearly is. Of course in macro photography you need to compromise a bit, but there are other solutions to get greater depth without degrading the image.

 

One of these options is to use a tilt-shift lens, like the Canon TS-E 24, 45 or 90, or one of the Hartblei lenses. This takes the limit away of having pens to line up perpendicularly to the camera, because with these lenses you can adjust the focused plane to suit your needs, IOW, you can align the field of focus to coincide with the direction of the pen. Very neat, but expensive, and you need practice and patience to get it right. These are, however, the lenses preferred by people who do a lot of product shots.

 

Alternatively, you can use stacking software, which makes it possible to combine pictures of the same object, focused at slightly different distances, to be combined to give you a single very sharp picture. An example of such software is Helicon Focus, but there is also software in the public domain to do this. Essentially you take, for example, 3 shots, one focused on the edge of the pen closest to you, one on the middle, and one on the far end, and the software then combines all three picking out the sharpest bits automagically.

 

Warm regards, Wim