Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

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Biker Dave
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Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Biker Dave »

Hey All

Is there such a thing as a combination zoom/macro lens? If so, would they be any good for herping? I'm getting close to actually having money to buy a decent camera and I thought I'd see if I could be lazy with the lens. I hate having to pack around a bunch of gear. And I see you all in the field scrambling to change lenses and missing shots so........

Dave
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MHollanders
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by MHollanders »

I don't think there is a zoom macro lens in production. I believe Nikon used to make a 70-180mm. It'd be beneficial in herping when photographing large snakes. Posing big snakes and backing up with a 105mm (on DX format) can make it more difficult.
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justinm
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by justinm »

Prime lenses are usually better than a push pull lens. Having said that I do often carry a Canon F4 IS 100-300mm. But I yank out a prime for macro work.
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MHollanders
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by MHollanders »

justinm wrote:But I yank out a prime for macro work.
Is this because of your preference for primes or because of the paucity of macro zoom lenses?
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Erik Williams »

sigma makes tons of zoom macro lenses. The problem is that the lenses are mostly standard quality and slow. The sigma 70-300 gets close to 1:1 magnification which makes it great for shooting butterfly eyes at six feet; it is a true "macro" lens by most people's definition. again, it suffers from modest ( pretty good by all accounts, but not great) IQ and a slow (f/5.6 at the long end) aperture. The good thing is that you can pick one up cheap, and if you don't like it just sell it.

What I'd really recommend is something akin to the 70-200 f/4L lenses that are out there in the various mounts, and a set of extension tubes. That way you can get a high-quality telephoto macro setup for shooting hots at a distance. It takes some getting used to but the IQ smokes any of the long zoom "macro" lenses out there. I personally spend a lot of time with my Zuiko 50-200 and 25mm of extension. It's my long distance macro rig. Once you lose light to the extension tube it really isn't any faster than the slow sigmas but the IQ floors the consumer grade macro zooms.

One added benefit with the tube is that the out-of-focus(OOF) areas drop OOF really fast so it is easy to isolate subjects. Here's a decent sized copperhead shot at about three feet with the 50-200 +tube setup.

Image

I've never heard of a zoom lens that is actually sharper than a prime lens. Compromises are made in the construction of a lens that is sharp across a range lengths, it's just the way it is. My 24-120 standard zoom is awesome for herping because it goes really wide and also long enough to keep at arms length, but I don't use it nearly as much as my 100mm macro because it just isn't as sharp. You really get spoiled on a good macro prime.
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by bgorum »

Your question is not stupid at all. There are many zoom lenses out there that have a "macro" mode, or that feature a reasonably close minimum focus distance. For example Tamron makes a 70-200 f2.8 that achieves nearly 1/2 life size magnification. I hate to make statements about which I don't have any personal experience, but from everything I've heard these "macro zooms" do not provide really high quality results when used for close-ups. Nikon did make a 70-180 micro which was designed from the ground up to be a macro lens. I own one and think it is a fantastic lens, especially on a dx format slr. It will more than hold it's own optically against the fixed focal length macros I've used. Because of the way it is designed it has less working distance at maximum magnification than one would predict based on it's focal length (slightly less working distance at maximum magnification than one would get from the Nikon 105 af-d micro), so it might be less useful on full frame. Unfortunately it is long discontinued and sells for ridiculously high prices now on the used market, (about $1400 typically).

One from the 70-180 microImage

The other alternative is, as Erik mentioned, to use extension tubes or, as I would recommend, to use achromatic (2 element) diopters on a normal zoom lens. I prefer the diopters on zooms since you can zoom and maintain focus with them. With extension tubes you will have to refocus, (often significantly) whenever you zoom. However, tubes will give you more working distance at any given magnification and focal length than diopters will. The caveat here is that you are using the lens in a way it was not designed to be used and you may find that optical problems you never saw at normal distances will rear their ugly heads. For example, I find many non-macro lenses suffer from focus shift (the focus changes when you change apertures) when they are used for macro work. Make sure you test out any combos before committing money to buying.

One from the Nikon 80-200 f2.8 with a Nikon 5t diopterImage
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justinm
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by justinm »

Erik,

I watched you shoot a Timber with a 400mm and get "macro" shots, lol.
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Erik Williams »

Justin:

That 400mm has very close focus to begin with. The extension tube cuts that down to about 60%. Being able to focus 400mm at two feet is a LOT of magnification for a safe distance (the timber we were shooting wasn't more than 20 inches long). The bare lens is usually more than enough magnification - I just use the tube if the animal is jumpy or if I want a really tight shot of something I don't want to get close to.

Bottom line, both opinions in this thread suggest going with a high quality medium length zoom and then using either a close-up lens (sometimes called a diopter) or extension tubes to cut the minimum focus distance down, thereby increasing magnification. I suggest the tube over a close-up lens for two reasons: the tube has no glass to clean or scratch, and the tube has no glass to cause color or lens distortion.

I've used very nice close-up lenses before, which range from $100-150 and take very nice pictures. However, you DO get what you pay for with these and you won't be happy with the $25 ebay set. canon makes very nice ones, I believe the models are the 250d and 500d. IIRC the 250d offers more magnification. Sony makes a nice one too, I think it's VCL-3500 or something like that. It sits between the two canon models in magnification. All three are very nice and won't give you funny color fringe or soft edges. Depending on the zoom lens you use, you may need step-up or step-down adapters to mount these.

A set of kenko extension tubes, which is usually three or four different lengths, is under $50. Since they mount on the camera side of the lens you will not need any adapters to attach these to any lens in your mount. One more consideration is that you lose light with the tubes, where you don't with the close-up lens. They also work in opposite fashion: extension tubes give you more magnification the shorter the lens is while close-up lenses give you more magnification the longer the lens is. It's all a matter of what works for you.

Here's that rattlesnake that justin was talking about...

50-200 ( =100-400 in 35mm), no tubes

Image
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Biker Dave
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Biker Dave »

I appreciate all the info....but being that I am not a "camera guy" I'm getting kind of confused.
If I read through it a few times maybe it will all sink in!

Dave
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by TheRivermunchkin »

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; Macro lens is for upclose (distance wise) photography, while teloscopic lens are for distance shots that looks like a person has taken the photo up close distance wise. Hope this helps, been researching cameras myself and got lost in the jargon a few times as well.
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Erik Williams »

TheRivermunchkin wrote:Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong; Macro lens is for upclose (distance wise) photography, while teloscopic lens are for distance shots that looks like a person has taken the photo up close distance wise. Hope this helps, been researching cameras myself and got lost in the jargon a few times as well.
Close. Macro lenses are for high magnification. Magnification is measured by comparing the size of the image the lens projects against the film/sensor. The higher the magnification, the closer the photo is to "actual size" or "larger than actual size." A life size image (1:1) will be the same size in life as it is on the sensor. Since many dSLR sensors are about the size of a bee, a bee that fills the whole frame of the picture is probably close to 1:1 magnification. Macro lenses are generally considered to have 1:1 or stronger magnification although the term is used loosely by manufacturers. Macro lenses can be all focal lengths and are not necessarily telephoto lenses. they are commonly in the 100mm (mild telephoto) range but there are 35mm macros and 300mm macros also, and many inbetween. The length of the lens usually effects how closely you can focus; not necessarily the actual magnification but merely how close the subject has to be to the lens for a given amount of magnification. A 200mm and a 35mm are both capable of nearly the same photograph, but the 200mm takes it at four feet while the 35mm takes it at four inches (numbers are arbitrary for the sake of example). So macro lenses are not necessarily for "up close" photography, but they ARE optimized for high magnification photography.

Close up lenses and extension tubes have the same pragmatic effect on a lens: they allow it to focus closer to the camera. A 400mm (long telephoto) lens might not be able to focus closer than four or five feet from the camera, and might only boast 1:5 magnification (one fifth life size). Slapping a tube or close-up lens on that same 400mm might allow the lens to focus at two feet away, which would have the byproduct of increasing the magnification greatly. When that minimum focus distance goes down, magnification goes up (given the exact same lens) just because you are physically closer to the subject.

One thing we didn't cover in this discussion is that tubes and close-up lenses both limit the range of focus you can have. When I have the tube mounted to my 50-200, I can focus from three feet to about three and a half feet from the camera, but not farther and not closer. That six inch window is where you can get focus. Therefor, you can't just go from shooting a snake on the ground to shooting a bird, because the lens cannot focus at twenty feet. Only from 3 to 3 1/2. Close-up lenses work the same way except that they suffer the most at long telephoto distances. To keep things as simple as possible, this is related to the fact that they benefit the most from a long telephoto, while tubes increase the magnification the most from a short lens.
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Biker Dave
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Biker Dave »

Erik

From what you posted above, it sounds to me like I would still be assembling and disassembling my camera (removing/adding the tube) to get the usability I am looking for. Sort of defeats the purpose I had in my original post (having to carry two lenses and assembling/reassembling in the field). I get the cost factor of a tube vs another lense but the practicality is if I still have to take things apart and put them back together I may as well just have the two separate lenses.

Or get one of those new 30x zoom p&s cameras.

Dave
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MHollanders
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by MHollanders »

For all practical purposes, I love a macro lens around 100mm (105mm for Nikon). Although it's tough to get really close up images of small frogs (below is a picture of a metamorph Rana at minimum focus distance) and somewhat tricky when working with large snakes (particularly rat snakes as they don't really sit still as well as a large rattlesnake would), it's still a fantastic lens to photograph herps with.

Image
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Biker Dave »

Are there any issues with night herping photography and on camera flash with these types of lenses?
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by TheRivermunchkin »

Thanks Eric, question though: When talking about a large snake like a rat snake that won't sit still, would the shutter speed help alleviate that issue?
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by MHollanders »

Biker Dave wrote:Are there any issues with night herping photography and on camera flash with these types of lenses?
I can't answer that question, maybe someone else can? I know that a normal speedlight works fine at these close distances, though it's possible the on-camera flash would over-shoot it.
TheRivermunchkin wrote:Thanks Eric, question though: When talking about a large snake like a rat snake that won't sit still, would the shutter speed help alleviate that issue?
The problem with large snakes is that, for a full body shot at least, you have to back up considerably to fit it all in. A fast shutter speed would indeed help in "freezing" the moving snake, but the problem is that the snake will get out of pose for you picture. In other words, the closer you are to the snake with the lens the easier it is to pose it and keep it in position while you take the shots.
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by bgorum »

Biker Dave wrote:Erik

From what you posted above, it sounds to me like I would still be assembling and disassembling my camera (removing/adding the tube) to get the usability I am looking for. Sort of defeats the purpose I had in my original post (having to carry two lenses and assembling/reassembling in the field). I get the cost factor of a tube vs another lense but the practicality is if I still have to take things apart and put them back together I may as well just have the two separate lenses.

Or get one of those new 30x zoom p&s cameras.

Dave
Sounds like you want an SLR with one do it all lens. Such lenses do exist (18-200 mm for example) and you could easily add a diopter for close-ups, (no more difficult than screwing on a filter). The only problem is that while these lenses do almost everything, they don't do anything as well as more specialized lenses. Probably still an improvement over a point and shoot though.
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by Biker Dave »

Yes. I think it would be an improvement over what I call a point and hope camera.

I guess once I have the cash all gathered up I'll just go down to the local camera store and try some "hands on testing."

Thanks for the input everyone!
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by justinm »

Dave,

I would start with a gently used body first to learn the ropes. Your glass is what you will keep body after body. Also remember that the more heavily invested in a particular system you get, the harder it will be for you to switch brands in the future. I'm a Canon guy now!
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Re: Stupid Question ( oh gawd! Not again!!!!)

Post by chrish »

There is another issue you haven't addressed and that is what kind of range you want for a "one size fits all" lens.
There are decent 28-70mm or 17-70mm macro lenses that would allow you to take wide angle habitat shots, people pics and give you good macro capability. But if you want longer reach (200, 300, 400mm) you start to lose the wide end and some of the macro resolution.

Several companies make a 18-250 or 18-270 lens which would fit your requirements. It isn't going to give you close ups of snake's eyes, but it will fill the frame with something the size of a treefrog. You will also get some wide angle capability for habitat shots and at 270mm you can get some distant lizard basking shots. It will be a slight compromise in image quality over a fixed focal length, but if you take good photographs no one will notice. Do some careful review checks however, some of the 18-250/270 lenses are good, some are not. Also make sure you get some reasonable macro capability (at least 1:4).

Chris
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