07 August 2007

Talking About Macro Lenses: Part 1


I've come to love macro lenses in the many years I've toyed with cameras. Not that I'm a serious bug hunter or anything of that sort, far from it. For me it's the versatility and flexibility of shooting a distant subject one moment and close-ups the next that gives the macro lens an edge over many other lenses. Unlike a zoom, the predictability of angle of view means that I can quickly determine what's going to be covered. Plus the adage that there are no bad macro lenses is true which translates to nice sharpness and colour.



These shots were taken by a very cheap manual focus Vivitar 100 f3.5 Macro. Made by Cosina, this lens comes in many different names as there are camera mounts both in manual and autofocus. The lens barrel is very plasticky and many photographers I know cast the "can't take it seriously" look whenever they look at this compact dinky lens. However in terms of image quality, this lens gives results far better that expected. It focuses to 1:2 and goes to 1:1 with a diopter filter attachment. Bottom line, it's cheap and good despite the dodgy build quality.

Here's how it looks like (manual focus version).

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