What lens?

[Baz]

Okay I\'ve managed to get access to a DSLR for mini photography.
Problem is all I have are 50mm lens and telephotos.
What type of lens do you guys recommend?

 

[Beelzebrush]

Well, a macro lens is the obvious choice. I\'ve got a Tamron 90mm macro and it\'s pin sharp and I\'d highly recommend it. It\'s also useful for outdoor macro work - flowers, bugs etc and a rated portrait lens.

If you were just going to use it for taking pics of minis, I\'d get a shorter focal length macro, such as 50 to 70mm as you\'ll be able to work a little closer to the subject.

 

[Baz]

cool, I did a quick search and came up with some screw on macros for standard 50mm lenses

I\'m thinking these might be ok.

 

[Spacemunkie]

How much?

Those things\'ll only degrade image quality and might turn out to be a lame duck.

If you want a cheap alternative to that sort of thing, consider extension tubes and/or a reversing ring for your 50mm. Cheap as chips and much better image quality.

Read more here:

Reversing lenses for macro shooting...

Extension tubes will allow you to control the amount of magnification you want and can be had very cheaply! If you go this route, it\'s often better to pick up an old manual focus lens as they have a manual aperture ring on them. These can be had for peanuts on Ebay (I got a Rikkenon 50mm f2 for 3 quid, Pentax 50mm for 15...) and you get to use any manufacturers you like for reversing.

 

[Baz]

Looks like an extension tube is my best bet.
Is it just me or does reversing the lens sometimes give a pinhole effect/ just judging by the example pics I\'ve seen.

 

[Spacemunkie]

You will get vignetting with reversed lenses, particularly if you reverse them onto the end of another lens. In theory, if you reverse a 50mm lens onto a 300mm, you should get nearly 6x magnification!

Anyway, here\'s a quickie taken handheld with that manual Pentax reversed onto a 400D. Aperture is wide open, hence the narrow DOF, and there\'s some camera shake.....:duh:

No cropping though, so you can imagine how that looks full size! A reverse adaptor is cheap as. It\'ll work with a kit lens. Worth a try??

 

[Avelorn]

Yes definately try out the tips from Spacemunkie on extension tubes. I will actually try one such setup myself (with a macro bellow as well ) soon so maybe I can post some pictures later.

I\'ve tried the reversing bit as well with help from a friend, I have shown some pictures of it earlier but here are some other (handheld):

6%

25%

Full sized/cropped

Full sized/cropped

Pretty shallow dof. Funny how patchy the purple \"glazing\" on the metal look (surely not a mistake, eh? :innocent: ) and the metallic pigments really show up... and the occational straying pigments... I should have gotten rid of the dust as well...

My original pictures, taken with my own Sony Cybershot P100 camera:

 

[Baz]

Avelorn is this the camera you normally use?

 

[Avelorn]

Yeah, looks like it! It\'s a pretty good all round camera from a couple of years back. I\'ll try to get myself a new one this year.

 

[alextheartist]

What settings do you use? I have a sony dsc s730 so i presume they might be simelar?

Alex

 

[Avelorn]

No, you have no manual settings when I read the specs. I think my parents have the exact same model, I can try taking some pictures this weekend with it and see what I can come up with.