Originally posted by SteveinSLC Rather than buying an older manual lens to save a little money, I'd look for a copy of the FA 50 2.8 Macro. It can be found for between $100 and $200, is extremely sharp, and doubles as a pretty nice wider landscape lens.
The 50mm Macro Takumars and K Macro is slower at a maximum aperture of 4, are also very sharp, if you don't mind manual focusing.
I have a few "Macro" lenses, but the Macro Takumar is my favorite, with its preset aperture, and 1:1 macro zoom. Old yes, SMC no, but really sharp and has great color rendering. Plus, it has unique star-shaped bokeh for most of its aperture range
Also, I thought there was a preference for manual focus for macro images?