[Donaldo]

Dear All, I'm just new on so please excuse any early breaches of protocol.
Please advise me. I want a Macro lens for my K50 and am wondering whether to go for a 35mm, 50mm or 100mm.
I would want to use it for butterflies, insects and flowers, mostly. I have a good portrait lens already.
Any helpful comments would be very much appreciated. Donaldo

[Adam]

The longer the lens the farther away you can be when taking your macros, but it also affects the perspective. I'd look at the 50mm or 100mm depending on how close you want to be.

[Donaldo]

Thanks, Adam. Please be kind enough to explain a bit more about how the perspective changes when doing macro work at different distances. D

[MSL]

Of your 3 topics, there are certain commonalities and some significant differences that will affect lens choice.

Flowers and butterflies and large relative to your sensor, so you need close focus rather than true macro (1:4 vs 1:2 or 1:1 magnification)
Flowers are stationary in the absence of wind.
Butterflies tend to be skittish, so the working distance for a 50mm may make it too hard to get close enough.
Insects can be captured at low magnification, but if you try to get close to 1:1 you need to worry about keeping them from moving too much - again a longer focal length may help, but technique becomes a lot more important.
I've used everything from 50-135 with extension tubes or a dedicated macro lens. I find 90mm to be about right and would use that more often except my dedicated lens is a m42 and has a stiff focus ring

---------- Post added 08-05-15 at 05:13 PM ----------

Here's one site that talks about macro and perspective

Macro Photography Perspective Tips

and for really good photography advice including macro calculators try Cambridge in Colour - Photography Tutorials & Learning Community

[btnapa]

Dear All, I'm just new on so please excuse any early breaches of protocol.
Please advise me. I want a Macro lens for my K50 and am wondering whether to go for a 35mm, 50mm or 100mm.
I would want to use it for butterflies, insects and flowers, mostly. I have a good portrait lens already.
Any helpful comments would be very much appreciated. Donaldo

Donaldo,

Welcome to the forum. We are here to help if we can.

Here is my set up. I have a Pentax 50mm autofocus macro lens and a 120mm manual lens from the 645 line up (using it with a 645 to K mount adapter) . For my macro work, I use the 120mm a lot more than the 50mm. The only problem with the 120 is that it is manual focus and I am not sure how easy it would be to chase butterflies with it. For flowers and slow or not moving insect, the 120mm lens will be fine.

For the type of macro work you want to do, generally it is better to have the longest lens you can get to allow enough space between the camera and the subject. The longer the lens, the more (comfortable) space you have to work with. The longest autofocus lens, I believe is the 100mm Pentax or the 90mm Tamron. I am not sure what other long autofocus macro lens are currently available for the K-mount.

Hope this helps.

[Aaron28]

when I get some dollars I will be between tamron 90 (heavily leaning towards) and a 100 of some sort......until then I am quite happy using close up filters on a bunch of my lenses.....in particularly a sigma 28-80 (less than 40 bucks) and the 18-55 kit.......

[opel3nix]

If you are really going into macro world, you have to think about your subject you are going for. Flowers and stills and any product photographie you will get at it's best whith a lens like the 35 2.8 limited. You can get very close, but you will often have the need of additional light. Repro work, table top and botanical photographie for example. For insects and shy creatures you will need a lens around 100mm, because of the flight distance. For snakes, scorpions and any other dangerous creatures you should get a lens as long as possible. Be aware, that a 200mm macro lens is hard to find in pentax mount and will cost more than most of us will invest!

[Bob from Aus]

Hi Donaldo
For insects you need the longest focal length you can get. You will find 100mm isn't long enough as butterflies won't let you get that close to fill your frame.

I suggest the 100mm and add to your technique. Catch the insects, place them carefully in an envelope and place them in the fridge for an hour. This will give you a minute to place the insect where you want and to photograph it before it is warm enough to fly away. I also setup fish tanks. In the field I sometimes use a canon closeup lens (like a filter) on the end of my 60-250 pentax zoom. I have even successful photographed insects with my sigma 500mm.

I also use a lot of flash. While I have all the flash gear known to human kind I find a normal flash with a white card pulled out or made from white card and held on with elastic bands gives good results.

So I would suggest the 100mm lens, but work out ways to catch and keep the animals at close quarters and experiment with light.

[Bruce Clark]

Check this link to a B+H video. I found it quite informative.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf1woH6JOxY

I use a Sigma 105mm Macro. I think it is great but I have no experience with other focal lengths or brands

[jbinpg]

I use my DA*300 lens for butterflies. Its close focus ability makes it a champ for this.

[MSL]

I use a Sigma 105mm Macro.

There are many folks on the Forums who make this lens sing. If I ever upgrade from my m42 macro lens, this would be the one I'd look for.

btw, there are a lot of threads about macro setups (including flash with various home made attachments to direct the light). Here are a couple

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/38-photographic-technique/228550-my-techn...o-insects.html

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/177-macro-photography/261899-our-macro-rigs.html#post3304532

[BrianR]

Thanks, Adam. Please be kind enough to explain a bit more about how the perspective changes when doing macro work at different distances. D

Here's a comparison of perspective and working distance between the 100mm and 35mm macros:

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/10-pentax-slr-lens-discussion/288412-look...ml#post3158675


I only have the dfa100mm. The longer working distance is helpful to give you room to arrange lighting and keeps your distance to live critters. I'm happy with it for butterflies and other insects. As with all wildlife knowing your subject's habits and being equipped with patience will always help.

It helps if you can narrow down the size of stuff you want to photograph. If you're after really wee insects, a 1:1 macro might not be sufficient. If you're mostly interested in larger stuff, you might get by with one of the cheaper 1:2 manual focus macros (that are otherwise excellent).

[swanlefitte]

I have been chasing insects in my backyard recently with a 70mm Macro. If they stay still for 3-5seconds while I am less than 12 inches away I get a good picture. I find I have about 2 seconds with most. Flys hanging out leave at that range bees do their thing. Orange bugs crawl but slugs are slugs. Flys need space. Slugs don't. Orange bugs need space. Bees could have the lens touching them. I have some macros on my Flickr with same name, one butterfly was fantastic because it was so still. these represent the photo I got vs the many I missed. This does not represent the photos I got because I was farther away. I think from my own experience that 70mm is to short for shy subjects but perfect for slightly moving extrovert insects.

[mtux]

For butterflies and insects you better get a macro lens at 100mm FL. for flowers there's really no better len, you can do it with any macro lens.
I'm using the DFA100WR and it's great for that. any other Pentax made 100mm macro lens such as M100 f/4 macro, A100macro, FA100macro are all great! there are quite a lot of options with different features,price tag, you need to choose the features you need and then get the one you need.

To do the "macro only" you better switch to manual focus. but I suggest getting an AF lens then you can use the lens for other things as well.

[csa]

I use a Sigma 105mm Macro. I think it is great but I have no experience with other focal lengths or brands

I also use this lens, and am quite pleased with it.