# re: best lens to capture little objects



## shrimplover

*re: best lens to capture little objects*

hi all I just got a nikon d90 camera and wanted to know what is the best combo or lens to capture small object or get a very nice photo. Right now I got a planted tank with tons of little yellow shrimps and wanted to capture there true color including a very close up photo of them. Any help would be great!


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## legomaniac89

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

I shoot with a Canon XS EOS and I use the 100mm Macro lens, but I'm not sure what Nikon's comparable lens is. I love it and wouldn't trade it for anything.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

WOW that is nice!


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

How much did that whole setup cost you?


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## legomaniac89

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

The camera was around $450 and the lens cost me about $500.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

thats not bad at all! I might look into a canon now thanks! how hard is it to take photos like that tho?


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

I second the Canon 100mm macro lens, its definitely my favorite lens. It is also one of Canon's clearest lenses overall.

For really tiny things (like the head of an ant for example) Canon makes a lens called the MP-E 65mm lens which has absolutely superb detail. I've been drooling over this lens for years, but its expensive (around $1000). However, this lens is quite limited, having a max focus distance of 4 inches away from its subject! It is also fully manual and for good pictures needs a special ring-flash ($300). The pictures from this lens are absolutely amazing though if you ever want to do bug photography, dew shots, or frost pictures.


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## HeyPK

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Canon's $1000.00, 100mm macro is an updated 100 mm macro that has a built in stabilizer claimed to allow four stops slower shutter speeds without motion blur when hand held. However, the $500.00, 100 mm macro without the stabilizer is still a fine lens for aquarium photography. You can get by without a stabilizer for a lot of aquarium photography if you have a tripod and a flash with a long cord. Since plants don't move about, you can use slow shutter speeds and a tripod to photograph them. The best way to get good pictures of fish is to have the flash on the top of the tank and photograph through the side so that the lighting comes from above and looks natural. The duration of the flash is 1 millisecond or less and this will give nice sharp pictures even of rapidly moving fish plus shaky hands provided you have got the correct focus.

Photoshop CS4 has a way that you can stitch together a series of shots taken while advancing the focus of a non-moving object so that you get a single picture where the entire object is in focus. This has to be done with still life (nothing moving). This is great for macrophotography because it is a way to get around the limitations of the extremely narrow depth of field of closeup photography. The method should allow tank shots where the plants are in sharp focus all the way from front to back. All you have to do is get Photoshop. It helps a lot if you can get the student teacher discount! The latest Photoshop is now CS5, and so you might be able to get CS4 at an additional discount.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Hello. Nikon D90 can put easily those listed below Canon's in the pocket easily   with good lens and good LIGHT.
Lens 50mm/f1.8 $150 not macro but very low F stop, good for large focus area
150mm Sigma $600 very sharp, focus around 2-3" area depend of settings, cons- you have to have good light and to be pretty far from the object.
Nikon 60mm macro $450-600 best in our case I thing. Very sharp lens, you can work in short distance, fast focus, and good F stop. You have to use tripod 100% -image stabilization doesn't count in macro mode.
Flash Nikon SB-600 $200 great, with enough settings
Optional for best result Nikon R1 $500 use them for light from top right and bottom left etc.
Tripod -your choice.
Practice, practice and practice. Adobe light room or similar program for image adjustments.
Here is one sample with D90,60mm macro lens, SB-600 and aquarium lights on.
Whole process took me 10 min - taking picture, image processing etc.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

thats a nice shot of the betta but what about something even smaller then that? like a shrimp? or a shrimplet?


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

HeyPK, there are several programs other then CS4 that do photo stacking. My personal favorite is called CombineZM its really fantastic and easy to use (if anyone needs a tutorial just let me know).

Focus stacking is much easier with a stationary target like a plant or something. Fish make bad focus stacking targets unless they don't move for a long period of time.

shrimplover, the 100mm macro is more zoomed in then the 50mm macro. So it is better for smaller objects because it puts you much closer to the subject. But at the same time the field of view is much smaller so taking a full picture of the entire tank, for example, would be difficult with a 100mm macro unless you stand about 15-20 feet away from the tank.


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## FarCanal

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

I have the canon MP-E 65 and a macro twin lite (had them for 4 days now) and I'm loving it. It is very limited in it's use though and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone if it was going to be their only macro lens. I also have a Sigma 150 which is great for general macro photography, but when you want to get really small stuff the MP-E 65 comes into it's own, it is a niche lens. Here are some photo's I've taken since Friday, all taken in my backyard.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

You need Nikon 60mm or 105mm macro lens. For me 60 is better. You will need strong flash on top of the tank. Goal is to have speed at 1/200 or higher around 11 is the best-"sweet spot" for most of the lenses but you can't have so much light. For me best speed1/250,aperture 4-8, iso no more than 400 on D90.Front glass should be clean ,filters OFF, and you have to make 100-200 pictures in order to select 5-10 of them. Focus mode should be on single center point. You can select multiple shots in order to have 5-10 shots with one trigger .I'm using cable trigger in order to keep camera steady on the tripod. I'll try to take some pictures of my shrimps when I fill better/bad flu/.
One trick which give 100% success is to set up one 2,5-5gal tank only for the shots. Probably 80% of the greatest pictures are taken in small tanks designed for pictures. Reason -you can have perfect positioned and strong light. Light basically is the most important thing to have great pictures


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Here are 2 shots with Sigma 150mm from 1 and 2 meters distance.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

those are some great shots plamski! Which brand do you like better? Why do you like the 60 better? If you don't mind me asking how much did the whole set up cost you for nikon? as im on a very tight budget.


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

FarCanal - I'm drooling. Ahhh!!! I have been staring at that lens for nearly 2 years now. I love those pics! But see you live in Australia, I live in Connecticut USA and during the winter there are no creepy crawlies to take pictures of. So I'm not sure what I would use the lens for in the winter. I suppose this is what has stopped me from buying the lens so far. What do you think?

plamski - great summary of camera conditions. I use these conditions when taking macro shots in my tank as well. The other thing about small tanks like the 2.5g is that the glass is very thin, so you don't get the problem of distortion or glass imperfections (like iron inside all non-starfire glass tanks).


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Nikon D90 $650-750 eBay
Nikon D5000 $500 eBay
Nikon 60mm macro $450-500 eBay .Benefit is the short focus distance, very fast auto focus, one of the sharpest Nikon lens.
Nikon SB-600 $200 eBay
Trigger cable $10-15 eBay
You can do custom light fixture for more light with 2x 500W bulbs too.


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## bosmahe1

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*



Zapins said:


> FarCanal - I'm drooling. Ahhh!!! I have been staring at that lens for nearly 2 years now. I love those pics! But see you live in Australia, I live in Connecticut USA and during the winter there are no creepy crawlies to take pictures of. So I'm not sure what I would use the lens for in the winter. I suppose this is what has stopped me from buying the lens so far. What do you think?
> 
> plamski - great summary of camera conditions. I use these conditions when taking macro shots in my tank as well. The other thing about small tanks like the 2.5g is that the glass is very thin, so you don't get the problem of distortion or glass imperfections (like iron inside all non-starfire glass tanks).


In winter you could take pictures of snowflakes and icicles.


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## FarCanal

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*



Zapins said:


> FarCanal - I'm drooling. Ahhh!!! I have been staring at that lens for nearly 2 years now. I love those pics! But see you live in Australia, I live in Connecticut USA and during the winter there are no creepy crawlies to take pictures of. So I'm not sure what I would use the lens for in the winter. I suppose this is what has stopped me from buying the lens so far. What do you think?


G'day Zapins, I had this lens on my wish list too for around a year, the Australian dollar hitting all time highs has bought the price down quite a bit over here and pushed me over the edge. Yes in Australia there are plenty of bugs and spiders to take photo's of, but I'm not the person to ask about cold conditions. I've only seen snow once and I had to drive 1400km (900 miles) to do it.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Well i got the d90 nikon already I guess im going to do some research and look at prices for the 60mm macro lens.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

oh yeah also how reliable is ebay? I don't want any fake stuff out there. specially with electronic these days


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Everything is personal luck. I bought my Nikon 16-85 lens from photo4less/very good company/
It was already 3 times in Nikon repair department and it is still noisy and loosing autofocus.
I bought my 60mm micro from eBay for $400 like new condition no problem so far/1.5years/
I Bought my Nikon D90 refurbish from there too,great camera without any problems-1.5 years
I bought 50mm,35mm,28mm,20mm Nikon lenses, zeiss 8mm/f1.4 from ebay too.No problem so far.
Radio control car equipment, fish tank lights, filers and stuff for more than 2K-not a single problem/except china made cheap stuff/


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

haha so it looks like I'm going to have to stay away from china stuff... I've bought a few stuff from ebay like phones but been having problems with them all. So I'm just trying to stay on the safe side and not gamble with my money even if its a good deal. Now i need to find a way to make the money.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Be very careful. Making the money is very dangerous game. On the end you can find out that you have some money and zero free time to play with your toys. I'm part of it-very few $$$ and double zero free time.:crybaby:


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## legomaniac89

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

FarCanal, those bug shots are incredible! I need that lens.


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## FarCanal

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*



legomaniac89 said:


> FarCanal, those bug shots are incredible! I need that lens.


Cheers Legomaniac, if you have a canon and you always want a bit more magnification than your current macro delivers, I think you'll love it. I used that lens for the insect shots in the crypt section .... simply no comparison to previous macro shots of spidermites. It comes into it's own for taking photo's of really tiny stuff.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Other cheap way- reversal ring and lens 20mm which give 3x magnification, 35mm 1.5x or 50mm 0.9-1.1x.Not sure will this work on aquarium photos.
I just purchased this ring $12 58mm threat to Nikon bayonet to try with 20mm /f2.8.Everything is manual ,though


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Buying from ebay is very safe as long as you make sure that you read the seller's info.

Make sure to check that the seller has a high number of items sold (over 200 at least for big ticket items), they should also have 99-100% satisfaction from customers. If they do not have 100% satisfaction make sure you scroll through the posts and find out why people had a bad experience with them. Usually its because of a finiky person that just wants to be an ass and gives the seller a bad rating for shipping it 2 days late. However, if you start seeing several posts that say the item was completely different, didn't come, was broken etc... then don't buy from them. Also, don't buy from people in China. I doubt they would make a knockoff camera lens since its not something that can easily be replicated like that, but because they don't speak english correctly so communicating with them if there is a problem is difficult and shipping takes 20 days usually which is bad for sensitive glass lenses.

That said, I have bought over $5000 worth of camera equipment from ebay, including big ticket items like the 5DII and even my new Asus laptop. If there is a problem, ebay sides with the buyer nearly 100% of the time and will issue you a full refund. Make sure you pay with paypal though so they can track everything. Don't be scared away by what some people say about ebay being a scam place, its not, those people are just not computer savvy and buy without reading the feedback for sellers or just don't read the item description carefully and think they are buying something that they are not.


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## bosmahe1

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

I have to agree with Zapins. I have bought 3 regulators, a soleniod and actually successfully cancelled an order for a regulator in the US.

I do buy *inexpensive* items from China and other countries in Asia. Usually items that cost less than the shipping so, if the item happened to be bad, I would just throw it away. No point in sending it back. That being said, I have only thrown one item away and I've ordered numerous diffusers and drop checkers without a problem.


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Yep, for inexpensive items China stuff is alright, but I would never buy an expensive delicate glass camera lens from them for a few hundred bucks.


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## shrimplover

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Thanks guys! time to find thin out some of my shrimps and plants and other dry goods. Need to make some cash to buy the equipment. I will do my research on the sellers before committing to a purchase


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## bosmahe1

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

B and H sometimes has refurbished stuff to sell. They have the best prices for new stuff. They are my first place to shop for photo equipment. They are based in Manhattan and when I order stuff for Washington DC delivery, it often arrives next day. That's with standard UPS ground.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/


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## Zapins

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Yep, B&H is the common one stop shop for most serious camera people. Cameta cameras is also good, I bought my 5dII from them through ebay (but you can also go to their online store).


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## dmartin72

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

I love the Canon 100mm Macro...awesome.

This a Thumbnail Poison Dart Frog.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Here are some quick shots with D90,60mm macro and SB-600.Pictures are made without any preparation ,tripod lights etc.


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## plamski

*Re: best lens to capture little objects*

Some more.


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