Introduction...

[luvdodo]

Folks,

Hi! I joined this forum a couple of hours back and cannot be happier seeing you guys and the creative work you've demonstrated.

I have always loved photography but have hesitant in investing/spending any money towards this expensive hobby. I finally saved money for the last 24 odd months and have gotten myself a 30D with a general purpose Tamron 17-50 F2.8 lens. I wish I had more to spare :(

But, Macro being my main interest and myself being a utter novice I really look forward to some help from you folks. I know each one of you would have started from somewhere towards this hobby :) and can help me with some precious advice.

Within Macro's, what interests me most are extreme closeups like insects like the following -

Dragonfly's Eye: http://www.flickr.com/photos/xtwizx/941259939/in/photostream/

Wolf Spider's Innocence:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/xtwizx/878093127/

Unfortunately I don't have enough money to get an MP-E 65mm lens nor do I really want to spend $650 odd on Sigma/Tamron 180mm macro lens as I am sure I will need a flash etc (?)

I have heard about "reversing 50mm lens" and using this kind of setup to achieve our goal.

I'd would greatly appreciate if you would advise me on what's needed to get a decent macro setup that would get me good macros and images like the above pictures I saw today.

God Bless, and wishing you all the best -

[LordV]

If you are interested in high magnification macro you will need to get a flash setup. Something like a bracket mounted 430Ex. You could get a camerabody/lens reversing ring (google on ebay) and use your tamron lens backwards on the camera body - think you'll get between 1:1 and 3:1 with that zoom. The one big disadvantage of doing this is you have to shut down the aperture first by attaching the lens normally and then removing it whilst keeping the DOF preview button depressed- this makes for a slightly dim viewfinder.
Other than that a standard macro lens around 100mm with a full set of extension tubes is a good place to start and gets you to 2:1 after that you can reverse a 50mm lens onto the front and get to 4:1.

brian V.

[randomgrafix]

Woo, great advise Brain. Gonna steal some of it. Thnx

[luvdodo]

Brian,

Thank you so much for your inputs, this really helps and I'm trying to do some more reading on this website in quest for knowledge.

I think that the second option will cost more but sounded much easier to me.

I'll keep you posted on how things go and will seek your guidance - hope you don't mind.

[macro junkie]

u listen to lordv your go a long way;) Hes one of the best