Macro Lens questions

What is macro lens.
How it is diffrenent from normal lens?
What is the advantage of using macro lens.
Is there micro lens also?

Look at some sticky threads about lenses
i think you know what is Macro, to get close-up shots, means to get closer magnifications

With dedicated Macro lenses you can go from 1X to 5X magnification, normal lenses i think maximum 0.8X magnification

mukund2 wrote in post #2038823
What is macro lens.
It is a lens designed to allow much closer focusing than normal such that it is capable of 1:1 magnification (1cm of subject appears as 1cm on the camera sensor)

How it is diffrenent from normal lens?
As above
What is the advantage of using macro lens.
It allows much higher magnifications than a normal lens at reasonable focus distances but still allows the lens to be used as a normal lens (ie it will focus on infinity). You can turn a normal lens such as 50mm into a macro lens using extenion tubes but you lose infinity focus

Is there micro lens also?
Apart from a microscope with a camera attached the only lens available that will do higher than 1:1 magnification without further additions is a Canon MPE-65. This allows from 1:1 to 5:1 magnification but no infinity focus (max focus distance is 4")

Brian V.

mukund2,
Like Tareq said: a macro lens you can go from 1X to 5X magnification.
A true macro lens when taking a picture of a coin, the coin will be full size on the negative (film or full size on the sensor for digital). Many lenses put the word macro on them but only lenses that achieve true 1:1 (subject thats 1 cm takes 1 cm on the sensor or film) are true macro lenses. Now with 50mm or more extension tubes you can make your 50mm f/1.8 take true macro photos. However with a true macro lens you will have much more working distance between your lens and subject.


Here is a true macro photo
Close Eye

The term macro technically means life size magnification or greater, where magnification is defined as the ratio of the size of the object to the size of the image on the sensor. Anything less than this strictly is termed close-up.

Life size is 1:1 or 1X, twice life size is 2:1 or 2X, half life size is 1:2 or 0.5X.

The term macro for lenses tends to be somewhat abused, more properly it is any lens than can focus to 1X although the term is often used with zoom lenses to indicate some reasonable close focus capability normally up to about 0.25X.

More importantly macro lenses have their aberations corrected for close focus work (as well as infinity if they focus that far away) and so should be sharper and have better flatness of field at a given magnification than an ordinary lens with an assesory like extension tubes to allow close focus.

Going by the description above the following lenses are true macro lenses:
EF-S 60mm f2.8, EF 100mm f2.8, EF 180mm f3.5, MP-E 65mm f2.8.

The MP-E 65mm f2.8 is an odd one that can not focus further away 1X (~110mm) but can produce a magnification of up to 5X. It is not recommended for someone new to macro.

The only other real macro lens Canon has is the EF 50mm f2.5. Strictly this fails the definition as it only produces 0.5X magnification and requires an extra item called the life size converter to get the 1X.

A good starter lens for macro work is the EF 100mm f2.8 Macro USM.

Search around and you will find lots of threads on macro lenses.

Than you all friends for increasing my knowledge.

Micro is the Nikon version of a Macro lens.