FE Macro at least 85mm - need ssuggestion

VigilanteFoto · Mar 11, 2016

im looking for a macro for my A7Rii. Batis seems too expensive. Don't want to use an adaptor. Reactions to Samyang? Others? Is Batis that good to warrant 2-3x cost?

Derrel · Mar 11, 2016

Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro Autofocus Lens for Sony Alpha & Minolta Maxxum SLR. About $499 new. A well-respected macro, the Tamron 90mm SP (Superior Performance) has been made for about 20 years in various different iterations. I have an early 90mm AF-SP in Nikon F mount, it's an excellent macro lens with great performance. The newer modes are Di, for Digitally integrated, and were designed during the digital era, designed for best performance on digital sensors. The 90mm Tamron macro lenses go back to at least the mid-1980's, perhaps even earlier.

Samyang reactions? Samyang Bower Rokinon, SammyBowRoki, Vivitar, whatever they are called, the same exact lenses are sold in many parts of the world under many different trade names. At one point a few years ago, LensRentals quit provididng the lens repair numbers in their annual report because the SammyBowRoki lenses were the absolute WORST lenses they rented....many crapped out in a month or so. Terrible reliability. Good optical design but atrocious assembly/build/reliability problems. As bad as it gets, worse than 1980's Soviet garbage. Surely they've improved on their 30- to 90-day mean time before failure rate since 2013?

A place like Lensrentals.com rents a LOT of samples to many people, so their data is very much different from one-lens, one-owner situations. A guy might say, "Well MY lens is good!" But that does not, and never has, meant that ALL similar lenses are reliable.

cherylynne1 · Mar 11, 2016

The Batis 85 isn't a macro lens. The Sony 90mm is the only full frame E-mount lens. Still very expensive, but it gets outstanding reviews. It takes quite a few years for new lenses to come down in price, and all Sony lenses are pretty new.

As for the Samyang 85, as far as I know it's also not a macro lens. It gets good reviews as a portrait lens. If you don't mind manual focus, it's a good lens. It doesn't score as high as the Batis 85 or the Sony 90, but it's good.

Is there a reason you don't want adapters? Since you wouldn't mind manual focus anyway, there are hundreds of amazing, affordable macro lenses available.