whats a good Macro lens

im thinking of getting the TAMRON SP 90MM, 2.8, AF, MACRO 1:1 LENS because someone is selling it for $279. is this is a good macro lens or should i keep searching for something better. i dont really have to much money to spend so im hoping this is ok.

 

I just bought one myself, I have only had it about a week, but so far I pretty happy. AF could be better, but it does have a limiter switch which helps, and the build is alright but not real tough. All in all I'm pretty happy with it. It gets excellent reviews, and I don't think there is much real difference from the newer "DI" version. I picked mine up for the killer price of $200, but considering new its $460-500, $279 is still a very good price. Its also a very nice portrait lens. So, go for it. You will be happy that you did.

 

Yes, it's a good performing macro lens. I have one in Nikon mount in the AF-SP version, so it must be nearly ten years old now--it's the model with the grey-colored plastic barrel. You want to make sure the manual focusing clutch works,and that the manual focusing is not "slipping" or "sloppy"; this is an area where this lens sometimes fails, due to the way the mechanism is connected to the focusing ring on the outside; it is possible that if the lens has been used quite heavily, and if it is a 10-12 year old sample, that the manual focusing action will have some slippage. Coneversely, many macro lenses have not been used much, and it could be a seldom-used, older, near-mint or mint condition example.

Don't be confused by the lightweight space-age polymer outer barrel (aka plastic barrel)--this lens has good bokeh at wider apertures like f/2.8, f/3.4, f4.5, f/4.8 and can be used at smaller macro apertures like f/8 to f/13 with super optical quality; the optics are really quite,quite good!

 

he said theres some scuffs on it and there is a crack on the distance guide cover but claims its just a superficial crack.