Your Favorite Macro?

[mommy22]

Okay, so I went to look at lenses yesterday and thought I was going to love the 18-200. I didn't. But I did try out a 60mm Macro and loved it. Now-I want to do bugs, flowers, and portraits of my girls. Should I go with a 90 or a 105mm? What is your favorite and why?

 

[mwcfarms]

So if you loved the 60mm why wouldnt you save some money and buy that. Isnt it cheaper. I guess it depends if your going Tamron, Sigma or Nikkor. I hear that Nikon lens hold their resale value by a lot more than the others.

 

[Dao]

For bugs, I would go with a longer one. (Sigma/Nikon 105mm or Tamron 90mm)
The Tamron 90mm macro lens rated pretty high in lens review.

You may not want to be too close to the insect while you are taking the picture.

 

[Overread]

Ahh but someone is thinking bugs - and for bugs you (idealy) want to push for a little more focal length. By no means is the 60mm a poor performer and optically speaking there is really very little spread within the dedicated macro lenses on the market currently (Even the new 100mm L from canon is not much different from the original in terms of image quality).

Overall the Tamron 90mm is the shortest recomended macro lens for starting insect work. After that you have the 105mm sigma and the 100mm canon (though the non-L is getting harder to find as its no longer in production). Any of those lenses would be well suited to the job in question and would give you great performance.

EDIT - wait you're a nikon shooter not a canon one!
In that case - if you have the budget go for the Nikon 105mm VR lens - optically the tamron 90mm is very much on par with it, but the VR is a very nice boon to have in the lens. Even though it has less effect for macro any effect at all is worth having to hand for when you need it. Further having it in the lens for doing regular shots is a great thing.