40-60mm macro lens vs a 50mm non-macro lens

[mikoh4792]

Do the macro lenses of those focal lengths(for example nikkor 40 micro, nikkor 60 micro) act any differently than a regular 50mm for portraits?(Besides the obvious capabilities of those lenses to get in close and their different focal lengths).

In other words, do those lenses do everything the 50mm does, and a lot more? Or are there times when a non-macro 50mm is preferable?

 

[goodguy]

For general use you cant beat the 50mm lens no matter which model you take.

The 40mm Macro is a lens I dont know.
I own both the 60mm macro and 50mm 1.8D and in a way they have different jobs for me.
On crop sensor you can take 50mm for portrait and so does 60mm, focal length is close so you will not see a whole lot of difference, both are very sharp.
The advantage of the 50mm is that it can bring much more light at f1.8 or f1.4 (depends what lens yuo go for) vs the 60mm f2.8 and have a much shallower DOF if you need it.
Also for general use the AF on the 50mm will be faster, all Macro lenses might hunt a bit on rare occasions.

In my lens collection I use the 50mm for night photography only and the 60mm for macro only.
I used to use the 60mm for portrait too but since I got the Tamron 70-200mm 2.8 VC this is my go to lens for portrait.

 

[Microbois]

The obvious difference is that you will loose at least more than 1 stop with the macro lenses compared to the regular 50mm. Both 40mm and 60mm Nikkor macro lenses are f2.8, and you can get f1.8, and even f1.4 on the regular 50mm. This aspect may make a difference if you like to shoot wide open (bokeh?). Macro lenses are also a little bit bulkier and more expensive than the plain vanilla 50mm if that is a concern to you.

Aside from that, try to stay away from the short macro lenses, because to get a close-up shot, you'll need to be very close to the subject, and that will create lots of problems with lighting. If the subject happens to be a person, it will make them uncomfortable to see you so close of their face. Macro shots of bugs are also a huge challenge with a short focal lenght macro lense. I would suggest to lean towards a short telephoto, or portrait lense, if you want to have both macro capabilities, and use the lens for other normal tasks (portrait).

I have the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 and I can't be happier to have such lense. I use it for portrait and macro work as well.

 

[Overread]

A few thoughts:

1) A normal prime lens (single focal length and not a macro) will generally have the potential to have a wider maximum aperture. So they will be able to gather in more light in darker conditions (helps exposure and also auto focus) and also use that wider aperture for creative effects (thin depth of field). Although at a practical level once you start going below around f2 focusing gets tricky because of the thin depth of field (eg with a person you could end up with one eye in-focus and the other out-of-focus even if the person appears to be facing straight on to the camera).

2) A macro lens is made for macro work and thus has a very fine control over the focus position for close up distances when manually focusing. This is offset by its more normal focusing distances having a more crude manual focusing setup - that is to say that a small turn of the focusing wheel will have a big effect of the focus position. If you only ever use auto focus for normal shots this won't have any effect - however if you're ever correcting focus or doing manual focusing on normal distances you will find the macro lens more tricky than the normal lens.

3) A macro lens can, of course, focus much closer and get a much more magnified view of the subject than a normal lens can. Of course if you've got a normal lens you can use extension tubes and/or close up lens attachments (can be called a macro filter by some) and thus get a macro shot, but you lose infinity focusing by using those methods so whilst they are attached the lens can't focus on anything further off. Regular macro lenses don't have this limitation (although most do have focus limiter switches so that you can lock out the long/close segments which helps speed up AF esp for normal distances as if the lens has to hunt for focus its got much less range to hunt through).

4) Macro lenses typically have slower AF. Own brand options tend to be the fastest, but still are not as fast as normal lenses. Even when using limiter switches to block out the close focusing distances the AF in most macro lenses is not all that special. Nor cripplingly slow, and certainly very workable, just not as lightning fast as some other options can have.


In general you can most certainly use a macro lens for regular shots. Heck I know people who shoot tigers (fast moving living subjects) in zoos with a 150mm macro. So they can certainly do "normal" stuff. Just like with attachments the regular lens can do macro stuff. So which you get depends on what you dominate use will be (with a view that you might well end up owning both at some point).

 

[JTPhotography]

If you're limited to the number of lenses you can have, get the 50 prime and a set of extension tubes. The 2.8 100 macros are great for portraiture, AF will be a bit slow but doable.