Advice for Macro? Which custom lens? Extension rings?

[tasadam]

Hi there.
I've always liked Macro. I have been trying to work out which would be the best way back into it without restricting my capabilities.
I see there's a macro lens I think it's 60mm (90 on D70), then 105mm. Also I have heard it's possible to get extension tubes, but haven't found much info on this option.
There are other options out there - lenses that "also" do macro, and my current not-so-good option of a big magnifying-glass-like filter that I screw on. Also the lens reverse trick that I'm not so keen on, though I do have a few old lenses from expired film SLR's. I could sacrifice them...
I would love to be able to achieve pics like the recent post of the moth on the finger and ant with egg etc, but if that's what 105mm does I don't know whether that would be "too much" macro and I would be better off with something with either less zoom or more versatility - adjustable zoom?? Maybe I'm being silly and ya can't have too much but it's a lot of money to find out...
What's out there that I perhaps should be looking at, and what will extension tubes do for me? At what cost (focal length etc??)? Can you have too much macro that it's unusable for soemthing not so small?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Adam.

[Onyx]

Options - of increasing budget and variable effectiveness/practical useability.

1. Reverse lens: take 1 wide angle to standard focal length lens, reverse mount it to the front of another lens attached to the camera.

2. magnifying screw-in filters. Simple but can be costly 1 or 2 element "filters" that screw on to the front of a normal lens. Decreases min focal distance for a lens.

3. Extension tubes. Ability to get beyond 1:1 magnification (ie. blow small things up big). Able to adjust length from camera body and hence distance to sensor/focal plane.

4. Specific macro optimised lenses of varying focal lengths. True macro lenses gets you to full size (1:1) reproduction. Combined with some of above gets you even further. Most are primes... as far as I know, there is only 1 Nikkor zoom-micro lens, and it doesn't even do full 1:1 true macro, and it's hella expensive and slow (70-180 f/4.5-5.6).

[MHD]

I am 100% biased (read my other posts) But I am very happy with the build and quality of the 105/2.8 micro nikkor... I am blown away the detail you can see with this lens...

[sirhc55]

I would say that it really does not matter which prime macro you go for they are all good - Nikon, Sigma and Tamron

[redline]

you also forgot to mention using a bellows,
its quite good but you don't get any metering and you need to work out the compensation factor for the length of the bellows. which is applied on you exposure time.

[jdear]

of course you can use any combination of the above... even also with a teleconvertor.

cheapest option is a reversing ring / diopters (screw in filters). Maybe look to see if you can borrow someones to see if you want to invest in one yourself.

extension tubes and bellows are great, they give the ability to vary the closeness of your images, but do result in a low of light most commonly 1-3 stops or more depending on the extension.

Marco lens' usually yield very high quality glass, and dont have the loss of light problem that extension bellows and tubes have.

Depends on how "close" you want to get!

JD

[birddog114]

cheapest option is a reversing ring / diopters (screw in filters). Maybe look to see if you can borrow someones to see if you want to invest in one yourself.

If only you can buy cheap at local stores, otherwise S&H will eat 90% of the cost if you buy them from o/s.