LENSES FOR CLOSE-UPS

Unveiling extraordinary levels of fine detail, macro lenses give you mighty magnification power. Matthew Richards reveals the best buys

One of the luxuries of DSLRS is that you can get into just about any kind of photography, simply by changing your lens. At one end of the scale, an ultrawide lens enables you to squeeze vast landscapes into the image frame. At the other, a macro lens fills the frame with the tiniest of objects. In fact, all of the macro lenses featured in this supertest deliver full 1.0x or 1:1 magnification at their closest focus setting. But what does that mean?

Basically, at 1.0x magnification, an object is reproduced on a camera’s image sensor at full life size. So, for example, something the size of a postage stamp would pretty much fill the whole image frame. This translates into enormous magnification when you view the resulting image on-screen or in print. Indeed, zoom into pixel level with the image on a computer screen and you can see levels of detail that are invisible to the naked eye.

Some macro lenses are designed for APS-C format DSLRS exclusively, including the wellestablished Canon and Tamron 60mm lenses. However, there’s a new kid on the block, in the shape of the Canon EF-S 35mm, which adds features that are lacking in the other two.

You can use full-frame compatible macro lenses on an APS-C format body, and there are advantages in doing just that. With a longer focal length comes a longer minimum focus distance, at which maximum magnification is achieved. This gives you a more comfortable shooting distance, so the front end of the lens doesn’t come overly close to the subject. So, let’s take a closer look at the options…