Macro Lenses

One of the main reasons for buying a so called macro lens that focuses from infinity down to one-half life-size (or, in a few cases, even down to 1:1) is the ease of making closeups. In wildlife work insects are the most typical subjects photographed with macro lenses, and many insect are very shy of approach. you must be able to stay as far away from them as possible to make good pictures. for this reason i don't recommend using standard focal-lenght macro lenses. You'll find a 90mm, a 105mm, or even 200mm macro lens much more useful

Macro lenses tend to be slower than regular lenses of the same focal lenghts. Macros are optically designed to produce their finest depictions at close range; often they are not as good as greater distances as regular lenses. But if you are interested in general nature photography, including landscapes as well as animals, i suggest you buy a standard macro lens rather than the standard lens marketed with your camera. I would like also buy a short telephoto macro lens instead of regular short telephoto. bear in mind that the cost of these macro optics will be considerably greater than the cost of regular lenses of the same focal lengths.

If you don't own any macro lenses, you can still do closeup photography of insects and flowers and other small objects, either by inserting extention tubes or bellows between the camera body and the lens or by adding closeup lenses or teleconverters to your regular lenses. these methods yield excellent results.

Macro lenses are more convinient because they allow continuous focusing without having to add accessories, but using macros is not the only way to make good closeup pictures (adopted from photographing wildlife)