Macro, Natural light...any opinions?

[breakpoint]

Basically i am getting ready to purchase either a marco lense or a lense that would do well with natural lighting. I have a Nikon D80 and D50 but i mainly use the D80. Can anyone tell me any macro or one that works well with natural light that they have or have used that would be recomended? Lenses aren't cheap so i would like to get some feedback before i shell out all the cash. I will more than likely purchase the lense for natural lighting first seeing that is my favorite type of photography, but i will be getting a macro sometime after also.

 

[Keichi Tsuchiya]

It is possible to make your own macro light - I lost the link though.

 

[tait]

Nikon's 105 Prime 2.8 is great for macro and the 2.8 will be great for low light situations.

 

[wfooshee]

yeah, the fastest you can afford. F4 or 5.6 isn't gonna cut it for natural light macro, unless you're talking full sunlight.

Even with the fast lens, keep in mind that depth of field is very narrow in macro ranges, so even with 2.8 available, you might want to close it down a bit if you can.

 

[breakpoint]

Thanks for the speedy replies. I was looking at the Nikkor 60mm macro lense. Haven't seen any pros and cons type things on it yet, will look deeper tonight. Anti, what type of lens do you use mostly? You get great shots and i love the lighting in them.

 

[tait]

I use either my Tamron 28-75 or my 50mm 1.8. Both are solid lenses. I think the whole lighting thing might come from the way I dodge and burn the **** out of all my photos. I hate doing so because I feel it's a false representation of whatever I shoot but oh well. Thanks.

 

[breakpoint]

I use either my Tamron 28-75 or my 50mm 1.8. Both are solid lenses. I think the whole lighting thing might come from the way I dodge and burn the **** out of all my photos. I hate doing so because I feel it's a false representation of whatever I shoot but oh well. Thanks.

Nah photoshop is a great friend to any photographer. Without photoshop allot of my shots would never turn out so nice. Everything i shoot goes straight in for the levels and colors treatment nomatter what. And most of the time allot i do allot of dodging and such but i usually do mine with alpha channels and a few other mehtods that tend to turn out better for me. I usually end up getting a more flat look if i just use the dodge and burn tools themselves. I love the hell out of some contrastI only have 2 lenses, a nikon 28-200mm 1:3.5-5.6 and a nikon 18-55mm 1:3.5-5.6 so i really would like to get an expo disk also. Seen good things about them, i have trouble with WB if im not in a well lit scene.