Canon 50mm f2.5 macro lens?

[rob158]

Do you think I would be able to get one of these for about £100 second hand?
(my mum doesnt like me spending lots of money on camera stuff)
anyone know of any online shops that sell them cheep?

[lynjar]

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[Jim Ford]

I doubt whether you're going to get a decent macro lens for under £100.

How about a supplementary lens such as a 'Raynox'? The 150 and 250 are both under £40, so one won't upset your Mum! There are several users on this site that get good results from them.

Amazon have them:

Raynox DCR-150: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics

Jim

[nightshade]

Cheaper still, the closeup filters, like Hoya 2x, 3x, 4x these screw into the filter thread of a lense and will give sharp magnification at the centre of the image.
cheap (£40) and easy to hide
The Tamron 90mm Macro or the Sigma 105mm second hand might give better usage if you can find one. Have you considered a set of extension tubes like the Kenko to use with you existing lense?

[slimrbp]

What lens do you have?

The Canon 50mm macro only does half life size (1:2 rather than 1:1) this is the sort of ratio that can be acheivable using a 'normal' lens.

What len(ses) do you currently have? As others have said there are less expensive options out there for close up work.

[rob158]

I have,

Canon EOS 1000D

Lens #1
Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Lens #2
Canon Ef 75-300mm

[slimrbp]

Looking at the Canon site, with the 18-55 a 12mm extention tube would give you just over half life size and a 25mm extention tube would give life size so that could be a good option.

Alternaively the close up filters already mentioned aren't too expensive in your thread size.

[Geoff F]

From my experience with extension tubes, I wouldn't bother with the 12 mm. A 25 mm however will get you quite a bit closer.

Is the 75-300 lens reasonably close focusing (I can't remember). I did use a 25 mm tube with the Canon 70-300 lens with reasonable success.

On the downside, a tube does require a bit more light and we are now getting into tripod territory. But even a cheap tripod can have so many other uses.

But we really need to know exactly what you wish to photograph before we can give specific recommendations.

[nightshade]

Tubes and flash guns or, cheaper, a reflector limiting but you do get very good at it (I did with my Spotmatic, a set of tubes and cardboard reflectors)