Pictures of corals, advice needed

[Recty]

Would the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 L without IS do pretty well at photographing corals, obviously not a macro shot but still a nice clear picture from pretty close range?

An acquaintance of mine is paying me to make him a website and he wants me to take pictures of all his corals for the site. So I'm going to go ahead and purchase a 50D. I'm torn between getting the 100mm macro or going with the 24-70.

This will be my first and only lens purchase for a while, and really I can just barely afford the 24-70 right now, the 100mm would fit my budget a lot better and I can get the 24-70 later on next year, but I'm a little hesitant about being stuck with only a 100mm lens.

Anyway, so I'm trying to decide between the two. Obviously the 24-70 would be a little better walkaround lens as it has a zoom and is L grade even though the 100mm seems to be considered L glass quality at discount pricing.

What do you guys think?

 

[sphelps]

Yes the 24-70 will do fine. You won't need IS with that range. I use an 18-70mm lens for most of my generic pictures of corals and fish, still gives a nice sharp image at close range.

The 100mm macro wouldn't be the best choice as you'll have problems fitting in full colonies.

 

[Recty]

Anyone else have any opinions?

 

[IPT]

The 24-70 (F2.8 version?) has a minimum focusing distance of 1.25' (from B&H's specification page). That should be decent if you are not looking at getting super macro shots. The wider end would be nice for more full tank shots too. Also the in-between zoom ranges could give you good focal length to get sections of the tank. It is known to be a very sharp lens.

If that body has the 1.6 crop factor (and I think it does), then on the zoom end you'll really have 112mm's (effectively). Also, since this will be for web viewing you have a lot of flexibility. At 72 DPI you will be able to crop pretty hard and not lose effective quality (compared to what you'd be able to print) so you may almost be able to pull some "macro" shots out of the hat anyway.

For versatility, the 24-70 is probably your best bet (unless you truly want macro shots).

However, budget wise, and to get the job done the 100mm will be fine too. Plus you could get true macros. You may just have to move away from the tank some. Here is a shot I just took of my 75gal with the Canon 100mm macro (real quick â€"œ happened to have the lens and camera here â€"œ ignore the color balnce as I don’t have the program here to shoot RAW). It was from about 5’ from the tank. Either will do the job I think. Plus, if you get the 100mm for an extra $85 you can get the Canon 50mm F1.8 (also a good sharp lens despite the plastic it’s built with). Then you’ll have 2 lenses, both fast, and the 50mm will give you a little more width if you want it (though not quite as wide as the 24mm would).

A crop from the same exact shot.

 

[maroun.c]

Guess you got some nice info above so I'll just add the following.
Contrary to what most believe IS is not useful for macros at least not for tank macros. No matter what lighting you have on your tank no IS will allow you to shoot handheld as even if you have a 2.8 lense you'll be closing your aperture a bit for more DOF.
So you will be using a tripod and it is recommended, (at least for Nikon but I guess it applies for all in lense image stabilisation systems to canon too) to turn off your IS when working on a tripod.
Now for outdoors macros you might pull it off with good lighting and use of flash to shoot some maros handheld with the additional advantage of IS. Flash will most likely wash out coral colours so using flash to handhold for coral shots is not an option.
Other than the IS aspect of your question I guess all depends on how close you or your friend want the macros to be.
if the corals are reasonably close to the glass you might also pull some very good macro shots by adding some extension tubes to your lense and this way get some high magnification macros and some closeups of the corals further back in the tank...

 

[Recty]

Thanks, that helps a lot actually. I dont think he needs macro shots, he just wants some nice clear shots. The other problem I'd have with having no wide angle is some of the tanks are only about 3 feet apart, so I cant back way up to get the shots.

I may end up going with just the cheapo 50mm 1.8 (was actually thinking maybe the 1.4) and just trying it with that. If I cant get what I want, I can always order the 100mm macro later.

 

[IPT]

F 1.4 - yeah baby - sweet lens. For you it would be extra good because it is a great lens for the Northern Lights too! I love mine.

Hey - did you got to the Saturday rock making meeting? Couldn't make it 'cause it was a bad time and in the Valley which would have added more travel time. Hopefully the next meeting will be in town.

 

[Recty]

I didnt go, I'm not interested in that really and I drive to Wasilla too much as it is, my brother lives out there.

I'm thinking to keep costs down, I might just go with the F1.4 50mm lens instead of the 100mm macro or the F2.8 24-70. This would give me a good general purpose lens which would take shots of pretty much everything he wants, of course not macro but I dont think he needs that. Sound like a good idea?

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13908623#post13908623 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by maroun.c

So you will be using a tripod and it is recommended, (at least for Nikon but I guess it applies for all in lense image stabilisation systems to canon too) to turn off your IS when working on a tripod.

My 70-200 f/2.8L IS knows if it is on a tripod. Most fairly recent high quality Canon lenses have this feature. I also have the 24-70 f/2.8L and it would do a fine job with a tank (especially fish). In fact I might label it the best fish lens you can get for a Canon. It is certainly in the top 3.

 

[Recty]

Yeah, I'm going to try to go with the 24-70 2.8, but we will see, I really dont know if I want to drop $1100 on my very first lens

However, I want something good for portraits, aquariums, everyday shooting and what not, the 24-70 seems to be a good one.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

The 24-70 isn't a good one, there are other choices for "good". The 24-70 is a great one.

 

[IPT]

Yeah, sounds good. Except, you may really want to think about the $90 lens. It'll save you $200 and it is as sharp as the other to best of my knowledge. Going from F1.8 to F1.4 is really only like 1/3 of a stop, not a big difference. You'll really never be shooting anything reef related near those aperatures anyway.

 

[maroun.c]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13910554#post13910554 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitusvileSurfer
My 70-200 f/2.8L IS knows if it is on a tripod. Most fairly recent high quality Canon lenses have this feature. .

So how does it react when it knows that it's on a tripod? it it turns IS off then it goes back to the same statement that IS is not really critical in macro work and a decent tripod is more important then

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

Oh yeah if it knows its not a tripod it just shuts off IS. An image will be worse on a tripod with IS engaged than it would be without. IS constantly anticipates camera shake so that it can counteract. If there is no camera shake, it will unwarily create it. My 70-200 IS will realize there is nothing to counteract and hold itself back.

 

[maroun.c]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13912183#post13912183 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IPT
Yeah, . Going from F1.8 to F1.4 is really only like 1/3 of a stop, not a big difference. You'll really never be shooting anything reef related near those aperatures anyway.

True but the real difference I see between the 50 mm 1.4 and 1.8 is built, focus speed and having the sweet spot of the lens also a bit wider than the 1.8
I do agree that with both lenses he won't be shooting with wider than 2.8 to get some of the corals in focus. What makes it worse is that we're shooting at really close distance to the fish which also decreases Deapth of field (as its realated to Aperture, focal distance and distance to the subject and not only aperture so yes it is even harder with aquarium shots to get more DOF) which gives some more advantage to longer focal lenses.
but I have seen some really nice fish shots at 2.8 and wider as you can get creative with shallow DOF when you learn how to nail focus, as well as some nice FTS at around 4 as when you back off from the tank you end up getting more DOF at the same aperture.
I would also add the Tamron and sigma 17-50 2.8 to the lenses considered, which seem to be decent choices at very good prices. not as sharp as a 50 mm prime but adding the zoom convenience and very fast and close focusing. I tend to prefer my 17-50 Tamron for fish and coral shots to my 18-200 VR Nikon jsut because ift focuses much closer.
In the end it all goes back to the following in tank shots:

Corals: macro lense or a lense that focuses close enough (the 17-50 Tamron focuses really close and fast) IS not really critical as you should be working on tripod so a decent tripod is good to have.

Fish: most of the time (if not composing and waiting for the fish to go in frame) you will be shooting handheld. in this case I would say a fast lense is even more usefull than IS as IS cannot freeze the movement of the fish. now a fast lense with IS is the greatest choice but always comes at a price. fast lenses also qill require you to learn how to nail the focus at wider apertures which is not always easy. The best solution IMHO here is use of flash as it does not wash the fish colours as much as it does on corals and then you only have to learn how to deal with reflections.

FTS: the kit lenses which are sually around 17-18 at their wides will do a fine job here as you need DOF so you won't be shooting much wider than 4... a dedicated wide angle is not a must. in this case the tamron 17-50 and Sigma 18-50 doe a much better job than kit lenses distortion wise.

good luck with whatever you chose and keep us posted on your choice and results.

 

[Recty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13912183#post13912183 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by IPT
Yeah, sounds good. Except, you may really want to think about the $90 lens. It'll save you $200 and it is as sharp as the other to best of my knowledge. Going from F1.8 to F1.4 is really only like 1/3 of a stop, not a big difference. You'll really never be shooting anything reef related near those aperatures anyway.

My biggest thing is all the reviews say the bokeh is better on the 1.4 50mm and I'd be using it for portraiture from time to time, so I actually care about that, not just a fish only lens. Otherwise yeah, picture wise they seem pretty similar.

Although on the very off chance that I drop the lens or something gets set on it, I'd like to know it isnt made of plastic.

 

[Recty]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13912146#post13912146 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TitusvileSurfer
The 24-70 isn't a good one, there are other choices for "good". The 24-70 is a great one.

It sure does seem great. It would be my only lens for probably a good 6 months, if I spend $1100 on a lens I'm going to be stuck using just that for a while.

However, a great lens for 6 months use doesnt sound bad And really, I think being "stuck" with one lens would make me a better photographer than if I had 5 billion lenses to switch out for every purpose. This will make me do more work, which should make me learn better.

I'm making lemons into lemonade!

 

[Recty]

By the way, IPT, those pictures you posted in this thread, what camera body did you take those with? Full frame?

I think I wasnt clear in my original question as I'm aware of the benefits of IS, I wasnt asking any questions about whether I should get an IS lens or not, I'm not going to be for this stuff. I was just stating it was the non IS version of the 24-70 that I was looking at.

 

[TitusvileSurfer]

But there isn't an IS version of the 24-70 f/2.8L. There are two lenses closely related, the 28-70 f/2.8L (which the 24-70 basically replaced and hasn't been produced since) and the 24-105 f/4L IS.

If I could only use 1 lens made for a Canon camera for the next 6 months, the 24-70 would be it. For your run of the mill every day shooting, I think it covers more bases than any other.

 

[IPT]

For portraits and Bokeh then you are right, go for the F1.4. As for the $90 one - dang I've dropped mine several times - no problem. I ultimately went for the F1.4 because I am an Aurora Freak and wanted every bit of speed I could get (except I just couldn't afford the F1.2 lens!) Yes, Full Frame Sensor so it was true 100mm.