How close? Macro Lens Test

Ever wondered how to get the best close-up shot? Or more to the point, make something small look big.

I have 4 lenses in my collection*, and I wanted to know which lens would make something small look biggest. So I set up a little comparison test.

To do this I put the smallest, most colourful things I had to hand – namely some little jars of chutney – onto a nice white towel and lay on the floor to take my first shot with the lens I had on the camera at the time.

The test isn’t looking at image quality, nor is there any artistic merit. The aperture was set to the widest each lens would go. ISO was fixed at 400. Shutter speeds ranged from 1/13th to 1/125th.

What we are looking for in this test is (a) how big is the subject in the picture, and (b) how far away from the subject was the front of the lens? (ie: the closest focusing distance)

The contenders:
Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM (link)
Canon 70-300mm f4-5.6 IS USM (link)
Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC (not the Macro version apparently) (link)
Canon 50mm f1.8 (link)

The results:
Canon 28-135mm
Pretty big.
Front of lens about 19cm away from target.

Canon 70-300mm
Winner big!
Front of the lens about 1500cm away from the target!

Sigma 18-50mm
Not so big.
Front of lens about only 10cm away from target, which is odd because the markings on the lens and the spec sheet suggests that the closest focusing distance should be 28cm or 20cm.

Canon 50mm
Small.
Front of lens about 45cm away from target.

So what have we learnt?
The 70-300mm give the largest image, but from 1.5m away. This is good for flitsy insects.
The 23-135mm is very close second, but quite close to the subject. This is good for static subjects.
The 18-50mm can get you really close to the subject, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to fill the frame. It does give an interesting ‘perspective’ distortion to the image though.
The 50mm, while so good at many other things, is rubbish at this.

No particular surprises – this was sort of expected. It is good to know the actual boundaries of each lens though. Next time I’m out in the field wanting to shoot something ‘macro’, I’ll know which lens to pick.

When I get my extension tubes I’ll have to do this entire test again! Watch this space.

* I’ve got a couple more lenses, but I don’t carry them around.