Which macro equipment option for "bugs" and flowers.

GinAZ wrote:

gardenersassistant wrote:

GinAZ wrote:

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Another alternative might be a legacy macro lens used with a converter on your A77. Can the A77 use legacy lenses? I don't know. If you can this may be cheaper than using achromats, of which you would need at least two, a low power one for flowers and a higher power one for insects, spiders etc. With a 1:1 macro lens you would get from infinity focus down to 1:1 without adding/removing anything such as a close-up lens or extension tube, and you would presumably be able to use your extension tubes to get more magnification beyond 1:1.

I am very curious as to what this 10X macro lens is for $80. I would not think that a 10X lens would be suitable at this stage. 10X is a lot of magnification, more than is sensible for a beginner to be using.

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Thank you very much. By legacy lens did you mean an existing A-Mount lens?

No, I'm thinking of old lenses from film or early dSLR days which are fully manual, such as lenses for mounts such as Canon FD, Minolta etc. Something like this (at eBay) for example (not a macro lens in this case, but there are lots of legacy macro lenses available. Be aware that just because a lens is described as "macro" doesn't mean it goes to 1:1. Quite often it will only be half that, 1:2, or sometimes even less magnification).

You need to use an adaptor of the right type for any legacy lens you want to mount on your camera.

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I have lenses from a Canon AE-1 film camera. They are FD lenses. I have a 50 mm 1:1.8, a 35-105 mm 1:3.2-4 macro focusing, and a 70-205 close focusing 1:3.8. The FD to A-mount adapter is available for $44.95. Non of my lenses have a manual aperture ring so it says it will be fully open or fully stopped down.

The FD mount was 42mm. Does it sound this might be worth a try?

I wouldn't go down that route. You will need to have control of the aperture. Neither fully open nor fully stopped down is likely to be what you want to use.

Thanks!