macro lenses tests overview

8/13/2019 Macro Lenses Tests Overview

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1/17/14 10:Macro lenses tests overview

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8 Macros in comparison

Tamron 2.8/90mm SP AF - Sigma 2.8/105mm EX AF- Canon 2.8/100mm USM

Tamron 3.5/180mm AF DI - Sigma 3.5/180mm HSM AF - Canon 3.5/180mm L USM

Sigma 2.8/50mm AF EX - Canon 2.8/65mm MP-E65

Updates

The new Tokina 2.8/100 Macro

The new 2.8/90 DI Tamron (hitherto only German)

The 2.8/150 Sigma HSM (hitherto only German)

True Macro lenses should be built to maximum optical performance at 1 to 1, that is relative to 35mm film format. However, it seemto be a huge problem to build such lenses for optimum sharpness/focussing performance, through the entire range of focal lengths, from infinity to absolute macro. It's apparent that most reviews of lenses, such as those listed here, cover the "infinity to normal foclengths", but rarely the true macro performance. Because of this omission I have conducted investigations to explore and compare tmacro performance of these listed lenses: That is, three lenses around 100mm, three lenses at 180mm, plus the Sigma 50mm and
http://www.nnplus.de/macro/150macro.htmlhttp://www.nnplus.de/macro/100macro.htmlhttp://www.nnplus.de/macro/Tokina/TokinaE.html


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additionally the specialist in this range, the Canon 65mm MP-E65 magnifying lens.

In order to clarify the difference betweena good macro lens and say a "temporaryor intermediate solution", here are two100% crops, the one on the left taken withthe Tamron 90 macro and on the rightwith a Tamron 28-75 zoom, at 75mmwith a distance ring, both at f=8. Hereone can see very clearly the poor imagequality of the zoom with so muchchromatic aberration. Using a higheraperture would decrease the problems ofthe zoom and improve the quality, but it

will be unable to reach the performance ofa genuine macro.

Overview; Technical data:

Lens make & focal

lengths Weight Length infinity/near Diameter Filter Effective work distanc

Canon 100 600 g 119 / 119 79 mm 58 mm 14-8=6cm*

Sigma 105 450 g 95 /147 74 mm 58 mm 12 cm

Tamron 90 420 g 91 / 152 71 mm 55 mm 9,5 cm

Canon 180 1090 g 186,6 / 186,6 82,5 mm 72 mm 23,8-7,5=16,3 cm*

Sigma 180 945 g 179,5 / 179,5 80 mm 72 mm 22,8-9=13,8 cm*

Tamron 180 920 g 165,7 / 165,7 84,8 mm 72 mm 24,5-9,5=15 cm*

Canon MP-E 65 730 g *98 / *227 81 mm 58 mm 9,5 cm*

Sigma 50 320 g 64 / 104 71,4 mm 58 mm 3,9 cm*

Explanations:

* Effective work distances: if the front lens element is relatively deeply built into the lens, a lens hood can seem almost unnecessaon the other hand, a lens hood is a must if the front glass determines the length of the lens. Since some of these lens hoods can bequite long, they can change the effective work distance. In these cases, ( As can be seen in this column above.) first, the effectivedistance is indicated, then the length of the lens hood is substracted from the effective working distance (-), and the remainingeffective distance as the third number. Since the lens hoods of the 180mm lenses are bulky, one could consider changing them for asmaller type if they effected one's work.


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* Canon MP-E 65:the lens can be adjusted within a range from 1:1 to 5:1 (Relative to 35mm film.) Using it on a 1.6 crop camera(Such as a Canon 20D.) 1.6:8X related to 35mm. The indicated work distance refers to 1:1 and/or 1.6:1.

* Sigma 50: Because the working distance at 1:1 magification is so very small, the lens hood, if used, will strongly shade thephotographic object, this limits the hood's usability greatly in this mode.

Mechanics:

Sigma lenses:

The 180mm is really durably built, all tubes free from play, it has the most solidlens hood connection of all three 180mm macros. AF speed is poor, despite theultrasonic drive.

The two other focal length Sigmas are mechanically the weakest of all lenses in ttest. The extending tubes have considerable slackness, the 50mm more than the105mm; their AF speed is the slowest of all, often still "hunting" with back focustendency. I have the impression that "available steps in focussing" are too large.

The front glass of the 50mm and still more of the 105mm, are quite deeply built ithe tube, so they can be used without a lens hood under most circumstances.

Canon lenses:

The 180mm, as is the 100mm are ultrasonic lenses, the 100mm is very fast, inmaximum telephoto mode it is the fastest objective lens in the tests, however notalways accurately, which can be partly seen in the test results. Despite the USM 180mm is very slow, it can be helpful to focus manually to the desired point, thenswitch to AF and allow this to take over, this way accurate focussing is mostrapidly reached. If one starts with infinity, some seconds may well pass until AF

kicks in. The MP-E65 illustrated in the center of the photo to the left, is amagnifying lens without AF,the focussing tubes extend tremendously making theasily the longest of the lenses tested when in fullest extended macro mode. AllCanons are built very sturdily, in another class to all others, but unfortunatelyconsiderably heavier. All adjustment rings work very freely and smoothly and it of a huge benefit to be able to manually over-ride the AF. Coupling rings for maflash are integrated alongside the filter threads at the front of the100mm and theMP-E65, the 180mm needs an adapter ring. The Canon plastic lens hoods are theweakest from the range of lenses we have here on test.

Tamron lenses:

Both lenses are made of plastic, which can be seen immediately with the 90mm,whereas the 180mm gives the impression it is more solidly made of metal. Despi

it's plastic fashion the 90mm is completely free of slackness. Both lenses have thlowest weight of their class. The mechanical AF is heard clearly, only moderate ispeed, but faster than the mechanical Sigma drives. Astonishingly, the outstandinAF accuracy is better than Canon's lenses. To change from AF to MF one slides focussing ring foreward for AF and backwards for MF; the problem is that in ordto do this, one inevitably loses the focus point selected and one then needs to starthe procedure of reselection over again, this can be very frustrating. The 180mmTamron has an additional feature which yet again has advantages anddisadvantages. It has an adjustment ring, which can be used to rotate the front filthread, a big advantage when needing to turn a polarising filter and especially if t


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lens hood is attached. An example of the disadvantages is discovered when usingthe Canon MT24-EX Twinflash, in that the two small flash heads will often turnspontaneously, (Always when it's a huge inconvenience!) depending on the angleone's camera: A locking switch would solve these problems and offer perfection this feature. The 90mm really doesn't need the additional shade of a lens hood unmost circumstances, due to the front element being so deeply embedded in the frotube. On the otherhand, the180mm will need it's very sturdily built lens hood; anadditional excellent feature is that the inside of the hood is manufactured with blagrooves which reduces light reflection to a minimum.

Results:

The robustness of the Canon lenses is unequalled, although the Sigma 180 and Tamron 180 are also very solid. Canon's plaslens hoods are very flimsy and seem cheap, this includes the bayonet fittings on the hood and camera, inevitably with time, bayonets start to break up, resulting in very badly fitted and unsafe hoods: The hoods of all other lenses are clearly better.Both other Sigma lenses feel a little shaky and the tubes have some slackness. The Tamron 90mm looks somewhat cheap duto it's plastic design, but mechanically however it is an excellent lens, which is absolutely free from any slackness between thtubes.

Optical performance

General notes to the test:

Images were taken and stored as RAW, they were then developed with C1Pro (Colour alignment with magic pencil,uniform slight sharpening and saved as 8-bit JPEG, ) The Canon 1DsMkII was installed into a "reproduction rack", sensorand object accurately aligned parallel to each other with a spirit level; exposure in AV mode; release with trip-cable;"Mirror Lock-up" switched on; all exposures at 1:1 magification, controlled by means of a 2 X magnifying viewer. Asmall model of a railway engine (Maerklin Z was the test object.) was firmly fixed into the base of the "reproductionrack", this ensured the planned alignment of the object could be strictly controlled. The original plan to use a highlydetailed fern frond as the test object produced difficulties, it's leaves began to roll up when drying out during the time ofthe test: So only the 100mm lenses were tested using the fern frond.

The carefully aligned test objectwas exposed with a halogen lamp either side. Using Photoshop, small crops from thecorner and the center of the test object images were taken from each lens test image and arranged in the overview shownbelow.

1. Test object:

Shown below, a mini railway engine. The position of the detailed selections, (Cut-outs) are indicated by yellow lines, thecut-out near center was divided into 2 parts (along the blue lines), they were then joined back together, less the centresection, to reduce necessary space.


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2. Test object:

Shown to the right, a Fern Frond. The selected cut-outsare framed in blue. In order to keep the fern frond flat, anormal 35 mm slide frame was fixed to the frond. Someshading of the cut-out at the edges occured because ofthe slide frame, but has had no effect on the results.

With this fern frond, only the 100mm lenses were tested,as explained earlier.

Results:

A click on the overview loads the frame with 100% crops at full size !

1. overview: all lenses near the center


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.

2. overview: all lenses at the margin.
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Comment/evaluation:

The performance of the Canon MP-E65 is outstanding, it is as good at the corners as it is in the center and at allapertures. The performance of the Sigma 50mm is also outstanding, however this lens' contrast behavior may havegained some benefits from the changed light conditions. (Due to the very small distance from front element to thetest object, only 3.9cm, I had to change the position of the lights to avoid shading). This becomes clearly apparentwith the colour; nevertheless, optically it is an outstanding lens over the entire image field.

Within the row of the lenses around 100mm sizes, the Tamron 90 clearly topped all it's competitors, further, is theremarkable sure-footedness of it's AF. Though the Canon, in this comparison performed better than in the "ferntest", it does not reach the quality of the Tamron's AF; it's AF problem can be seen at f=11. The clear loser is theSigma 100, at the edge images are only usable above f=8, in the center at f=5.6. I even tried it by manual focussing,but didn't get better results. At apertures higher than f=16 all "100's" show a remarkable decrease of performancedue to diffraction.

Within the180mm row, again the Tamron is king, immaculate from the edge to the center at all apertures. At f=4the Canon has some weakness at the corner but at f=4 in the center it is perfect. The Sigma is really good in thecenter at f=5.6, best at f=8, at the edge only good at f=11. Amazingly with the Tamron 180mm as high as f=22returned some very useable images!.
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3. Test: Shown here to the right.

The three100mm (Approx') lens tests at all apertures, inthecentreand in the corner. Here, there is no doubt overTamron's leadership in any optical situation.

dramatic improvement of the optical performance athigher magnifications can be reached by use of a high-quality add on lens/macro filters. (Eg: Leica Apochromatfor the 2.8/100 Apo macro or the Canon D500 MacroFilters). Therefore all further tests with lenses were

completed with a Macro filter attached, please see below.
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.

Now using the Macro filter on the lenses, they wereadjusted to give the same view as in test 3 above, ofapproximately 24x36 mm; to do this only a slightextension of each lens was necessary, but now they areable to work in the "optimal range".

Shown here are the results for aperture f=6.3 which maywell be the most relevant for Macro use.

The lowest improvement came from the Tamron whichshows just how good it is without the filter! the other twolenses show a remarkable improvement. Using f=8 andabove brought all lenses to the same level. The moststriking improvement is visible with the crops at thecorners, whilst the centres were very good prior to thefilters being used anyway.

The improvements felt by using the Leica apochromaticmacro filter and the Canon 500D macro filter, can begained by using your own make as long as it is of veryhigh quality. In any case the improvements gained with

this method will be superior to using extension/ distancerings as they will extend the lens it's self in most cases,too close to the subject and overextend them to outsidetheir best range specification

Now all lenses can work in a fully corrected dimensionleading to a great improvement, especially of the lenses,which did not perform so well prior to the attachmentbeing used.
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5. Test:

Using the Leica macro filter it is possible to reach amagnification of 2.5X. All these test images were done at

apertures of f=11 or higher, however the resulting DOF isvery small indeed.

Again the best results were produced by the Tamron.Apertures above f=16 show a remarkable decrease inquality due to increasing diffraction.

NB: Sorry, I lost one picture from the Sigma at f=22,therefore the white gap.

My conclusions:

Optically the Tamron SP90 is clearly the best objective lens of the 100mm row. It's AF is absolutely precise, it ishowever, slow and rather loud. In the center the Canon is optically not far behind, but it drops off at the edgeswith fully opened apertures, it is then any AF problems may take place. These optical problems at close range canbe equalized to a large extent, by a high-quality attachment/macro-filter. Above f=8 all lenses show no realdifferences, diffraction loss makes f=32 completely worthless. The Canon has the fastest AF with distance and/toinfinity, although not as surely focussing as the Tamron. One has the impression that the Canon's AF jumpsperhaps in steps, whereas the Tamron offers simply more finely graduated steps than the Canon. As expected theCanon MP-E65 is outstanding, a specialist, optically and mechanical. Optically the Sigma 50mm is close by, butmechanically it is much the poorer.
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