Pedro wrote: > Hi, > > [ ... ] > > Anyway, I am mostly interested in trying street photography and macro. > Currently I have a basic 50mm lens (f1.7), which is not especially > suited for neither... > I happen to have a "2X Macro Focusing Teleconverter" that I intend to sell (but I haven't tried very hard to do it), since I now also own a real macro lens. This will effectively turn your 50mm (which is quite well suited for extension rings or this kind of converter, by the way) into a poor-man's (but the picture quality is not that poor, really) 100mm 1:1 macro (see below.) Let me know if you are interested. > As for macro, I must say I'm somewhat confused. I want to take close up > pictures of bugs and flowers and that sort of stuff, and I know I need a > macro lens to be able to focus real close, but what kind of focal > distance do I need? Depends on the focal length of the lens, I guess, but the minimum focus distance of the Pentax 100mm 1:1 macros is 31cm.
The focusing capability of macro lenses is generally expressed as a ratio - between the size of a subject's depiction on the film and the actual size of that subject, at the minimum focusing distance. A "true" macro lens can do at least 1:1, meaning that when you focus as close as possible, you get a life-size image on the film (which means it will be larger than life on a typical print, of course.) Low-cost "macros" will usually give you 1:2, while zooms with a macro function offer something like 1:3. - Toralf -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
