off whatever you are photographing. The 60mm range of macro
lenses are in this category. And while the 100mm to 105mm
macro lenses are very popular, many photographers would
rather work with lenses in the 200mm range because it gives
them just enough extra distance to not disturb their subjects. If
you are really into photographing critters then a lens in the
200mm range may be what you are looking for.One odd technique I like is to use a telephoto like the Nikon 300m
F/4 ED-IF lens which has a minimum focus distance of something
like 4.9 feet on the Nikon D3x and crop out a photo. I can
photograph a frog out in the middle of the pond, crop it out, and still
have enough pixels for a fine photo. This only works with a sensor
with a high megapixel count, like 36MP.
Summary
Those are some of my main considerations when choosing a
macro lens. I don’t care how heavy or bulky a lens is. Carting
these things around is second nature to me now. It is easy to see
that if we insist on having all of the above points in a single lens
we quickly are down to almost none. In fact the one lens I have
that is sharp, fast, has a long focus throw, goes to 1:1, and has
APO is the Voigtlander 125mm f/2.5 APO-Lanthar. No other lens
has all of these features without adding diopters or settling for a
short focus throw, etc. It is no wonder that this lens is in great
demand. The Nikon 105mm VR macro is pretty good as well... in
terms of having many of the features.