Canon 450D - Question on Lens for Macros

I have the same lens (on a Canon 7D) and haven't used it for coin photography, so I thought I'd shoot a little side-by-side comparison test since I was curious too. I've only been into this for about a month, but after reading reviews for my first coin photography lens I bought a Canon EF-s 60mm f/2.8 that can achieve 1:1 magnification. By comparison, the best reproduction ratio for the 18-55 is about 1:3.

These first two shots were taken with the 18-55 at 55 mm, 1/30 s f/5.6 ISO 400 at the closest focus (highest magnification). The first is the full-frame image scaled down, and the second is an actual pixels crop of the cross detail on the crown:





These final two shots were taken with the 60mm f/2.8 at closest focus (1:1 magnification, 1/8 s, f/5.6, ISO 400). Again, the first is full-frame and the second is actual pixels:





The subject of these shots is a silver Canadian nickel that is smaller in diameter than a dime. All shots are straight from the camera aside from cropping, down scaling, and a mild sharpening to optimize for screen viewing (EDIT also down-sampled to fit under the forum max image file size of 100K). This should give you an idea of what the 18-55 lens is capable of for coin photography, compared to a good consumer-level macro with a used price tag of about $400. Some of the folks here use bellows/copy stand setups with their DSLRs that yield excellent results at relatively low cost, and can magnify further than 1:1. There are recent threads discussing some of these points. Hope this helps!

I have the T1i and I have the factory lens and I also have a 100mm lens and although the factory lens will take alright pictures of coins it is in no way comparable to a dedicated macro lens. I also have a cheap 50mm lens that does a little better than the factory lens just because its a dedicated lens. But if you are on a small budget then I think you should be able to get some decent shots of coins with the factory lens but you may have to crop the images and they will not be as detailed as they would with a macro lens

Edit: I see rmpsrpms has spoken above and if I ever have any questions on photographing coins I come to either him or SsuperDdave for advice. the pictures he takes with his bellow system is by far superior to what I am getting with my T1i/100mm macro setup

I believe eBay would probably be better to find the bellows systems like rmpsrpms is talking about. I would ask him on here about the one you are looking at before buying also as he knows which will work for what you want and what adapter you would need for your camera

You're going to be manually focusing with a bellows setup. However, with a Canon you have the advantage of their bundled tethering software (I hope you got the software discs with your camera). It allows you to connect the camera to your computer via USB, and control the whole shooting operation with your mouse. In addition, the 450D has Live View, so instead of focusing on the camera's tiny LCD, you can focus the image on your computer's monitor.

OK. You're going to be looking for the ZoomBrowser software to set up remote shooting/viewing; I've done it with that specific camera so if you have any questions, I'll probably be able to help. If you're comfortable converting RAW in Photoshop, by all means do so, but Canon's bespoke Digital Photo Professional is pretty good if a little barebones. I do DPP -> Gimp myself.

Seek out Ray's (rmpsrpms) words regarding the bellows setup; he's the master at whose feet I sit in this regard. I will say there's no doubt in my mind, having gone to a bellows setup, that I no longer need to spend as much as $100 on a lens that will stagger you with the images it produces. And if you *do* spend decent money on a truly high-end duplicating lens....well, let's just say we'll only know here if you post 100% crops.

I have a "decent" 26" Asus monitor, and a "pretty darn good" Dell U2410. My Rodenstock lens is capable of stuff I can only see on the Dell, if that is any indication.