Even though it’s no longer Sony’s flagship macro lens—now overtaken by the FE 100mm F/2.8 GM—the 90mm Macro G OSS remains one of the sharpest and most reliable lenses for close-up and portrait work. It produces beautifully detailed images with a lifesize 1:1 reproduction, and at this new, lower price, it’s easily one of the best-value premium Sony lenses on the market.

Prices and savings subject to change. Click through to get the current deal prices.

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Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro G OSS SEL90M28G

Optical Design: 90mm macro lens with F2.8 maximum aperture featuring Corner to corner sharpness w/ Advanced Spherical elements and Super ED glass for superior image… Read more

Best Deals

• Deal @ Amazon

Why We Love the Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro G OSS in 2025

Despite being a decade old, the Sony 90mm Macro G OSS continues to impress both macro and portrait shooters. It delivers outstanding sharpness and minimal chromatic aberration, earning it the Lens of Distinction award from Imaging Resource back in 2015 — and it’s still going strong today.

Built specifically for macro photography, the lens excels at 1:1 reproduction with a minimum focusing distance of just 11 inches (28 cm). It also features a focus limiter switch that speeds up autofocus in different shooting scenarios, from close-up work to long-range focusing. Combined with its smooth manual focus clutch and solid optical design, it’s a lens that feels right at home in both professional and creative setups.

Key Features

• True 1:1 Macro Capability: Capture life-size details with an 11″ minimum focusing distance for stunning close-ups. 
  
• Focus Limiter Switch: Choose from three AF ranges (macro, distant, or full) to improve focus speed. 
  
• G Series Optics: Two extra-low dispersion elements and one aspherical element reduce fringing and distortion for crisp, accurate images. 
  
• Direct Drive SSM Autofocus: Fast, quiet, and highly precise AF ideal for both stills and video. 
  
• Optical SteadyShot Stabilization: Built-in stabilization for sharp handheld shots, which pairs perfectly with Sony’s in-body stabilization.

Who Is This Lens For and Is It a Good Time to Buy?

The Sony 90mm F/2.8 Macro G OSS is ideal for photographers who want a versatile lens that can handle macro work, portraits, and even event photography. It’s especially appealing for hybrid shooters who value both autofocus reliability and optical stabilization.

With this discounted price, now is a great time to grab one—especially before holiday prices rise again. Whether you’re upgrading your Sony lens lineup or looking for your first dedicated macro lens, this deal offers tremendous value for the performance.

Prices and savings subject to change. Click through to get the current deal prices.

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Sony FE 90mm F/2.8 Macro G OSS SEL90M28G

Optical Design: 90mm macro lens with F2.8 maximum aperture featuring Corner to corner sharpness w/ Advanced Spherical elements and Super ED glass for superior image… Read more

Best Deals

• Deal @ Amazon

The post The Sony 90mm F/2.8 Macro G OSS Gets a Nice Discount on Amazon appeared first on Imaging Resource.

We have just completed our review of the Sony FE 100mm F2.8 Macro GM OSS lens, and the guide to our new favorite macro lens is in our Lens Reviews section.

You can jump to that review below. The full press release for the new Sony macro lens follows that link.

Sony has officially added a macro lens to its high-end G Master lineup with the release of the FE 100mm F/2.8 GM. Aimed at professionals and serious enthusiasts, the new lens offers extreme magnification and premium image quality, making it a versatile choice for wildlife, portraits, weddings, and close-up detail work.

1.4x Magnification and Up to 2.8x with Teleconverter

The standout feature of the FE 100mm F/2.8 GM is its 1.4x maximum magnification, which goes beyond the typical 1:1 reproduction ratio of most macro lenses. Paired with the Sony SEL20TC 2x teleconverter, the magnification reaches 2.8x, allowing photographers to capture microscopic-level details not visible to the naked eye.

Inside, the lens uses 17 elements in 13 groups, including two XA and two ED elements, to suppress chromatic aberrations and fringing. Sony’s Nano AR Coating II helps reduce flare and ghosting, while the 11-bladed circular aperture produces smooth, natural-looking bokeh.

Autofocus and Video Optimization

Autofocus performance is handled by four XD linear motors, which Sony claims deliver focus speeds 1.9x faster than the FE 90mm F/2.8 G OSS. The lens is designed to track fast-moving subjects accurately and works seamlessly with the Sony a9’s 120 fps burst shooting.

Video shooters also benefit from the design. The FE 100mm F/2.8 GM minimizes focus breathing, operates silently, and includes Advanced Optical SteadyShot stabilization for handheld shooting. Internal focusing ensures that the center of gravity remains stable when mounted on tripods or gimbals.

G Master Build and Handling

As part of the G Master line, the lens is built to premium standards. It features dust- and moisture-resistant weather sealing and a fluorine-coated front element to repel fingerprints, water, and oil.

For handling, Sony has added several pro-level features:

• Sliding focus ring for instant switching between AF and MF
  
• Two customizable focus hold buttons
  
• Aperture ring with click on/off and lock functions
  
• Three-point focus range limiter, letting users quickly restrict focusing for faster acquisition
  

Despite its capabilities, the lens weighs just 646 grams and measures 147.9mm in length, with a standard 67mm filter thread. It ships with the ALC-SH173 lens hood.

Pricing and Availability for the Sony FE 100mm F/2.8 GM

The Sony FE 100mm F/2.8 GM is priced at $1,499 and is available now for pre-order at B&H Photo. The lens is expected to ship starting November 13, 2025. 

Sony will continue offering the FE 90mm F/2.8 G OSS Macro, giving photographers a more budget-friendly alternative to the flagship G Master option.

Sample Images with the Sony FE 100mm F/2.8 GM

The post Hands on With Sony’s FE 100mm F2.8 GM OSS Macro – Our New Favorite Macro Lens, Ever appeared first on Imaging Resource.

OM Ambassador Chris McGinnis presented at B&H Optic this year, emphasizing how many amazing photo opportunities you can find in your local area, especially if you have a macro lens. While traveling to capture stunning, exotic locations is amazing, it’s an expensive endeavor and not possible for everyone. Fortunately, you don’t even need to leave your hometown to make amazing photos. In the presentation below, “Backyard Macro: Travel to a New World,” McGinnis shows how it’s possible to photograph interesting subjects using a macro lens and flash either in your yard or a local park.

Everything in McGinnis’s presentation was shot in his yard, and he discusses the gear and techniques he used to make the images. While McGinnis discusses the precise gear he uses, like an OM-1 camera and Olympus M.Zuiko 60mm F2.8 Macro and Olympus M.Zuiko 40-150mm F2.8 PRO lenses, it’s more about the type of gear he uses. Just about any camera will do, and you’ll want a lens that has good close-focusing performance. You will also want to use a flash, which can be on-camera or off-camera. To ensure nice light, you may also need to use a diffuser. While you can use natural light, a flash and diffuser deliver consistently great results no matter the available light.

Sometimes, the background is a bit distracting, and you can’t exactly tell insects where to position themselves. However, by using flash, it’s possible to isolate the subject and capture a stunning photo with a black background. You don’t need to use an actual backdrop to do this. You can adjust your camera and flash settings to achieve the look. McGinnis outlines this technique about halfway through the above video.

In terms of general camera settings, every situation is a bit different, but McGinnis starts in manual mode with a 1/100s shutter speed and F8 aperture. His OM-1’s base ISO is 200, so your settings may differ. He manually focuses much of the time and often uses in-camera stabilization to help ensure sharp images. McGinnis sometimes uses focus bracketing and stacking techniques to increase the depth of field without needing to stop the lens all the way down, which would result in diffraction and soft results. Sometimes even stopping down isn’t enough if you’re very close to your subject. Focus bracketing is when you shoot sequential images at different focus distances. You can achieve this with focusing rails, special in-camera modes, or manually selecting different focus points. Special software – or perhaps even your camera itself – can then combine the focus bracket images into a single composite image with an expanded depth of field.

In addition to showing off beautiful macro photos, McGinnis wraps up the video with his top 10 tips for macro photography. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but there are some general tips that will help you be more successful. You must be patient, approach your subjects very slowly, and try to get as low as possible. To see the other seven tips, watch the full presentation.

To see more from Chris McGinnis, visit his website‚ and follow him on Instagram. His macro photography is stellar, so I highly recommend checking them out. To see more videos from B&H, visit YouTube.

(Via B&H)

The post Video: Tips and techniques to capture amazing macro photos right in your backyard appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Spring is here, which means it’s wildflower season. Photographer Adam Gibbs headed out to Mt. Tzouhalem in British Columbia, Canada, to photograph the local flora. In the last video from Gibbs that we featured, Gibbs talked about his professional experience photographing gardens, so he’s a seasoned expert when it comes to flower photography. Of course, wildflowers are a bit different than beautiful, carefully manicured gardens, but wildflower photography offers a great blend of nature and flower photography, all rolled into one.

Rather than use his Fujifilm GFX 100, Gibbs opted instead for his ‘trusty old’ Nikon D850 DSLR. Now, the GFX system does have a macro lens, the GF 120mm F4, Gibbs doesn’t own it. On his D850, Gibbs used a Nikon 70-200mm F4 lens. While not a macro lens, the tele-zoom offers impressive close-up capabilities, which are generally lacking across the non-macro GF lens lineup.

Given the somewhat dreary, wet weather, Gibbs opted to shoot for a ‘dreamy’ look. He shot with a wide-open, or nearly wide-open, aperture to ensure soft out-of-focus elements and focused on individual flowers. He also tried to create compositions with nicely blurred foreground elements. This offers a dreamier, softer look to the image, and it creates a strong sense of depth in the frame. You can use out-of-focus elements, including different colors or tones, as compositional elements as well.

As you can see in Gibbs’ full video, wildflower photography comes with its own set of challenges. Most wildflowers are short, so you must get down very low to get on their level, which usually results in the best photos. This is where a tripod that offers a short minimum height comes in especially useful. Gibbs uses a small pad in the video, which is a non-photo accessory he often has in his backpack. It makes it easier to lay down or kneel on the ground.

Beyond these physical challenges to photographing wildflowers, it can also be tricky to find a composition, especially when there are a lot of flowers to choose from. Sometimes you can photograph an entire bed of flowers and make a nice shot, but if you want to get close-ups of the flowers, you’ll need to spend some time to find the best ones to focus on.

To see more from Adam Gibbs, visit his YouTube channel and website. You can also follow Gibbs on Instagram to stay up to date with his latest photos.

(Via Adam Gibbs)

The post Video: Wildflower photography with Adam Gibbs appeared first on Imaging Resource.

For those in the northern hemisphere, spring has sprung, and gardens are beginning to come alive. This means that not only is there a lot more color around, but it also means that a whole new world of photographic subjects is upon us, including beautiful flowers and fascinating insects.

Over at Adorama, photographer Gavin Hoey has released a new video all about garden macro photography as part of his ongoing video series, ‘Take & Make Great Photography with Gavin Hoey.’ In the video below, Hoey offers practical tips and tricks to help you get started with macro photography or improve your existing skills. Covered topics include how to approach macro insect photography, camera settings for macro flash photography, the pros and cons of using flash for macro work and more.

When photographing insects, Hoey likes to start with a wider perspective. This provides environmental context and helps him keep track of his subject in the frame as he gets closer. If you do want to get extremely close, Hoey also talks about extension tubes. These allow you to focus closer than your lens’s minimum focusing distance. This is achieved by creating a gap between your lens and your camera.

As you get closer to your subject, you also need to contend with shadows. That’s where flash comes in. However, while the flash will help light your subject and freeze any action, it does make your camera setup quite a bit heavier. Even with some downsides, Hoey sticks with flash because it delivers consistent, high-quality light for macro photography.

If you’re interested in giving macro photography a try for the first time, check out another video we featured earlier this month, ‘A complete guide to macro photography for beginners.’

(Via Adorama)

The post Video: The garden is a great place to do macro flash photography appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Macro photography is a highly specialized genre of photography. It requires specific equipment, although it need not be a pricy endeavor, and it comes with its own set of challenges. If you’re new to photography, macro photography is extreme close-up photography of small subjects, like insects or flowers, to name a couple of examples. It can be daunting to try out an all-new kind of photography, especially when it has its own unique demands. Fortunately, talented macro photographer Micael Widell is here to help. Widell recently published a complete beginner’s guide video to macro photography. The video covers various topics, including how to work up close to subjects, the best camera and lenses for macro photography, depth of field, flash, focusing, camera settings and much more.

What about cameras and lenses, are there ‘best’ choices for macro photography? The good news is that if your camera is made in the last 10-15 years and allows you to change lenses (an interchangeable lens camera), you will be able to do macro photography. If you’re looking to buy a new camera, a mirrorless camera is a good bet because they offer many helpful features, like focus peaking and focus magnification. If you’re using a DSLR camera, you may have these same features available in your ‘Live View’ mode. A mirrorless camera has another advantage, though, an electronic viewfinder. You can typically manually adjust the brightness of the EVF, which can make it much easier to fine-tune manual focus when doing macro photography.

When it comes to lenses, they’re much more important than your camera. Specialized macro lenses can get quite expensive. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get a great value by opting for a third-party lens or a manual focus macro lens. You can also skip a macro lens altogether and get extension tubes compatible with lenses you already have. By using an extension tube, you create a gap between your lens and your camera, allowing you to focus closer. If you’re looking to get a macro lens, there are great options from many manufacturers, including Tamron, Sigma, Tokina, Venus Optics (Laowa), TTArtisans and more. Plus, every major camera manufacturer has a macro lens available for their camera system.

Widell has many more excellent macro photography tips in the video above. Be sure to watch the entire video to learn about all aspects of macro photography. If you want to go even more in-depth on a particular macro photography topic, check out Widell’s YouTube channel. To see more great macro images, visit his website and follow him on Instagram.

(Via Micael Widell)

The post Video: A complete guide to macro photography for beginners appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Lead image credit: © Alberto Ghizzi Panizza

Venus Optics has announced its Laowa 85mm F5.6 2x Ultra Macro lens is now available for L-mount. The lens was originally made available in Canon RF, Leica M, Nikon Z and Sony E mount versions.

The Laowa 85mm F5.6 2x Ultra Macro APO lens is the smallest full-frame 2x designed for mirrorless cameras. The lens weighs only 259 grams (9.1 ounces) and is a mere 81mm (3.2″) long. The lens has a 46mm filter thread. The lens also features an internal focusing design, meaning that it doesn’t change length when adjusting focus.

In terms of its optical design, the 2x macro lens features 13 elements in 9 groups, including a trio of ED glass elements. The ED elements eliminate color fringing in in-focus and out-of-focus areas alike and Venus Optics promises minimal chromatic aberration.

The lens is manual focus only. To achieve 2x magnification at 85mm, your subject must be 16.3 cm (6.4″) from the focal plane. At 85mm, the angle of view is 28.55 degrees.

The new L-mount version is available now for $450. For additional information, click here.

© Jimmy Chan

© Alberto Ghizzi Panizza

© Alberto Ghizzi Panizza

The post Laowa’s compact, full-frame 85mm F5.6 2x Ultra Macro lens is now available in L-mount appeared first on Imaging Resource.

Winter is bearing down on many of us. With few exceptions, even if winter is not brutally cold or snowy, it changes your photographic options. For macro photographers, winter can be especially challenging. There are fewer, possibly no, insects or other small critters to photograph, there are fewer flowers, and there’s less light during the day. Photographer and macro specialist Micael Widell wants to help with his latest video, ‘My 5 Best Ideas for Winter Macro Photography.’

Widell’s first suggestion is to photograph ‘frosty things.’ If you’re lucky, you’ll be treated to hoar frost. It’s when frozen water vapor adheres to something in a crystalline form. As Widell says, when the conditions are right for hoar frost, you can photograph just about anything and it’ll make for an interesting subject, especially when you get up close and see all the ice crystals.

Precipitation is a great winter macro subject. Rain and snow can make for really neat macro subjects. If you’re lucky, you will get frozen rain, which requires somewhat unusual weather, but looks great. For snowflake photography, you will also need to be a bit fortunate, as snow comes in many forms and not all snowflakes are crystalline. Sometimes snow is just sort of blobby. Widell shows some great snowflake photos. If you want to see even more snowflake photos, check out some of our previous articles:

• Check out these amazing macro photos of snowflakes
• Breathtaking snowflake macros prove it’s the photographer that matters, not their gear
• Stay frosty with these beautiful, extreme macro shots of snow crystals

If you’d like to stay up to date with Micael Widell’s YouTube videos, be sure to subscribe to his channel. He posts new videos every week. To see his latest macro photos, follow Widell on Instagram.

The post 5 ideas for outdoor winter macro photography appeared first on Imaging Resource.

There are many excellent photo contests each year, but one I especially look forward to is the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition. The Nikon Small World contest attracts many fantastic images from talented photographers around the world. While the images may look very different from one another, they all share something in common. Each photo offers an incredible, close-up look at different objects. This year’s competition, the 47th edition, included more than 1,900 entries from 88 countries.

This year’s winning image is a 60x magnification close-up of a southern live oak leaf by photographer Jason Kirk. Nikon writes, ‘Jason won for his striking image of a southern live oak leaf’s trichomes, stomata and vessels. Using various lighting techniques and design tools, Jason’s final image is a masterful example of the dynamic relationship between imaging technology and artistic creativity. Using a custom-made microscope system that combines color filtered transmitted light with diffused reflected light, Jason captured around 200 individual images of the leaf and stacked them together to create the stunning image.’

1st place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Trichome (white appendages) and stomata (purple pores) on a southern live oak leaf, by Jason Kirk. Technique: Image stacking. Magnification: 60x (objective lens magnification).

In the image above, which has been color-adjusted during post-processing to illustrate the elements in the photo, the white portions are trichomes, ‘which are fine outgrowths that protect a plant against extreme weather and insects.’ In purple, Kirk has highlighted stomata, which are pores that control gas flow in a plant. The cyan objects are water transport vessels.

‘ The lighting side of it was complicated,’ said Jason. ‘Microscope objectives are small and have a very shallow depth of focus. I couldn’t just stick a giant light next to the microscope and have the lighting be directional. It would be like trying to light the head of a pin with a light source that’s the size of your head.’ Kirk has been doing microscopy since the 1990s. He now works as the core director for Baylor College of Medicine’s Optical Imaging and Vital Microscopy Core.

You can view the top 20 images from this year’s Nikon Small World competition. You can also check out Honorable Mentions and Images of Distinction. This year’s contest was judged by Dr. Nsikan Akpam, Hank Green, Robin Kazmier, Dr. Alexa Mattheyses and Dr. Hesper Rego. We have selected a few images to highlight below, although you should check all the images out on the competition website.

2nd place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – A microfluidic device containing 300k networking neurons in 2 isolated populations. Both sides were treated with a unique virus and bridged by axons, by Esmeralda Paric Holly Stefen. Technique: Fluorescence. Magnification: 40x (objective lens magnification).

3rd place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Rear leg, claw, and respiratory trachea of a louse (Haematopinus suis), by Frank Reiser. Technique: Darkfield, image stacking. Magnification: 5x (objective lens magnification).

4th place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Sensory neuron from an embryonic rat, by Paula Diaz. Technique: Fluorescence. Magnification: 10x (objective lens magnification).

6th place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – 3D vasculature of an adult mouse brain, by Dr. Andrea Tedeschi. Technique: Confocal. Magnification: 10x (objective lens magnification).

10th place in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Vein and scales on a butterfly wing (Morpho didius), by Sébastien Malo. Technique: Image stacking, refracted light. Magnification: 20x (objective lens magnification).

Honorable Mention in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – 40 million year old gnat in Baltic amber, by Levon Biss. Technique: Image stacking. Magnification: 10x (objective lens magnification).

Image of Distinction in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Damselfly larvae, by Dr. Robert C. Berdan. Technique: Polarized light. Magnification: 10x (objective lens magnification).

Image of Distinction in the Nikon Small World 2021 Photomicrography Competition – Clownfish (Amphiprion percula) embryos in several developmental stages, by Daniel Knop. Technique: Darkfield, Image stacking. Magnification: 10x (objective lens magnification).

The post Nikon Small World 2021 winners highlighted by mesmerizing photo of an oak leaf that looks alien appeared first on Imaging Resource.

This summer, Nikon added a pair of new macro lenses to its mirrorless Z system. We first went hands-on with the Nikon Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S Nikkor lens. We’ve now published our hands-on review of the smaller, lighter and less expensive new Z macro lens, the Nikon Z MC 50mm f/2.8.

As expected, the 50mm f/2.8 lens is much smaller and lighter than its 105mm counterpart. While the build quality of the S-Line 105mm f/2.8 lens is particularly excellent, the 50mm f/2.8 impresses, too. The lens includes weather-sealing, and its lightweight design feels quite nice in use. The 50mm f/2.8 lens lacks the OLED information panel, dedicated control ring and vibration reduction of its Z MC sibling. Still, it offers 1:1 macro capability in a much more compact form factor, which is a significant advantage for some users.

The Nikon Z MC 50mm f/2.8 is much smaller and lighter than the Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S lens. The Z MC 50mm f/2.8 isn’t internally focusing, unlike the 105mm lens, so as you can see here, when focusing closer, the 50mm’s barrel extends. On the barrel are different magnification ratio markings, including for 1:1.

The Z MC 50mm f/2.8 may lack the ARNEO and Nano Crystal Coatings of the 105mm f/2.8 lens, but it nonetheless delivers very good image quality. The 50mm f/2.8 macro lens is very sharp, even when shooting wide-open, and exhibits impressive control over aberrations and distortion. Like the 105mm f/2.8 lens, which stops down to f/4.5 when shooting at 1:1 distances, the 50mm f/2.8 lens also stops down, although its maximum aperture gets smaller, reducing to f/5.6 at 1:1 distance.

Shot on Nikon Z7 II at f/7.1, 1/50s, ISO 1400. This image has been edited.

Speaking of shooting at 1:1, the Z MC 50mm f/2.8 has a very short working distance. This is one of its biggest downsides in the field. To get a 1:1 image, the front of the lens is only a few inches from the subject, running the risk of distracting shadows or accidentally bumping into your subject. On the plus side, autofocus performance is impressive overall. There’s occasional hunting, but AF performance is good, by and large. Like the 105mm f/2.8 VR S lens, the 50mm f/2.8 lets you limit autofocus to a narrow range at the close-focusing end of the lens, improving autofocus speed when doing close-up work.

Shot on Nikon Z7 II at f/8, 1/640s, ISO 100.

100% crop

There’s much more to say about the Nikon Z MC 50mm f/2.8. You can read more about the lens’s features and performance in our Hands-on Review. You can view and download various images, including sharpness test shots of a far test scene and a 1:1 test scene in our Gallery.

– Hands-on Review – Gallery –

The post Nikon Z MC 50mm f/2.8 Hands-on Review: Is this compact macro lens as good as the 105mm f/2.8? appeared first on Imaging Resource.