Tokina ATX PRO 100 or ?

[Oldhippy]

Based on reviews I was thinking of buying the Tokina ATX PRO 100 for floral macro photos.So far I haven't found one good floral photo on line taken with this lens. I have seen far better photos taken with common old Soligors and JC Penneys . So far the best small floral photos I've seen on line have been taken with vintage Elicar 90 mm lenses. I may have just been unlucky in my search. Is the Elicar 90 mm better for micro than the Tokina ATX Pro? Are there any better choices for Nikon or Pentax out there under $500.00 ?

[freygr]

I have an Old Nikon 55mm F3.5 1:1 pre AI lens which has been modified to fit my D70 which I purchased off Ebay. I get great photos out of that, but for floral mircophotos you don't need the 1:1 and I've used my Tamrom 70-300mm tele-micro to get nice floral photos (180-300mm is it's micro range) which gets you allot of working room.

[Oldhippy]

I've been so busy shopping and studying reviews on line that I haven't spent any time learning to use what I have. Yesterday evening I was using my Tamron 28-300 to photograph a strawberry in the living room. I was surprised to find that I could focus the camera manually and auto from about 24 inches at 300 mm.The depth of field seemed to be well beyond the strawberry. The only problem was that the strawberry ended up over exposed a bit because of the proximity of the built in flash. I have seen some awesome pictures of small flowers etc on line that were taken with the Tamron 28-300. I always assumed that they had close up filters or extension tubes to be able to take those extreme close ups.

If i get a chance tomorrow I'll try to print the strawberry photos. Hopefully they;ll be sharp enough that I don't need a micro lens.