I have just bought a Canon 5D Mkii in order to take mainly macro/still life and a little portraiture. I have used MFT gear until now but wanted to get better bokeh and low light capabilities. I’ve not yet bought a lens so thought I’d seek advice. My thoughts are a 50mm to kick off but would welcome any suggestions.
A 50mm is a good starting point for low light stuff. I would also have a look at the 100mm macro for your macro and portraits. There are lots of options out there, Canon and third party lenses. Gary
The Canon 5mm f1.8 (AKA the 'Nifty fifty') is a great little lens, cheap and cheerful but produces great results but make sure you get the Mk II. Here's mine on my 5D Mk II. The Canon 100mm macro lens is nice but I switched to the Sigma 105mm f2.8 as I thought it had better macro performance. Here's the lens on the 5d Mk II ..the lens this lens comes with a lovely lens hood (which I seem to have misplaced) however, the deeply recessed front element doesn't really need it in my experience. Hope these help in your decision making but there are many 3rd party lenses out there.
Based on your original post, A good macro would be your best bet, be it canon or sigma whatever.... I like the 100mm range but your mileage may vary, 50/100 and 180 are the common ones. Any good macro should be quite sharp, almost too sharp for portraiture even. You may want to see sample images to help with bokeh on the different macros out there. The nifty 50 as its called is alright but performs lackluster wide open. I upgraded to the 50mm canon 1.4 without hesitation. I actually like my 85mm more for portraits but that is a personal preference.
one of the sharpest macro lenses i have is the EF Laowa 100mm ƒ2.8 2:1 macro, its apo too, its all manual apart from an auto aperture, the other is the sigma EX 105mm ƒ2.8 OS which is still available today new, its my "lazy" macro lens, its very good, by lazy i mean i wanted one with os and auto focus for walk about, the Laowa (i also have the 65mm for efm) is optically amazing, when it comes to better bokeh you should take a look at some of the vintage M42 mount lenses, they are easily adapted to modern cameras they are stupid cheap mostly because they are fully manual and old but the build and optics are excellent, some have amazing renders you don't get in a modern lens, some can be very dramatic my 50mm ƒ1.8 pentacon is one of the best lenses i have and it only cost £30 all my canon lenses are on the efm system so i cant offer any advice on the canon ef side of things, i do alot of wildlife with a 100-400mm and though its not a macro lens it gives a good image of flowers and dragonflies too with its longer telephoto a little further back what sort of macro subjects are you looking to capture?
Some of the best macro photos I have ever taken have been with inexpensive, older manual focus lenses (primarily M42 mount) adapted to EOS, and used with extension tubes. It is a great way to determine whether macro photography is something that you are truly interested in, before spending a lot of money on a dedicated macro lens. There is also an older manual focus, dedicated macro lens, the Panagor 90mm f/28. I had one in OM mount adapted to EOS. The dragonfly photo was taken with a Jupiter 37A 135mm f/3.5 in M42 mount plus extension tubes.The raspberries and cream was taken with the Panagor. I paid less than $100 for each option.
