What macro lens for a Nikon D3000?

I'm getting a macro lens for my D3000 and am stuck between a Tamron SP AF 90MM Di and a Tokina AT-X 100MM.

What one would be better?

Tokina is the best maker of third party lenses.

They should be, that are the makers of Pentax and Hoya lens filters.

Among the inexpensive third party lenses I find Tokina and Sigma to be good companies. One of my friends has had bad experiences with Tamron and I too find most of their lenses too soft for my taste.

Go for Tokina model among these two.

Both have a reputation of being very good lenses. However, in the end I'd still go with the Tokina lens due to its vastly superior build.

If you don't know already, both lenses will not autofocus with the D3000.

I'd recommend the Tokina, or another choice, a Sigma - Sigma's 105mm and 50mm macro lenses are superb quality.

None of those lenses will autofocus on your D3000, however, for macro work you are usually manually focusing anyway.

This was taken with a Sigma 50mm f2.8 macro;