Help me pick a macro lens!

[XMIT]

A couple of months ago I acquired a Nikon D600, full frame DSLR. It is everything I hoped it would be and more. What a fantastic camera. It also opens up a world of possibilities with glass!

I think it is time to pick a macro lens! I of course have some screw on magnification lens filters for my 50mm prime lens. But, between the Nikon 50mm f/1.4's spherical lens element, and the spherical nature of the filters, chromatic aberration is really quite awful.

I read kenrockwell.com for thoughts and advice. He suggests that 105mm is the minimum focal length for a good macro lens, and that a manual lens is a cheaper option. This is fine for a specialty lens, I don't need fancy auto-focus on something I'll use somewhat infrequently.

So, I think something like the "Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AI-s" would do nicely. See: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/105mm-f28.htm

Any thoughts? What do you use for nice macro shots of key switches, switch elements, and the like?

[seebart]

I'd love to help, but I don't know Nikon. That 105mm f/2.8 AI-s you linked looks pretty good. I use old analog Pentax lenses with my K-10 simply because they're way cheaper and the glass quality is often better. When I don't want to crawl right up to tiny stuff I use either a 135mm 1:2,8 or a 70-210mm 1:2,8 zoom.

[Muirium]

Rockwell's an opinionated… um… I won't judge him, I'm all that myself too! But I do know that a friend's 85 mm Nikkor Micro lens is an excellent macro. Although not an option for you as it's DX, and your full frame needs FX.

Despite all the "pros" (actual day job in photography *not* guaranteed!) saying that macro photography is all about manual focussing, I do about 80%+ of my macro shots just fine with auto focus. Depends what you're shooting and how close you need to go. Caps? Not so close. Switch components? Yes, closer! Smaller subjects begin to demand creative focussing. Go manual, and move the camera fractions of a millimetre instead!

Anyway, here's Nikon's full lineup:

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/Nikon-Produc ... index.page

Narrow it down to what even Nikon calls "macro" lenses, and you'll see they have a lineup of 10. Impressive! And several are manual. Hokey!

For comparison, here's my little Canon macro lens. Probably one of the most prolific lenses on DT:

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/ ... _macro_usm

And I've been having a lot of luck with this wee STM (constant autofocus) zoom that my brother gave me as he's too much of a snob to use any non-L series glass with his 7D…

http://www.usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/ ... 5_6_is_stm

All of The Cappening pictures have been with this lens so far. It's more than a little barrel distorted at short focal lengths, but compared to my 60 mm macro prime, it makes whole keyboard shots so much easier! I don't need a ladder…

Anyway, for you I'd say both Nikon's 105s look pretty good. My camera's crop factor is 1.6 so my 60 mm macro is like 96 mm at full frame, so they're pretty close. I can tell you that anything longer would be no use at all on keyboards except for shots of individual springs and the like!

Could be worth checking out Sigma's lenses too, I like them. A quick look turns up this compact macro:

http://www.sigmaphoto.com/product/70mm-f28-ex-dg-macro

Here's the thing with macro lenses. You have a trade-off between how extreme you want the lens to be when used on tiny objects, versus how flexible you want it to be as a general purpose prime lens. My Canon macro is my sharpest lens, so I use it as a normal prime a whole lot. Anything much longer would be less useful to me. Except when shooting intense, tiny, macros. And my old camera's just not much use at that anyway. True macrophotography is all about immense amounts of light, and ISO speed.

[XMIT]

Ken is a fun read if nothing else.

The D600 is "DadCam Mark II". Its predecessor, still in service, is a D7000, "DadCam". I wouldn't pass up a deal on a really nice, cheap DX format macro lens.

But my house is a Nikon house now on account of two DSLRs.

[Redmaus]

Anyone know a good place to learn about photography?

I can use an Eos 5d and an Eos7d but I need to learn more

[Muirium]

Learn by doing. Keep shooting different things, in different places, trying to focus on something fresh about them. Then review your results. Always review your results! And learn where you suck, to try again.

You just kind of get into a flow. Like writing, and anything else where there aren't golden rules besides trying.

[seebart]

True, and shooting keyboard parts in macro is a bad place to start.

[Muirium]

Spot on. You need to get comfortable shooting ordinary things, just to get the feel of the camera. Best place to do that is outside on a sunny day. The difference between being a newb and getting good is simply "knowing" exactly what you need to do or adjust, without having to reason why. Book smarts pale in comparison.

[Redmaus]

Spot on. You need to get comfortable shooting ordinary things, just to get the feel of the camera. Best place to do that is outside on a sunny day. The difference between being a newb and getting good is simply "knowing" exactly what you need to do or adjust, without having to reason why. Book smarts pale in comparison.

I actually do this a lot, I more need to know about light exposure and other things. My father is a photography fanatic, so I have access to great photography equipment.

[Muirium]

What's troubling you then?

[seebart]

Yeah sounds like you got favourable conditions Redmaus!

[XMIT]

The only book I've got is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. That's a good place to start.

But you're young, have access to nice equipment, and have a summer off. Learn by doing!

As for me I'll just keep looking into macro lenses and maybe see if I can reduce chromatic aberration in my current setup through post-processing.

[Muirium]

The only book I ever read about photography was Playboy! I mean, I wasn't there for the articles…

[Madhias]

A nice camera you have acquired, XMIT! Choosing a macro lens is actually easier than others, since a lot of macro lenses are nice, manual focus is most of the time enough and when using it in a macro distance too you always stop down were you have no big quality issues then anymore. Probably when it comes to overall image quality also wide opened when using not only as a macro lens - for example a 100mm macro as a portrait lens - it will limit your choices.

For keycap and keyboard shooting 100 or 105mm are sometimes too long, at least I have a problem sometimes and wish I had a 60mm macro instead. It is true what Ken tells us that the focal length of a macro must be longer, often because you are your own big shadow in macro shoots then. But that counts more for shooting in the nature outside, and not for a well illuminated keyboard.

I'd say when you get the Nikon 105mm macro you will be very happy, and maybe also when you get the older AI-s. But also all other models will perform well, when actually used as a stopped down macro lens. I would suggest to buy used, and not new (of course this is an easy choice with the AI-s).

I use my macro also as a telephoto lens, and like to use it then wide opened too, to have some nice blurry background. I have a manual Zeiss lens, the 100mm Makro-Planar ZF.2. I am more than happy with it, and using this lens is a pleasure! When you move the focus ring it feels like there is butter inside the lens. I decided for this lens instead of the Nikon 105mm macro (the new version with auto focus) because of being a special lens which is not used as much as other lenses and mostly because of build quality and buttery bokeh magic. But that's just personal preference, and not measured with charts...

[pyrelink]

That Nikon 105mm 2.8 ai/s is the same one that I have been eying for a while now. I am still using a Nikon D200 but even with a cropped sensor, I think that will be a pretty good macro option at that price. If you do decide to get it, I would love to see what you think of it.

[XMIT]

The D200 is a nice camera as well. Now that we live in 2015 - it is The Future after all - a used D600 is a bargain.

I'm debating between a 105mm and a ~60mm macro lens. The only FX lens I have at the moment is the 50mm f/1.4 AF-S G lens. A friend got the aspherical f/1.8 lens to reduce aberration even further. I need to check to see if getting an aspherical macro lens is an option without breaking the bank.

[Muirium]

The chintzy lens in any phone camera is aspherical. It's a silly term to use for marketing purposes — a technicality that signifies nothing in isolation — but that never puts them off.

What's the macro ratio of the 60 mm? That seems very short for a full frame lens.

[XMIT]

True, a 60mm FX lens is pretty short. A ~60mm DX (half size sensor) lens is more reasonable. It may be cheaper.

[Muirium]

Remember that cropped lenses don't work on full frame cameras (at all, in Canon land) or at least not well. They won't illuminate the whole sensor. Just a circle in the middle.

Of course, you've got more camera bodies so may well be full aware of this. Just a warning.

[XMIT]

Yep. I have both a half-frame and full-frame sensor camera body. Nikon cameras offer two options for using a cropped lens on a full frame camera: "crop the image" mode, and "screw it, just take a photo of what you see" mode which often has the corners cut off and/or some vignetting.

[pyrelink]

You can use DX lenses on an FX body, however the camera must be set to "DX Mode" first, else you get a picture that looks like you are looking through a telescope.

[Muirium]

Reasonable. Canon likes to make its EFs lenses more compact by moving the rear optical elements behind the mounting flange. What that means is that an EFs lens could damage your full frame (EF) camera, which has a larger mirror which swings through that space. So Canon makes the mounts a little different such that crop bodies accept both lens types while the full frame bodies can only mount an EF lens.

[Madhias]

True, a 60mm FX lens is pretty short.

It really depends on what you want to do. With a 60mm lens you could make pictures also of complete keyboards, which will be not so easy with a 105mm lens. Do you want to use such a lens just for macro at close distance?

[Muirium]

Very true. Long sounds great but doesn't work out so good in practice. You want a dedicated lens for shots of insect wings and taking pictures of the individual letters of switch logos? A long macro isn't good for much else, besides being an expensive, heavy and not at all long telephoto.

I find my 60 mm (equivalent to ~100 mm full frame) to be a bit long, if anything. It's no good for whole keyboard shots. But its detail work is something else. With an unlimited budget I'd get a new camera or two (still on my 350D for goodness sake…) and I guess Canon's 100 mm or even 180 mm full frame macro. Then I'd shoot with two bodies and two very different lenses. That wins over any jack of all trades. But for now I'm swapping lenses for the same effect!

[faycheung]

I shoot Canon. For macro, I've only had experience with the EF 100mm, which I don't have with me at the moment. It is fantastic with a single IS mode, and up to 30 cm min focus distance at F/2.8. The lens is sharp, little to no vignette, and no chromatic aberrations unless shooting into light sources. The lens is alright for portrait, but only at considerable distance, it's not very practical or flexible in everyday situations, unless you're sure to have your subjects far away. Like the others sad, the 60mm makes more sense, as it's easier to cover the entire keyboard. This lens isn't too heavy, but the problem arises when you mount it on a tripod, where there's still considerable weight on the lens to shift CG around, not sure of Nikkor equivalent will include a mounting arm.

I've read somewhere that reverse lens macro using either one or two prime lenses could be an affordable and fun way of getting macro, but I've got no experience on that.

I've gone a strange step backwards ditching EF in favour of M42. I had a Pentax(?) 75-200 with a macro range which worked nicely. I shoot mostly distant subjects so my current collection consists of a Helios 44-2 57mm F/2, a Jupiter 37A 135mm F/3.5 and a Tair-3s 300mm F/4.5 from a Zenit FS-12 kit, as well as a few other cheap lenses I haven't taken a look at. These lenses are cheap and all manual, manual focus, manual aperture and manual stop-down, which makes it all the more fun

[XMIT]

I had the opportunity to borrow a Nikon AF-S Micro NIKKOR 60mm 1:28G ED lens from a friend. It is a 60mm macro with a working distance of about 18.5mm at 1:1.

I was just playing with it some yesterday. Here is a teaser shot of an NEC blue oval switch, hand held, that I took last night. Yes, I need to work on lighting, put the camera on a tripod, etc. But it's still not bad at all.

DSC_1186.jpg (351.82 KiB) Viewed 4261 times

[seebart]

It looks you got the focus on the switch housing. That's not meant critically. I generally have a hard time shooting small objects like keyswitches.

[XMIT]

Yeah, the focal distance of this lens is pretty small. I shot this at f/22 as this was the best I could do hand held with available light. This lens stops down all the way to f/57 at point-blank range. It's practically a pinhole camera at that point!

[seebart]

what I have tried with objects like that is gently fix them on some pliers and shoot outside if the light conditions are good. This is a Clare Pendar switch. Shooting it was still hard.

IMGP9083.JPG (346.31 KiB) Viewed 4237 times

IMGP9101.JPG (345.36 KiB) Viewed 4237 times

[Muirium]

Welcome to the strange world of macrophotography. I was amazed how little depth of field there was at f/22 and the like when I first tried it. The closer you get, the weirder the microcosm you're playing in.

My little 60 mm EFs macro's maximum f/32 brings in diffraction fringes, which isn't good news either. Every macro lens has its sweet spot aperture wise, even in perfect light.

Of course I really value that lens for how well it handles when I'm not pushing it nearly so close. It's tack sharp in normal use.