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Macro lens for Nikon D70

George Farmer said:
Try capturing a fast moving fish like this green chromis by focusing manually so close up and you're a better man than me!
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I wondered if Mark would step forward with a shot like that... Fair play! D
 
Wow, spectacular mate. :clap: That's what I'm talking about. This is art and the artist takes the picture, not the gear. The gear has to enable the artist and then it has to get out of the way.

Cheers,
 
Cheers Clive.

photographing fish, when so damn close to the subject is tough, then when you don't have a focusing ring, and have to move the camera, it's even tougher. I've found an easy way around the latter problem though.
 
ceg4048 said:
Is it using super small apertures?
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No mate, but I can see where your coming from. I know this a 'nikon' thread, but I'll tell you about the canon 65MP-E

The lens magnify s up to 5x and to get from 1 through to 5 x magnification you have to turn the barrel like any other zoom lens. Now the difference with this lens is there's no focusing barrel! When I first started using it, I went on many forums investigating this lens, and many pros were making tables that moved, to bring close or make further the subject to get it into focus. ...still with me?... :lol:

now all i could do was move the tripod to get the same effect. hand held with this thing is impossible...almost.

what I discovered was, when I passed through the different focal/magnifications the subject came into focus...unlike other zoom lenses'.So i figured, if I get the subject roughly (within mm on this bad boy, which is actually like yards!) I could then use the barrel to my advantage, thus turning the barrel into a accurate focusing ring! BINGO! 😀

I think I can make a HD vid, showing what i mean. what you see in the vid would be how I worked the lens. :thumbup: give me a while.
 
I got a new lens (second hand) for my Nikon D70, a Nikon 28-105mm F3.5-4.5D that has a macro mode. Obviously it is not as good as a 105mm fixed lens, but it was cheap and the macro mode goes to 1:2, so far so good.

I took some pics of my fish, and was shocked at how dirty my glass was.. 🙂
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Still need to save enough for a fixed lens, keep seeing the 105mm 2.5 for sale, but as Clive recommended the 105mm 2.8 I am still trying to find one under £300. 🙂

However the results with the new lens are very good, for me that is. 😀
 
ceg4048 said:
Hi Luis,
You might also consider a used copy of the Nikkor 105mm Micro f/2.8 AI-s. There ought to be plenty of these on fleabay. This is a manual focus lens but if you're using it for macro then this doesn't matter. If you want to use it for general shooting then you'll want the post 1990 version called the 105mm f/2.8 AF or even the AF-D, but these might break your budget.

Cheers,
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Took me a while but managed to get one 105mm Micro f/2.8 AI-s with a one year warranty for £180 delivered. 🙂 Can't wait to use it..

Thanks for the advice !!
 
Hi Luis,
The 105mm f/2.5 is actually not a macro lens but instead just a regular 105mm prime lens, so the optical design is a lot different than the f2.8.

I think I really screwed up though, because on a D70 I think that the AI-s lenses do not provide metering. I was reading D70 but was thinking D700, which meters perfectly with AI-s lenses.

There are a couple of ways to compensate for this deficiency;
1. The cheap way is to use the 105mm exposure setting setting on your zoom and then set those values manually as you swap the lens over.

2. The less cheap way is to use an external light meter, which you probably don't have. It can be either a regular hand held meter, such as any of the ones you see on ebay hand held meters or a mini meter that mounts on your flash hot shoe and gives you the values to set. Check out Gossen Digisix

I do apologize mate. If I had realized that you had already gotten the zoom I would have advise to just stick with that, because it's excellent optically and has very similar macro range, but I missed your last post.

Cheers,
 
🙂 no issue mate. I got the 2.8, not the 2.5. Also, will try the lens, and if it does not do what I want then I will just sell it again, probably loose small money on it, but no big issue.

Will get a light meter, will need one anyway if I want to get better at this malarkey of photography.. 🙂

Your advice is greatly appreciated and welcome.

Cheers,
Luis
 
You're right George. Because you can see the results immediately you can just fool around with the exposure settings until you get something you like. It's just a pain not having instant metering if the subject has changing light or if it's something dynamic where you only get one chance at the shot.

When I'm taking tank pictures I never use the meter because the lighting is always so bizarre. I just set some values and look at the results.

Cheers,
 
Thanks a lot guys, the advice is very welcome. The lens will be used for the large part on macro photos, either plants, bugs, whatever takes my fancy, and I am used to play with the exposure mode. As it is digital, as George says, I take a couple of photos with diferent exposures, and then choose what come out better, or what looks better to me.

I am not a pro, just like to have fun with it. 🙂

Thanks once again.
 
I'm so familiar with shooting my aquariums now I know roughly what settings I need to dial in, in manual mode, of course.

I recommend shooting manual as much as possible to really get to grips with understanding the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO. When you get more experienced you can second guess the settings without metering, just based your perception of the lighting situation. Like all things, practice makes "perfect".
 
Thanks George,

I have been shooting manual for a while now, and still trying to get to grips with how the settings all work. Will get there in the end. 🙂

Practice makes perfect, and it is amazing how old camera and lenses can take such amazing pics.
 
ghostsword said:
Practice makes perfect, and it is amazing how old camera and lenses can take such amazing pics.
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One of the reasons I have not upgraded yet, for what I need the old Konica does the job 😉 I am even using more often the compact camera now! So even less reason to upgrade it!
 
I could not go back to compact after trying the SLR.. 🙂 The compacts take great pictures outside, but indoors the slr is really great. Maybe I just had cheap compacts.. 🙂

Would like to get a G10, for day to day shooting, but will need to wait some more until the prices drop to my range.
 
Check my new journal, all photos taken with the TZ7 😉
 
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