• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Macro lens for Nikon D70

ghostsword

Member
Joined
19 Nov 2009
Messages
3,423
Location
Cape Town, South Africa
Hi, I am starting on photography and got a second hand Nikon D70. Great camera, great photos and cheap to buy.

I am now looking for a lens to use for macro shots.

Would you have any recommendation? I would like to spend no more than £200, if possible. :)
 
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,
 
Thanks Ceg, I will check all of these.

The Tamron is about £350 @ Jessops (http://www.jessops.com/online.store/pro ... /show.html) brand new. Twice the price of the camera, the good thing is that I will be able to use it with any other Nikon I buy. If I find that photography is not for me I will just sell the kit and loose some money, but it will not break the bank. :)

The Nikkor's are really out of my league.. I didn't know that lenses would be that expensive.

The Nikon 400mm f/2.8G ED VR IF Nikkor AF, for example, £6519 ... :)

Will look for the Nikkor 105 on ebay..
 
Yes, OEM lenses are always atrociously expensive, but the lens you mentioned is for proffessionals, whose income depend on their gear. Amateurs seldom have need for a 400mm f/2.8G ED VR IF. Furthermore, the price of this lens is only partially due to it's optical quality. This pro lens is made of metal and is almost bullet proof because it has to stand up to the rigours of a professional life. It will be in the jungle or the dessert or in a civil war being shot at, so it has to be tough. You can get 95% of this lens optical abilities in some of the lesser plastic lenses, even for example the 70-300mm AF G, which I paid $70 for new at a discount shop in NYC will work fine. But if I got attacked in NYC I couldn't use this lense to ward off the attackers. The £6000 lens could easily be brandished as a weapon against the marauders and will take great shots later that day.

Check out what cheap plastic Nikon lenses are capable of in A New York Moment

You don't need to spend 6 grand. If you do decide to sell your gear, the fat that they are OEM means that you'll get more for them. So in terms of depreciation, I would always suggest OEM gear.

Cheers,
 
I have the AF-S micro Nikkor 105mm 2.8, which is optically beautiful when just used as straight forward prime lens, but it isn`t cheap. Ironically, I have hardly ever used it for macro photography, but manual focussing is usually the order of the day for this type of photography.

Try looking for a refurbished manual focus as Clive suggests, but remember, you should only ever need to buy a lens once, so make the right choice and invest wisely. All my lenses are Nikkor, bomb proof, and should last me a life time of photography.

Dave.
 
Thanks Dave and Clive.

I will then invest on a OEM lens, especially if the depreciation is less than others, and the fact that they are very well built and resistant. The good factor is if I take the hobby further I can use the lenses on another Nikon.

I have been playing with the D70 at home, and the results are really good, although still in Auto.

Thank you.
 
Also, any book that you would recommend for a complete newbie to photography? After coming from the point and shoot world I even had to read the manual to see how could I disable the flash on the camera. :?
 
Try this, Luis. I haven`t read it, so don`t know if it is of any use.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d70/ni ... -guide.pdf

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d70/d7 ... .htm#index

I can only take Ken Rockwell in small doses. :lol:

As for books on how to take photographs, I find them all more or less useless. It is a bit like buying a book on how to aquascape. It is looking at actual tanks in Aqua Journal etc. that will make you a better aquascaper, not reading about how to put substrate in, how to plant and so on. I feel photography is the same. Looking at the work of great photographers will teach how to take a photograph far more than reading reams and reams on ISO, f stop etc, just as looking at great aquascapes will make you a better aquascaper rather than reading about drop checkers. For good books on photography that are inspirational, I buy books on my favourite photographers such as HCB, Sebastiao Salgado etc.

Dave.
 
Thanks Dave,

Sebastiao Salgado is indeed something to look at, his work on the "Sem Terra" is inspirational.

My issue is that I got no idea whatsoever what the different dials on the camera does. Been looking at the manual, and it has helped a lot. :) It sounds lame, but working with the camera has to be a kick in the backside out of my comfort zone. :)

For example, it took me a while to understand that the lens I have with the camera only works when set up to 22, still don't know what the 22 is for, but unless it is on 22 and locked I see a Fee error on the display. :)

Been also using Flickr for details on how the pics were taken, and that has helped to see the diferent effects aperture, contrast, etc, has.

As the camera does not have a live view, I take a photo with separate settings, then see it on the pc.

Coming from a point and shoot camera, the camera on Auto is pretty amazing, even being a 6mp, leading me to think that mp are overrated.

The Ken Rockwell guides are perfect.. Simple to follow. :)

Thank You.
 
Live view it really what's overrated....

When you learn to see your world through a viewfinder you'll find that you'll take better photos.

Cheers,
 
saintly said:
ghostsword said:
leading me to think that mp are overrated.

not if your doing prints up to A1 and above. A3+ for that matter ;) . For standard web work it's not so important


:) then this camera will last me until it dies.. :) No more than A4 for me.. :) Even that is too big, I think.
 
ceg4048 said:
Live view it really what's overrated....

When you learn to see your world through a viewfinder you'll find that you'll take better photos.

Cheers,

Thanks.. It will take time. When I got the camera I kept pointing and not seeing anything on the screen.. LOL, looked like a right wally.

Must have been hard before digital, you only knew your picture came right when you developed the film.
 
ghostsword said:
Must have been hard before digital, you only knew your picture came right when you developed the film.
Not as much as you might imagine. You knew your gear. You understood the photographic principles. You understood the characteristics of the film, what it was capable of and what it's weaknesses were. There were always disappointments but you simply took better pictures because you only had so many frames, so each one counted. Now you can just shoot willy nilly without a care, so less attention is paid to each shot because you can always delete and repeat. It's making the corrections to prints which were a pain. Much less fun generally than taking the shot.

Cheers,
 
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,
Auto focus sure does matter with macro.

I am doing a lot of underwater photography with ny 60mm f/2.8 Nikon Lens. Trust me it sure helps.
 
stuworrall said:
secondhand Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro would do fine on that camera luis

I 2nd this recommendation. I bought this lens for my D70 a few years ago. It's an awesome lens, absolutely pin sharp and very useful for general photography not just macro. When I bought my D70 (now retired) it came with the kit lens. I could not believe the improvement in image quality I saw when I started using this lens rather than the kit lens. I think it's good value. :thumbup:
 
Back
Top