Re: Nikkor 200mm micro vs 60mm micro?
- From: dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx (DoN. Nichols)
- Date: 20 Jul 2006 03:41:44 GMT
According to Scott Speck <kaiju@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
Hello Everyone,
I recently bought a 60mm Nikkor micro lens for my Nikon D50, and I love it.
I've taken some great pictures with it, but I've found the following (one of
which I had considered beforehand):
1) I have to get really close to reach minimal focal distance and thus
[ ... too close to stinging bugs ... ]
2) to decrease my exposure times for hand-held shots, I'm keeping the lens
[ ... DOF too small ... ]
However, I've thought of perhaps upgrading to the 200mm Micro Nikkor. This
[ ... considered longer lens to solve problems ... ]
I'm also considering upping my ISO to 400 or 800, since I shot almost
exclusively in pure manual mode, including manual focus, to help shorten my
exposure times.
*This* will help you somewhat.
However, since you are shooting in manual mode anyway, I would
suggest that you try the slightly newer version of the 200mm f5.6
Medical Nikkor. This comes with a set of six screw-in close-up lenses,
used in sets of one or two -- never more, and rings on the barrel into
which you crank the ASA (yes, it is that old) and the magnification
ratio and it will set the aperture appropriately.
The big win for this is that it comes with a built-in ring
flash, so you get excellent illumination of your subjects.
The reason I suggest the slightly newer version is that the
first version had a choice of an AC-powered pack or a battery-powered
one which used batteries which are now *quite* expensive and hard to
find. *And* it only puts out full power -- unless you get the special
cable which allows reduced power. This is a problem only because the
flash is too bright to use at the closest settings (1X to 3X) with the
200 ISO minimum with the D70 and D50.
The newer one has a battery pack which will run from eight "D"
cells, thus reducing the cost of operation, and it has a switch to
reduce the flash intensity by a factor of 4, thus allowing operation
at the closest lens combinations.
With either -- you focus only by changing the camera-to-subject
distance.
Optically -- the two are the same -- but things like the
connectors on the cables between the power pack and the lens barrel
differ -- four pins on the old one, three on the new. (It also powers
four incandescent lamps placed behind the ring flash at 90 degree
intervals as a focusing and composition light.)
For your convenience, I'll type in the table of lens-to-subject
distances for the various magnifications:
Ratio CU lenses Lens-to-subject
============================================================
1/15X 1:15 bare lens 10' 11.89" (3350mm)
1/8X 1:8 1/8 lens
1/6X 1:6 1/6 lens 5' 10.08" (1780mm)
1/4X 1:4 1/4 lens 4' 4.64" (1336mm)
1/3X 1:3 1/4 + 1/6 lens 2' 1.0" ( 890mm)
1/2X 1:2 1/2 lens 1' 5.56" ( 446mm)
2/3X 2:3 1/2 + 1/4 lens 1' 0.83" ( 326mm)
1X 1:1 1x lens 0' 8.70" ( 221mm)
1.5X 3:2 1X + 1/2X lens 0' 6.06" ( 154mm)
2X 2:1 2X 0' 4.25" ( 108mm)
3X 3:1 2X + 1X 0' 2.83" ( 72mm)
There is a chart on the lens barrel to indicate which lenses to
use in which order to achieve which magnification. In the newer one,
the lenses images are color anodized to match a colored paint ring in
a groove in the mount. All of the older ones are all black, so this is
one way to tell them apart on ebay or if you luck into one at a swap
meet. (The other is the 3-pin for the new flash power cable vs the
4-pin for the older one.
Note that there is another feature of this which will be useless
with a 1.5 crop factor body -- One of the rings allows you to set it to
record either a frame number or the magnification ratio in the bottom
right-hand corner -- but well out of the field of view on any 1.5 crop
factor sensor. There is also a setting to turn this off entirely. (The
older version had a ring to select the brightness of the annotation to
match the film's ASA, and one choice of this was "off".
To connect the flash sync you will need a Nikon AS-15 for the
top of a D70 or D50, which gives the standard PC connector. I've
checked the voltage at the flash sync terminals, and they are within the
range of voltages listed as safe for the D70 (and presumably for the D50
as well.)
Depth of field for the lens at 1:1 ratio is listed for each
aperture:
f5.6 +0.013" -0.013"
f8 +0.018" -0.018"
f11 +0.025" -0.025"
f16 +0.037" -0.037"
f22 +0.051" -0.051"
f32 +0.073" -0.073"
f45 +0.104" -0.104"
The asymmetry at the smallest aperture shows at other ratios as
well. However, let's look at what apertures are really *practical* as a
function of the flash output and the ISO -- based on the built-in ring
calculator:
ISO 200, full flash power f45
ISO 200, 1/4 flash power f22
ISO 800, 1/4 flash power f45
So larger apertures don't come into the equation.
At 3X, to use f4.5 you need 1/4 power at ISO 300, or ISO 64 at full
power, which you can't do on a D70 or a D50.
You can use the rings "backwards" to see what ISO setting will
allow you to use the desired aperture (usually f45 for anything close).
Since these have not been made for a *long* time, you will need
to haunt eBay for one. I did -- to upgrade from the older version which
does not allow the 1/4 power flash output, but which I had used with a
Nikon F and Polaroid color slide film.
Enjoy,
DoN.
--
Email: <dnichols@xxxxxxxxxxx> | Voice (all times): (703) 938-4564
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