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By ilkka_nissila · Posted
I haven't yet found the time to test the working distances of the 105 MC, 200 Micro and 100-400 mm but I read the 105 MC working distance is 1 mm longer than the F-mount 105 VR's (at 1:1). However, 1:1 doesn't really interest me that much as there is such little depth of field that it can be impractical to use without focus stacking (and that's only going to work for subjects that are still). For many situations being able to shoot from around 1:1.5 to 1:3 is useful, and at f/11 there can be adequate depth of field that covers enough of the subject to be useful without stacking. I'm interested in checking how the working distances compare between these lenses at the maximum magnification of the 100-400 (1:2.63), and will be testing it soon. I did my first practical close-up shoot with the 100-400 on frogs but alas, the conditions were wet & muddy and my camera malfunctioned. I found that at the location it was difficult to get the 100-400 low enough for optimal shooting angle, and a shorter and smaller lens could have worked out better, allowing me to get closer to the water surface and also to the subjects. However, there was a lot of mud and movement of the camera had to be done using a complicated process working with my rain cover, a small pillow, and a camping mattress. 😉 Although the zoom on the 100-400 is not as stiff or slow as the 200-500's, it still requires a bit of force and so it couldn't be done rapidly under the conditions. I will revisit the location soon and look for other places where I might have easier access to the surface of the water. The image quality of the 100-400 at close range was good, I couldn't really tell any noticeable difference in sharpness to what I'm used to seeing from macro lenses in this practical application; I mean a side-by-side comparison might reveal something but it was not like the 100-400 was soft in any sense of the word. However, being a fairly big lens it is more clumsy to operate for close-ups on the ground than a 105 or 200 mm Micro. When working at long focal length close-ups, one can often miss something in the foreground that leads to a blurry distraction in the images (when the lens is stopped down). The Z cameras show the viewfinder image at f/5.6 when the shooting aperture is f/11, and so the depth of field is not shown correctly by default (not sure if there is a preview available, need to assign that to a Fn button for these situations). Focusing on the 100-400 at close range is fairly slow and can take some time to get to the right subject. Under less wet conditions I could have more easily operated the manual focus on the lens but of course since I wasn't using a tripod but a pillow, use of the rings was compromised by the fact that the lens was lying on the pillow. However, I don't have any tripod + head combination that could get me as low on the ground as this. Anyway, I'm not terribly keen how the handling of long macros is in the field, there are fewer camera angles that one can work a given subject from, and a bigger lens makes for less convenient management of the position also near the ground. However, one fits the lens to the situation and I'm sure I'll be using the 100-400 from time to time for this purpose. I suppose it might also be worth testing the 1.4 X with it for these close-ups, but I'm not a big fan of TCs and there isn't much light to work with in this location (sunlight may be available during the day but if one wants a low sun angle then it might not be). -
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By luis triguez · Posted
Nikkor AF-S 16-85 DX (68) on D2X Nikkor AF-S 70-300 G ED VR (250) on D2X
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