D800 and Micro Nikkor AF 200mm

[lornesunley]

<p>I took this picture with the D800 and Micro-Nikkor AF 200 at F11 using a ring light flash</p>

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[lornesunley]

<p>This is a 100% crop from the focus point area</p><div></div>

[mike_halliwell]

<p>Was this taken with AF (S or C)? Was the 'seed-head free to move? If it's AF, at a wild guess I think it might be front focusing....either optically or by focus-point selection.</p>

<p>DOF doesn't appear to extend very far into the seed-head, so wonder if it's in front?</p>

<p>I'd probably have given it, maybe, +1/3 EV, but that's very much aesthetic preference!</p>

<p>However, when it's sharp, is very sharp!</p>

[Ian Rance]

<p>Troube is with the D800, even stopped down, close up images have a very thin band of sharp focus. The best way I have found is to consider what you want to be pin sharp in the image and use live view (at wide open aperture) to get that point sharp. Stopping down will give you more front to back sharpness, but none of it will be as sharp as the point you set with the lens wide open.</p>

[gene m]

<p>"Trouble is with the D800, even stopped down, close up images have a very thin band of sharp focus."</p>

<p>Why <em>is</em> that ?</p>

[lornesunley]

<p>I used AF-C single spot (bad technique, I know) I only used f/11 aperture so the depth of field will be very shallow. The seed head was free to move and I was hand-holding the camera. The focus point was on the head of the seed in the center of the crop.</p>

[lornesunley]

<p>"Troube is with the D800, even stopped down, close up images have a very thin band of sharp focus" - I have always found this to be the case with any close up photography, up to now, I have been using a D700 and the narrow band of focus happens with that camera as well.</p>

[rodeo_joe1]

<p>The more you magnify an image, the shallower the depth-of-field appears to be. Fact of life and fact of physics. So a D800 magnifies more at 100% viewing than, say a D700 - so what? At the same printed or viewed size the DoF would be identical. The resolution ain't, but there's 4 years and $1200 between them!</p>

[Andrew Garrard]

<p>Out of interest, are you not starting to get diffraction limited by f/11?</p>

[ilkka_nissila]

<p>I think many lenses start to be diffraction affected after f/5.6 :-) But in the case of the 200mm AF Micro, at or near 1:1 magnification, there is massive CA at wide apertures and you have to stop down to f/8 or f/11 (effective aperture) to get rid of it on a D7000 (should be about the same with the D800). I would typically shoot with the combination at f/11 when I had it. With the D3X I haven't shot with it enough but maybe f/8-f/11 is probably the best. Some of the shorter macros work well even wide open (e.g. 60mm f/2.8G AF-S).</p>