N80 and Close Up Photos

[jburn]

I have a Nikon N80, with a Nikon 28-80mm G lens and a Nikon 70-300mm

G lens. I would like to start doing some close ups and have been

looking at the Nikon PN-11 extension tube. Anybody have any experence

with this combination. Any suggestions or comments; Pro or Con.

Thanks

[Jerry_]

The PN-11 is a 'manual-everything' extension tube, right?

 

With the G-type Nikkor lenses you have, the only f-stop available would be f16 or f22 (the smallest) as the N80 needs to set the f-stop internally, which is not possible with the PN-11 tube.

 

A good suggestion: find a AF 60mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens for close-up work. It is designed to shoot close to your subject.

[juaini]

I once bought a set of used third-party extension tubes off Eb*y for 5 dollars. the catch? no AF, no metering. what I did was to meter off a gray card in manual mode, add exposure compensation (how much exactly depends on how much extension you�re adding), put on the extension tube and fire away. Er, tripod, of course.

 

oh, but i used my 50mm f/1.8 for this. you can�t do it with a G lens, you need to set the aperture using the aperture ring. so i guess my post is just to let you know that there are cheap alternatives. the 50mm f/1.8 can, after all, be found for under USD100.

 

or, you could stack lenses. i�d recommend the 50mm for this one, too. put your 70-300 on the body, and fit the 50mm on the front of your 70-300, filterthread-to-filterthread. you can buy adapter rings to do this for you. this will likely give you pretty large magnifications, but with very little working distance, it wouldn�t be very practical for working outdoors. and again, the lens you fit on the front of you r70-300 will need to have an aperture ring, because you need to be able to keep it open at max aperture.

 

other than that, you could buy a set of Kenko extension tubes, they make a set that retain AF and metering with the newer bodies. this would probably be more economical than a new macro lens, if you�re not sure you really want to invest that much money in it.

[hudsonphotos]

Wouldn't it be easier to buy a Macro lens? Nikon makes several great ones. I use the 60mm 2.8 1:1 micro.

[leif_goodwin8]

Jack. Years ago I tried using a Nikon 35-80mm AFD lens with extension tubes. The results were awful. The lens is optimised for medium and distant ranges. Even close up results without extension were poor. Your 28mm to 80mm lens is of similar optical quality. Why not take some test photos with each lens at its closest focus to test the performance?

 

However, what you can do, and you might have some success, is add a diopter to the front of a lens. Use an achromatic (2 element) one for good results and stop the lens down to F11 or F16 to reduce aberrations. I would choose the 70-300mm lens as this will give you lots of working distance. I don't think you need a full size on on the 70-300mm lens. It would cost a fortune. I am sure you could use stop down rings to attach a 62mm diopter. You should not get vignetting at F11. Search Photo Net for related threads. I know for sure there is a thread on using a 62mm diopter on the Nikon 400mm F5.6 lens. Also see the earlier thread in this forum about diopters.

 

Oh yes, and get yourself a solid tripod and head. Avoid small ball heads. They are useless!

 

Here is a link to my site with lots of close up photos:

 

http://mysite.freeserve.com/ukfungi

 

There are also some comments on macro photography and some recommended books. The one by John Shaw is superb. Old, but still good.

 

Hope this helps. Leif.

[leif_goodwin8]

Oh yes, as for buying a macro lens, Jason is correct in stating that the Nikon 60mm AFD lens is superb. My favourite lens. But it does cost a bit, and a diopter is a nice inexpensive way for you to dip a toe in the water.

[mskovacs]

You almost certainly want to use diopters with a long lens like 70-300. The Nikon 5T (1.5D) and 6T (3T) 62mm screw-in filters are superb. You will get gobs of magnification at 300mm using the 6T, probably between 1:2 and 1:1 if you bring the focus to minimum focus. Both your lenses are what I would consider to be of dubious quality, so I can't really say if you'll be satisfied with the result.

 

Why not get a micro...I don't know, maybe because they are JUST A LITTLE EXPENSIVE compared to a tube or diopter! If you do get one, buy it second hand. You will not lose any money on the resale if you decide macro isn't for you.

 

The whole business with the N80 and its meter that turns off ruins it for macro IMO. To me, playing with tubes, teleconverters, diopters etc is half the fun, even with a micro-Nikkor attached. I second Shaw: refer to Closeups in Nature (1987). Shaw is a Nikon shooter so you can get an idea of what fun you're missing with the N80!

[scott_blair1]

What is a closeup? A frame-filling portrait of a flower, or a frame-filling image of a dragonfly's eye? For entry-level closeup photography, making use of what you already have, and what is most likely your skill/patience level, get the 5T.

[juaini]

Jason, in a perfect world, I would buy the macro lens. But as it is, I am an international student in college on a budget, and I can barely afford to pay for my textbooks. I wanted the cheapest route to macro, and for me, it was a 5-dollar set of extension tubes. It does require a little work, but it was fun and it gave me fantastic results. Well, almost fantastic, but that's due to my own carelessness and inattention. Hey, you learn, you know?

 

The point of my entire post was to enlighten Jack that there are many, many alternatives to macro that don't entail missing lunch and staying home on weekends for the next six months. I researched all my options very carefully, and I wanted to share.

[juaini]

"... staying home on weekends for the next six months."

 

Okay, you got me. No, I don't have a life *sigh*.

[anth]

I would suggest two options.

 

1. Since you already have a 70-300G, you could grab a Nikon #5t (or 6t) close-up diopter which is basically a fancy magnifying filter that you screw on the front of the lens (make sure you get the 5t and not the 4t which is too small for your lens).

 

The Nikon brand are much better optically corrected than the cheap and nasty ones you tend to be able to buy in a set of three or four. Instead of just one piece of glass in the "filter", the Nikon version actually have two elements (pieces of glass) which increases optical quality a long way. The cheap single element filters tend to have really SOFT corners, even when you stop the lens down. I have successfully used this combination (f65+ 70-300+ No.5T) on my girlfriends camera to shoot insect photos - with an sb25 and diffuser - works a charm. Because the lens is stopped down a reasonable amount, the quality is actually pretty nice and much better than I would have expected with that lens. The working distance is fantastic too - won't get close to many insects with a 60mm Nikkor, unless they are DOA :-)

 

2. Another alternative, is to grab a Vivitar/Cosina/Soligor 100mm f3.5 macro. A little search on the this site will turn up plenty of postive reviews for this little wonder which can still be picked up at b&h for around $140 - sure it is more expensive than the closeup diopter and the build quality isn't much different from the lenses you already own - but for macro it is a FAR superior option. I have used one of these on my f80 and though it has loose AF (I normally turn AF off for macro anyway), the results when stopped-down on velvia are simply gorgeous. It is not nearly as expensive as the Nikkor 60/105, and gives you more working distance than either and probably close to 85-90% of the quality they offer at 1/4 the price. I have actually used the Nikkor lenses, but I just don't do enough macro to justify having such an expensive lens sitting idle in my bag.

 

Do not get the PN-11 which will not allow your camera to meter - except for flash metering. Also unless you have another flash to put on top of the camera, don't expect the on-camera one to work for macro, it will fire over the top of your subject which will be close to the lens.

 

I would not recommend any extension tube for use with a zoom lens anyway, because every time you zoom a tiny bit to change the framing, the focus will have to be adjusted. It is VERY inconvenient to use - much better to go the diopter route which enables you to zoom and reframe without refocusing. Of course a true macro lens is the easiest of the bunch.

 

Hope this helps.

[jburn]

Thanks everyone who responded to my question. Your responses were very helpfull. I have done some close up work years ago, using a Petri SLR with a bellows and a 50 mm fixed lens. I have a set of cheep diopters, +1, +2, & +3. I have never tried the tubes, nor a macro lens. I was not sure if the PN-11 tube would work withe the "G" series lens. I though that it may not, but there is not a lot of techinical data out there on some of these accessories. I had just purchased John Shaw's book "Closeups in Nature" Yesterday, and have not had time to read it yet. I wonder if my Petri bellows can be adapted to fit on my Nikons? I do also have an older 50mm Nikon "E" series lens, which came with my FG-20. Maybe I can use that with the bellows on my FG-20, or the 5005 or the N80.

 

Thanks for you help.

[richard_hawley2]

Testing, see close up photos at http://www.free-stock-photos.co.uk/Close-up_g66.html