Want to hear from NIkon 40mm G Micro owners

Hi

I have been asked to take on a job photographing dozens of paintings for print and use in web promos.


I've done some work for galleries in my town before but as most of my gear has been sold I need to invest in a small DSLR, flash, tripod and a suitable macro.


As I will be shooting indoors in a relatively confined space I am considering the 40mm G micro.



Has anyone had any experience using this lens for this kind of work? The reviews say it is sharp corner to corner which is exactly the kind of performance I need as I'm not interested in shooting insects or flowers. I'd appreciate some real world feedback

Thanks for your time.

R

It isn't one of my three macro lenses (I am on FX) but all the reviews say it will be good for your purposes. Unless you are looking to HUGE prints that lens plus any of the current DX SLRs will do the job. It is sharp with a flat field which is what you need. I'm not sure about flash as the illuminant, you'll need a setup that provides uniform illumination without reflections and that will need some work.

Thanks A_C. I agree about the flash. It would create unwanted reflections off any canvas.

I am not clear if you will be able to handle the originals or must take in situ. If the former then a copy stand with lights will be better for all but the largest originals and will take the place of tripod and flash. They are also useless for anything else, so ebay and used will probably come up trumps. If the latter you need to examine in detail where the items are hung, since your key problem will be shooting absolutely perpendicular to and over the centre point of the art work and that might need a very tall camera stand indeed. A clamp on a heavy step ladder might be better.

Joburger said:

Hi

I have been asked to take on a job photographing dozens of paintings for print and use in web promos.

I've done some work for galleries in my town before but as most of my gear has been sold I need to invest in a small DSLR, flash, tripod and a suitable macro.

As I will be shooting indoors in a relatively confined space I am considering the 40mm G micro.

Has anyone had any experience using this lens for this kind of work? The reviews say it is sharp corner to corner which is exactly the kind of performance I need as I'm not interested in shooting insects or flowers. I'd appreciate some real world feedback

Thanks for your time.

R

Click to expand...

For a DX camera, the little 40 is sharp for your use. The main question becomes how large are the paintings & what field of view you will need? Next up is the 60mm

A macro reproduces items on a 1:1 scale. A dime will be the same size as a dime. A 3X5, 4x6, 8.5x11, are different.

It appears what you may really need is a close focus ability of a zoom kit lens. The 18-55VR2 is the closest for this. You can get the lens in a kit for $100 over the camera body price. Give your subject plenty of light and it should be sharp enough for you.

I have a D3200 and use a 40mm 2.8g micro and also a 85mm 1.8g for this very application. I paint oil paintings and pastel drawings and use this setup to take images for my website, social media, show submissions, and print reproduction. I prefer to use the 85mm 1.8g depending on the size of the piece and my working distance. On DX the 85mm seems to have less distortion and vignetting, but the 40mm is perfectly serviceable and the very minor vignetting and distortion flaws are easily correctable in Lightroom.

For jewelry or documenting other small 3D items the 40mm is perfect. For flat works the 40mm is perfectly fine. I usually wait for nice weather, and shoot my works outside in the shade, or otherwise shoot inside on a tripod. I have 2 AB800 strobes, but those are a pain to setup. I always shoot my work before I put it under glass to avoid the hassle of dealing with reflections.

My art:

Thanks, Glenn

I do have the 18-55 VR i kit lens lying around and I know it has decent close up abilities; but I do not think ti would give me the type of corner-to-corner sharpness w no distortion that a macro offers for copy work.

FYI, the artwork varies in size, from A5 - A1

I'll be working only with the originals. Thanks for the lighting setup tip

DopplerSh1ft said:

I have a D3200

Click to expand...

You are happy with the sensor output resolution for prints? That's the main reason Id go for the D3300 but

DopplerSh1ft said:

and use a 40mm 2.8g micro and also a 85mm 1.8g for this very application. I paint oil paintings and pastel drawings and use this setup to take images for my website, social media, show submissions, and print reproduction. I prefer to use the 85mm 1.8g depending on the size of the piece and my working distance. On DX the 85mm seems to have less distortion and vignetting,

Click to expand...

That's interesting, I always wanted to give the 85 micro a try, in part because of the VR and also because it's a short tele. In terms of focal lengths, the 40mm vs my existing 35mm are too close which means I would only take one with me for a special occasion while the other remains at home.

Still, the 85 is more than double the price, and focal length, so it may be difficult to shoot indoors. Fortunately the BnB where I live is close to many galleries and it would be easy to do a setup outdoors to take the shots. Hmmm... tries to justify the expense

DopplerSh1ft said:

but the 40mm is perfectly serviceable and the very minor vignetting and distortion flaws are easily correctable in Lightroom.

For jewelry or documenting other small 3D items the 40mm is perfect. For flat works the 40mm is perfectly fine. I usually wait for nice weather, and shoot my works outside in the shade, or otherwise shoot inside on a tripod. I have 2 AB800 strobes, but those are a pain to setup.

Click to expand...

So do you shoot handhold then? If so, how can you be certain the camera and painting are lined up?

DopplerSh1ft said:

I always shoot my work before I put it under glass to avoid the hassle of dealing with reflections.

My art:

http://www.johnmarkese.com

http://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/406110

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link to your work, I really enjoy them.

Joburger said:

Hi

I have been asked to take on a job photographing dozens of paintings for print and use in web promos.

I've done some work for galleries in my town before but as most of my gear has been sold I need to invest in a small DSLR, flash, tripod and a suitable macro.

As I will be shooting indoors in a relatively confined space I am considering the 40mm G micro.

Has anyone had any experience using this lens for this kind of work? The reviews say it is sharp corner to corner which is exactly the kind of performance I need as I'm not interested in shooting insects or flowers. I'd appreciate some real world feedback

Thanks for your time.

R

Click to expand...

I have the 40 mm and have been happy with it. I bought it at the time because of budget constraints. If I had to do it over again, I would go with the with either the 60mm (FX) or 85 mm (DX). There have been times where I would have like to have a longer reach with the lens.

I checked the specs, the 60 will deliver a wider FOV than the 85. The 60 has a closer minimum focusing distance but it is not a "G" lens. If you want to shoot manual exposure, that should not be an issue.

There are two 60mm Micros, and one is a G-type lens

Joburger said:

You are happy with the sensor output resolution for prints? That's the main reason Id go for the D3300 but

That's interesting, I always wanted to give the 85 micro a try, in part because of the VR and also because it's a short tele. In terms of focal lengths, the 40mm vs my existing 35mm are too close which means I would only take one with me for a special occasion while the other remains at home.

Still, the 85 is more than double the price, and focal length, so it may be difficult to shoot indoors. Fortunately the BnB where I live is close to many galleries and it would be easy to do a setup outdoors to take the shots. Hmmm... tries to justify the expense

So do you shoot handhold then? If so, how can you be certain the camera and painting are lined up?

Thanks for the link to your work, I really enjoy them.

Click to expand...

The print quality on the D3200 is fine at ISO 100, 200, and even 400. Above that it's kind of noisy, but if you shoot on a tripod with 2 sec timer you can shoot at pretty much any shutter speed. If it's bright outside and I'm well over say 1/200, then sure I'll shoot handheld. As far as squaring up the edges with the sensor, I try to get close and then correct it in photoshop with the perspective crop tool. It's important that there is enough depth of field though, so shooting wide open is not a good idea if you plan fixing the perspective in post processing.

Keep in mind however, I am shooting for myself and nobody is paying me except the people that might buy a print. If its not perfect and it shows up in a print, then nobody will buy it, and I have nobody to blame but myself. If somebody hired me to shoot, I wouldn't be so cavalier about my methods and I'd be using bubble levels, tripods, strobes, polerizing filters, color passports, etc, etc, etc. The thing is that the patrons don't really care if the reds aren't as vibrant as the original or if the blues don't exactly match. If the artist is picky though, they will care about those things.

Also, I'm not using the 85mm micro DX lens but the 85mm 1.8G FX lens. If you check out the "Blur Index" interactive chart you can see that its focus field is extremely flat and sharp at f/5.6 especially on DX: http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1480

But the 40mm 2.8g is also very flat at f/4 and f/5.6: http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1448/cat/12

The 85mm 3.5g DX micro gets flat at f/11: http://slrgear.com/reviews/showproduct.php/product/1301/cat/12

I also have the 35mm just because it's so cheap and is good for everyday low light photography, and I purchased the 40mm specifically for copy photography. But honestly, I enjoy everyday shooting with the 40mm more since I have the option for the occasional macro shot and the images from the 40mm just look nicer than the 35. I also bought the 85mm 1.8g for copy photography, and it serves double duty for shooting portraits of my models if I want to work from a photograph.

Thanks for checking out my work!