Hi everyone,
so, in this time of lockdown I have been thinking of stepping up my macro photography. I have been doing some of it with extension rings and with a reversed lens for quite some time, and I really enjoy it. I mostly shoot flowers and small objects/details, but I have been getting more into bugs lately. I feel like having a dedicated macro lens that can focus to infinity would make things easier, as well as make for a nice portrait lens.
I have done some research and I ended up settling on the nikon 105mm vr micro lens, The reason being that it will autofocus, which means I will be able to take advantage of the focus stacking capabilities of my Z6. I should also be compatible with the TC14 iii, which would give me a little extra magnification or working distance when needed.
I was all set to buy the lens, which I had found a used copy of from a seller I trust, when I stumbled upon this video:
https://youtu.be/jpmOgq2vGsY
here he compares a few macro lenses in the ~100mm focal length, and the Nikkor comes out definitely on the bottom. This puts me off a bit, as I was also looking to use the lens for documentation uses were sharpness and low CA are fairly important.
The laowa turned out to be the best performer, and has 2:1 magnification natively, although it’s manual focus only, which would mean being unable to use the focus stacking feature of my Z6 as well as making it a lot less usable for non macro shots. I can find it new for roughly the same price as the used Nikkor.
Can anyone weigh in on whether their experience with the Nikon lens matches what is seen in this video? It really seems to fit my needs, but the performance shown in the video seems fairly disappointing.
thank you for your time
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