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Lens comparison for macro work

Started Feb 20, 2022 | Questions thread
Janer_2
OP Janer_2 Regular Member • Posts: 399
Re: Lens comparison for macro work

John K wrote:

Janer_2 wrote:

Thank you for the in depth reply! Yes, I figured it was more complicated than I made it out to be. My limited knowledge of macro is to blame. I mean to do natural environment photos, mostly using natural light as well. I have made pleasant stills with my 70-300 zoom of flowers, but it's not really suited for macro. I am leaning towards a 105mm being the most convenient to handle by hand.

The issue you are going to run into is getting enough good light to shoot macro at 1x and higher mag, hand held, even with IS. If you do not care about light quality (and you should) then you can go out and shoot in harsh noon day sun. The contrast will be too high for the sensor to expose both the highlights and the shadows, the colors will be washed out, and specular surfaces (reflective surfaces) will return the color of the light source and not the color of the surface and you will lose a lot of detail. Yes, you can lose a lot of detail to poor light quality. I have seen triple digit focus stacks that had less detail than my single frame macros because the light the stack was taken with was not diffused well.

When the light is good it is easier to expose for the shadows and highlights (low contrast), colors will naturally saturate, and there will be color and detail in the specular surfaces. But odds are, to shoot at 1x and higher mag in that good light, you are going to need a tripod and a focusing rail. The computer will NEVER be able to recover color and detail that you did not capture with the camera, so you really cannot shoot with bad light and then "fix it in post".

Me thinks that you are too concerned with capturing fine detail, and yet the test of a good photo is if it looks good edge to edge. On some photography sharing sites, like Reddit, someone has to be interested in a thumbnail of your photo -if not then they will not click on it to see the bigger image. Per pixel image sharpness is not relevant to anyone unless they cannot see the picture because the pixels are in the way...

Please don't get me wrong here. While I appreciate and value your good advice, which I duly take notes og and completely agree with. This post is still more about choosing the right lens of the available selection. That's why I want actual user experience to aid me in my own decision making, I can watch Flickr photos all day but actually talking to someone who might have hands on experience is valuable to me.

However, I am concerned with capturing fine detail. Like many I'm possibly cursed that way. But also I don't share my photos anywhere really. So other people's opinions or the general idea of what a "good photo" is doesn't really concern me. As long as I enjoy what I'm doing and am pleased with my results that's good enough for meĀ 

 Janer_2's gear list:Janer_2's gear list
Nikon D800 Nikon AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED Nikon AF-S Micro-Nikkor 60mm F2.8G ED Nikon AF Fisheye-Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D +50 more
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