Old School Nikon Primes

[Tom Hook]

Rosko/Francis: Your picture of the mosquito larvae is so good it compelled me to get the PN11 this morning for my own 105 f/4 AIS. When I get it, I'll have some practicing to do!

Thanks for posting.

[rosko]

Rosko/Francis: Your picture of the mosquito larvae is so good it compelled me to get the PN11 this morning for my own 105 f/4 AIS. When I get it, I'll have some practicing to do!
Thanks for posting.

Glad you like it, Tom !

Getting the PN11 will give you two advantages :

# 1/1 magnification with 105mm lenses;

# you can attach it to a tripod, which will balance the combo very well and thus relieves the camera body mount from leverage. (105mm + 52.5 close up attachment).

# one more advantage : the combo can rotate freely allowing horizontal and vertical position and it's lockable.

A sturdy tripod is then strongly recommended.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

The 105/2.5 AI got a work-out on the D500 today.

[Knut S]

Bjørn, what a brilliant picture.. Just got my 105mm f/2.5. Exiting lens.

[John Koerner]

Here is a image of Mosquito's larva taken with 105mm f/4 micro+PN11+close-up noT3, (wrongly called as ''filter close up attachment'') and used here to get slightly bigger image without darken the shot too much.

Everything attached to my Df.

# 100 iso;

# 1/200 sec;

# f/16.

Note that I cropped the image.

Beautifully-textured, almost as if carved in stone.

[John Koerner]

Brown Lynx ♀ (Oxyopes scalaris)



Brown Lynx ♀ (Oxyopes scalaris)



Flower Crab Spider ♀ (Mecaphesa sp.)



Flower Crab Spider ♀ (Mecaphesa sp.)



Green Lynx ♀ (Peucetia longipalpis)



Flower Crab Spider ♀ (Mecaphesa sp.)

All images captured on a Nikon D810 + Nikkor 28mm Ai-S f/2.8 lens, reversed (at 2.1x magnification), using natural light.

Jack

[John Koerner]

John,
wrt to your list.
May I suggest to add the Ai(S) 105mm/2.5 as well - it is a fabulous lens.

Chances are high that you will enjoy the 15mm/3.5


rgds, Andy

At the suggestion of Andy, I also just picked up a copy of the Nikkor 15mm f/3.5 Ai-S



While the leather case is a bit under the weather, the lens and filters are absolutely flawless.











Am going to the Grand Canyon this weekend, so we'll see how it fares.

Jack

[Roland Vink]

Outstanding spider pictures. What aperture did you use? Some years ago I tried using a reversed lens for greater than life size pictures, and found it was difficult to find the right balance between stopping down for greater DOF, and avoiding too much diffraction. For magnifications up to about 1.6x I use the AFD 105/2.8 micro on a PN-11 tube, the working distance and handling is much easier, but I'm not sure this lens qualifies as "old school" ...

[John Koerner]

Outstanding spider pictures.

Thanks, Roland.

What aperture did you use? Some years ago I tried using a reversed lens for greater than life size pictures, and found it was difficult to find the right balance between stopping down for greater DOF, and avoiding too much diffraction. For magnifications up to about 1.6x I use the AFD 105/2.8 micro on a PN-11 tube, the working distance and handling is much easier, but I'm not sure this lens qualifies as "old school" ...

I tend to fluctuate between f/8 and f/11, with both the Ai-S 28mm (at 2:1) and Ai-S 20mm f/3.5 (at 3+:1). The main thing I try to do is never go over IS0 320 using natural light (ISO 640 in the extreme).

I have read conflicting information on th Ai-Ses: one reviewer mentioning that you should always put the lens at infinity to "increase working distance" ... while another reviewer suggested using the closest setting possible, so as to trigger the CRC (Close Range Correction) feature of these unique Ai-S lenses.

I would have to agree with the latter suggestion, using the closest-distance setting possible, because I have enjoyed my results better this way.

The bokeh is buttery-smooth, even at f/8-f/11 apertures, just because of the extremely-shallow DOF. (All of these images are between 12- and 18-stacked images to get the focus range, so I get the best of both worlds: lots in-focus but still buttery-smooth bokeh. I almost never use flash. These images were at about 1/10 SS.)

Hope this is useful.

Jack

[Roland Vink]

Thanks. It's worth stating that the aperture setting on the lens is only true for the lens mounted normally on the camera and focused at infinity. If the lens is reversed the aperture setting of f/8 probably translates to something like f/22 once you take extension and the different configuration into account. That's well into diffraction territory, but obviously good results can still be obtained. Focus stacking explains why you were able to get so much DOF. That's really good use of stacking as it looks natural, if stacking is overdone the picture is too sharp front to back and looks flat. It's amazing the spiders were still long enough for you do do it.

As for "focusing" the reversed lens, if the lens is unit-focusing (such as the AIS 20/3.5) it makes no difference optically. If you set the focus ring to infinity you gain a few mm extra working distance because the rear element is further to the rear (or front since it's reversed...) On the other hand if you focus close, the rear element retracts into the barrel so you lose a bit of working distance, but the rear element is better protected from knocks.

If the lens has floating elements (such as the AIS 28/2.8 ) then the setting of the focus ring does make a difference optically. With the lens reversed, if the subject - sensor distance is 0.3m, then the lens should be focused to 0.3m, so the optics are properly configured for that distance.

[Akira]

John, these spider images are simply amazing!  Thanks for sharing.  It is also surprising that you can stack more than ten images for these living creatures.  My amazement is doubled...

[John Koerner]

Thanks. It's worth stating that the aperture setting on the lens is only true for the lens mounted normally on the camera and focused at infinity. If the lens is reversed the aperture setting of f/8 probably translates to something like f/22 once you take extension and the different configuration into account. That's well into diffraction territory, but obviously good results can still be obtained.

I almost never use extension tubes, as they degrade things rather quickly IMO.

I am not much at calculating diffraction-per-aperture, reversed, but rather just go by my eye.

My eye tells me that, with the 28mm Ai-S, f/8-f/11 apertures, stacked, give me buttery-smooth images (if I keep the ISO down) ... but at f/16+ I begin to notice unacceptable diffraction.

Focus stacking explains why you were able to get so much DOF. That's really good use of stacking as it looks natural, if stacking is overdone the picture is too sharp front to back and looks flat. It's amazing the spiders were still long enough for you do do it.

I agree; I don't like "everything in-focus" in most macro shots either, as the images look more like CGI graphics than artistic macro shots. I much prefer the fore- and aft-bokeh to macro imagery.

Regarding their standing still, these particular species are "freeze and ambush" spiders, so they're great for stacking. Once they settle down, they just sit there ... "waiting" ... It is only the species which are proactive hunters that are almost impossible to stack, but these guys, above, are a piece of cake

As for "focusing" the reversed lens, if the lens is unit-focusing (such as the AIS 20/3.5) it makes no difference optically. If you set the focus ring to infinity you gain a few mm extra working distance because the rear element is further to the rear (or front since it's reversed...) On the other hand if you focus close, the rear element retracts into the barrel so you lose a bit of working distance, but the rear element is better protected from knocks.

If the lens has floating elements (such as the AIS 28/2.8 ) then the setting of the focus ring does make a difference optically. With the lens reversed, if the subject - sensor distance is 0.3m, then the lens should be focused to 0.3m, so the optics are properly configured for that distance.

Interesting distinction, thanks.

These were taken with the Ai-S 28mm, and I like the results better with the min. focus distance set.

Jack

[John Koerner]

John, these spider images are simply amazing!  Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, glad you like them

It is also surprising that you can stack more than ten images for these living creatures.  My amazement is doubled...

See previous response: these species "sit still" by nature, so they're pretty easy to stack.

It's the wandering, non-web-spinning spiders that "never sit still" and are almost impossible to stack.

(Probably the most frustrating spider to photograph is a Peckhamia ant-mimic jumper. They're about the size of a hypen, require 4-5x magnification to capture, and relentlessly "move" ... everywhere ... like Pacman on methamphetamines

[pluton]

Thanks. It's worth stating that the aperture setting on the lens is only true for the lens mounted normally on the camera and focused at infinity. If the lens is reversed the aperture setting of f/8 probably translates to something like f/22 once you take extension and the different configuration into account. That's well into diffraction territory, but obviously good results can still be obtained.

Isn't the severity of the diffraction effect in a given setup linked to the f-stop(geometry) and not the T-stop(transmission)?

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Isn't the severity of the diffraction effect in a given setup linked to the f-stop(geometry) and not the T-stop(transmission)?

Both, as magnification comes into play as well.  What Roland mentioned was the effective aperture which takes magnification into consideration. We don't denote this 'T-stop' or more appropriately, T-number, that relates to the nominal transmittance of the non-reversed lens.

Depth of field at high magnification is always a scarce commodity, whether or not one stops the lens down to the minimum aperture setting.