Great review. I got this lens 2 months ago and it's amazing; sharper than the G version that also had years ago. I always use tripod with it, so no need for VR or Af-S, and gives me scary sharp results on my D810.
Awesome, thanks for posting. I can stop wondering if the new version could somehow be better in some way.. I couldn't really see how.. I am old school and usually use a tripod and manual focus when doing macro, but there are some times where I don't... Just sold my d800 and am considering a d810 to complement my d500 when I am finally allowed to visit the US... Take care bud!
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography Yeah, if you have already the D version, it isn't worth the "upgrade" to the new one. Haven't had the chance to try the autofocus thoroughly, but on the D810 it's relatively fast and decently accurate with good light. You will find the D810 much better for macro shots and anything else; the autofocus and liveview for mf is improved substantially and the EFC function it's great. Greetings.
@@pacolm1740 Yes, I sold my d800 and have been debating between d810 and d850... I used my d500 for sports or fast moving stuff and the other camera for high resolution/everything else... The d850 is pretty quick and may make my two body system slightly redundant... Sure I couldn't go wrong either way! Definitely like this lens better on full frame... Hopefully they open the borders here in Peru soon so I can make my trip... Getting tired of waiting!
Seriously its fantastic... Love this lens!! Can't imagine how the new one would be any better... Maybe try out the newer one or a Z version one day, but I'm totally thrilled with this one... Only thing I hesitate to shoot insecure people with it, lol...! Thanks for the comment and enjoy!
The underwater thing is something I have no idea about, but would really like to try... I imagine its expensive. It would seem a great lens for that setting though... I only went snorkeling one time but loved it... Must do again! Definitely some flash is a good way to get better depth of field and still get handheld!!! Thanks for the insight and have a great day!
That 5 dollar bill looked like a napkin LOL. You take fantastic photos man!. Gotta get more photos of the little one without her hands blocking her LOL. She's a shy one eh? Man you take such good photos. You nail every shot and you're a beast with natural lighting. You always set a perfect amount every time. When I do it I'm too blown out or way under and I'm already trying to break that under-exposed shooting habit. Great video sir!
Thanks man. My daughter has a habit of sucking her thumb alot and she doesn't usually like photos either. Hopefully one day she'll grow out of that, but I'm the same way, so... I think when shooting landscapes I tend to underexpose a tad to make sure I keep highlights in fast changing lighting situations, but when shooting macro you often have a little extra time to get things right. Since I learned on manual film cameras first, my default is to shoot manual in most situations, and unless I need to shoot much quicker, I tend to do that... I'll often take one shot and then adjust settings slightly to refine the look I'm going for. Thanks for watching man and keep up the good fight!
Nice video, the explanation very clear, the pictures with the music at the end made me fell as watching a fantasy tale, between Alice in Wonderland and the Wizard of Oz, thank you...
Awesome comment man! I appreciate that and happy to have helped in that experience! Every time I start to question why I do these videos, I get some really kind comment from somebody! Thanks much for watching!
@@silverdusssst Awesome, bet you're gonna have a great time!! Let me know once the dust settles how you're getting along! There's nothing like a good macro lens!
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography I will! Its an essential lens don't know why I took so long haaha will share my findings! Best and thanks for inspiring me this is gonna be great.
I have this lens and love it, want to buy the vr version for VR and the bokeh. The depth of field on the AFD I have is good but it sometimes looks busy and not very smooth like the VR version. Let me know what you think! thanks!
To be honest, I haven't used the VR version. I would have to do some more research on that to give a proper answer!!! Hoping a Z version comes out that is even better.
I quite like it for portraits, but some don't like the extreme details you can get from it. May need more touch up or softening of skin, etc. on most types of work. For gritty raw realistic types of portraiture, its excellent!! I love it!!
Mr. Bodkins, I really need your expertise. I recently mounted a Nikon 105mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor Lens on my D800. It can focus and zoom, but can not click, because it keeps on sending the error message. I do set the non-cpu lens with lens info. I do not have any problems with other non-cpu lenses and regular Nikon lenses. Could you please advise what I have I done wrong ? Thank you.
This is really a guess on my part, but I'm going to guess that your aperture ring is not in the proper position. When using the D series lenses, you must set that to the narrowest aperture setting which on this lens shows f32. There is a switch you can use to lock it in that position if you only ever use the lens on newer cameras. This tells the camera that you're going to change the aperture via the dial on the camera body. Let me know if that resolves your problem and enjoy that great lens/camera combo.
Kind of hard for me to troubleshoot this without seeing whats going on in person. Of course with a d5600 you will not have auto focus. You also don't have the ability to meter with these lenses, but with the screen, you should be able to shoot and adjust. If you remove this lens and look through the aperture blades, are they adjusting properly? What about focus?... Like I said, really hard to diag without seeing it... Let me know and hope this can help...
@@gabcast4535 Hey I'm glad you figured it out. Pretty much the cameras over the 7xxx series were able to meter with these lenses. This lens will be even better if you ever move to a full frame camera. I'm really enjoying it on my D810, my Z6ii, and my FM! Fantastic... I've recently added a few other macro lenses that I can highly recommend as well!
Awesome Kim! I’m gonna guess that you’re gonna love it! The image quality is superb! Some say that the new version is better and I’m not sure how much better you can practically get. Of course that lens is much more expensive. I like having the aperture ring for use on my film camera, and this will make it a better option for adapting when I eventually get a mirrorless camera. Most bodies will have stabilization built in anyway making that benefit sort of a moot point! Thanks for the kind comment and for watching!
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography Thanks, I love it. Have been playing all afternoon with coffee beans, flowers and so on. Camera on a small table tripod. I also have two Nikon SLRs from the nineties I will use the lens with besides the D7200.
@@KimHojbergJensen Yeah, it’s so easy to find beauty and intrigue doing macro. Find yourself in an uninspiring location, just pull out the macro and that will likely change! The crop factor will often work in your favor shooting macro! Nice set up! Send me a link when you get a collection! I’ll check it out! Brett@brettbodkinsphotography.com !
Would I be able to shoot indoor swim events with this lens? I the AF terribly slow? I would use it with a Nikon 7500. I don't know if this lens could be used for multiple functions such as macro, portraits , and sports (indoors).
I don’t really have a good answer about sports as it’s something I haven’t really tried. The AF is fairly slow and because it works on such a wide range of focal distances it tends to get confused at times. That’s why they have the Af range limit switch that tells the lens which area to search when autofocusing. As I mentioned in the video, the lens does work super well for macro (of course) and portraits can be quite good if the subject has near flawless skin (or if you want to see so much detail). Not sure how long it would take me to find an answer on the sports thing (not a lot of events going on here right now), but I would lean toward assuming that it wouldn’t be best for that application. The lenses that work best for sports are obviously expensive, but the combination of fast aperture and modern Af systems likely won’t be replicated in the macro lens I posted here. The d7500 is pretty good at higher ISO’s and I would say that the best compromise would be to use a slower telephoto zoom lens and just deal with a little more image noise instead. The fixed focal length would also make things a bit harder as well. Also depending on the sport that you’re shooting, you would most likely find 105mm to be a bit wide in most circumstances (not all of course). Hope this helps. Feel free if you get other questions or want to bounce more ideas! Thanks for watching.
You know, it kinda throws me off as well. The camera allows you to make selections past 32 when choosing electronically and the exif data shows the same. Not sure how that would be physically possible and why there would be no click stop for it. Of course that would make those settings impossible to select on my F3 body... I was intrigued by that as well, but not enough that I sat down to research it or to do some tests... But if you look at my light fall off test I showed at about 3:30 in my video you can see that the sensor dust actually gets sharper as I stopped down the lens past F32 suggesting to me that its not just some error in Nikons computer system.. This was a long time ago, but I vaguely recall having to make exposure adjustments to get those shots for the test as well... I don't have a good answer for you... Maybe once my brain wakes up for the day, I'll get intrigued enough to do more research... I thought about that, but didn't spend enough time to pursue the thought! Let me know if you find something before I do!
At one-to-one magnification ratio, the lens needs to be very close to the subject, however the aperture effectively becomes smaller due to reduced amount of light collected because it is looking at a much smaller area. The metering system needs to work with less light accordingly. Nikon has been smart enough to engineer this effective f stop correction into the aperture setting display.
Wow thats great Charlie!!! Its pretty hard to find em less than about $600 last time I checked!!! Great lens though... Id say this one has made me pretty happy as well!!! Enjoy it!!!
Thank you for the video! Cannot see the aperture setting on the images seems as very well conyrolled CAs. Do you know, how does it compare to 60mm macro lens af-d series in terms of image quality?
Hey thanks for the nice comment and you're right that I didn't post the aperture values as I do in most of my lens videos as when I'm shooting this lens I pretty much just go as narrow as possible to improve depth of field issues... I don't really add light that often and I don't focus stack so I pretty much use a tripod and usually f16 or more.. I honestly don't know how it compares to the 60mm however I hope to know in the near future as thats one of the lenses I plan on adding... I will say that this lens gets a little bit narrow when shooting on a crop camera, so I guess it would depend alot on your body and your preferred working distance... Hope this helps a bit and I usually try to let images speak for themselves as I'm not all that technically minded when it comes to that kind of stuff... I can say that in comparison to the multiple lenses I've owned that had macro settings and the one other third-party true macro lens I tested, I like the results from this one the best so far... I know thats a fairly limited sample size, but I really really like this lens... I would say that depending on where you live, you should be able to pick either one of these lenses up and lose no money selling it after a couple months and trying the other... If I didn't live in the middle of nowhere in Peru, I would definitely do that... Well, on second thought.... I think I paid around $2xx ish dollars for mine and I definitely wouldn't sell it for that or anything close to it... Hope that helps!
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography Thank you gor you kind and insightful reply, Brett. Mostly I plan to use this lens for portrait and "product" or closeup photography. I am not a true macro enthusiast. The reason I am looking at af-d lens lineup is similar tp yours, I have recently added digital f mount body to my nikon gilm camera. And this will be handful yo share the lenses, though I am not sure about the manual focusing with af-d, but as long as it mechanicaly coupled should be ok. Myself I am not a pixel peeper, and sharpness is not everything but general rendering. Many older lenses suffer from CAs and if to shoot closeup, like some jewerly maybe it might come out preety ugly. Thats why I was happy to see on your pics, it seems very well controlled. I do purchase normally a used gear online from ebay or similar. And logistic is not the case to where i live, but the price or taxes usually can be a deal braker. So if i can i prefer to buy from auctions from a local guy who places it online.
@@alexanderpopov4691 I would say that in comparison to the older Ai/s lenses you may be used to, the manual focus on the D-series lenses is definitely not as nice feeling... It is, however, usable... I've heard the Ai-s version of this lens is quite good as well, but I wanted the option to use autofocus for the portrait side of things from time to time.. Assuming you have a digital body with the screwdrive AF system built in, the autofocus is decent, but not as good as some of the new lenses. You would probably want to use the "limit" selection switch to help the camera figure out where you're trying to focus at.. A little experimentation and you'll do just fine.. I have seen some CA on some of the older lenses, but I feel like the amount of overengineering shows through on macro lenses... They are often much better (technically speaking) with the caveat that they usually aren't that fast or that good at wider apertures.. I'm probably speaking to the choir, but I wanted to point that out because when doing portraits, you will get tons of details that can be unflattering to some subjects... Even shooting my baby girl with brand new skin, you still get tons of dust any dirt or any flaw will be very noticeable.. Just something to watch out for... If you notice any certain shots that you'd like to know the aperture settings to, feel free to ask, and I'll answer back to you... Yes, to order online can be quite expensive to this area as well so I understand... If it were me, I think it would come down to the body.. If using crop, the 60 may be better in most situations. The 60 will be easier to handhold and allows a closer working distance... Of course, that can start to block the light from hitting the subject and that's where the 105 really shines... I get to stay a little further away in case something is dangerous and that helps get all the natural light in the frame... I can definitely see a time for both, but I think I'd start with the 60 if I had a crop camera.. For portraits on crop the 105 would require you to stand pretty far away from your subject.. Guess it really depends on what you're trying to shoot... Hope this helps in some way!
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography Many thanks for the expanation and information shared. I woukd say, I limed the pics of watches. Look really cool. I guess i am pretty safe not to see too much of details as I will shoot with 6Mp or 12Mp camera bodies:) Thats right 60mm lens is more favourable cause one of the cameras has croped sensor. And besides this I aldo already own an 105mm 2.5 ai-s lens. But it is difficult to focus eithout any assist and especially on a crop camera viewfinder. Not thst easy. Maybe i can find a split prism focusing screen for digital cams. So AF is handy, and I am fine if it is not that super wuick. I am a low pace shooter. Yes, I agree, ai lenses they are extremly nice gor manual focus as they were designed for that. Super smooth and precise.b
@@alexanderpopov4691 So the watch shots were taken at f32 and as you can see those show a crazy amount of detail, but that was taken with a high mp camera as well, but I'll bet you'll still get more than you'd be used to at any rate. The fact that you already own the 105 tells me that you should probably lean more the 60mm... If you get more into macro (it is addictive) then start considering adding the 105 as its a great focal lens.. I started out on the d40 and I will tell you there is a huge quality difference between that generation and the ones from the last ten years or so... You could get a d7000, d7100, d7200, d700, d800, d610 for very little money these days, but of course that depends on your needs and goals... The older cameras are really good as long as you keep the Iso level down! I am also a slow shooter and I am so happy to finally hear someone who understands how bad the viewfinders are on the digital cameras are! I have also considered converting focusing screens to the old split prism ground glass style... Sometimes for non-moving subjects when I have extra time, I will switch to live view mode, zoom in and focus using the rear screen... Newer mirrorless cameras have the benefit in that department with the EVF and focus peaking and its a route I'm considering in the future because of my affinity for old manual focus lenses.... If I could just use the screen from my F3, then I would be happy! Cheers and have a good one!
You can definitely use this lens with the d5500 but with a few adjustments. This lens and any D series lens will not autofocus on a 3xxx or 5xxx series camera. You can get that by stepping up to a 7xxx (except d7500) or any full frame sensor camera. But most people don't need autofocus when shooting a macro lens anyway. The other issue is the crop which isn't really an issue per se, but it will mean that the lens will provide a tighter field of view more like a 150mm lens.. This could be a benefit in some macro situations and a drawback in others.. It will be harder to handhold and will mean that you need to increase working distance when you want a looser framing on the subject. Hope this helps and makes sense.. I do use this on my d500 sometimes and it still works great..
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography YES!!!! I had my camera on back button focusing which I personally hate and NEVER do unless I'm doing sports type photography. I was pretty disappointed in myself when I realized what I did.
Its okay, I totally understand.. I've even forgotten about the switch on the body before... Stuff like that happens... How you getting on with the lens??? I still love mine all this time later!! Unlike you, I love back button.... I use it for pretty much everything!!!
So I was looking it up and couldn't find the models you're mentioning. I remember in the old days the F65 was called N65 in the US market. If you're meaning the D3100 and D5600 cameras that I'm familiar with? If so, the cameras will work with this lens but the camera bodies won't be able to drive the autofocus function on the lens. Of course you'll also be in a crop mode, so your field of view will be closer to around 150mm equivalent... To me, I would think that you would want to have a 60mm macro first... If you already have the 60mm, then this lens would be a reasonable option... I hardly ever use autofocus when doing macro, but if you need AF, then you may want to look at the new version. Its much more expensive but has AF and will also have vibration reduction which could be quite useful...
@@BrettBodkinsPhotography dear sir..my direction is super tele..u know it..micro 2nd..nearly may to buy...but..ur information really opening my heart..👍🙏....
Well I would definitely say that as far as telephoto goes, I'm sure there's better options at 200 & 300mm in a similar price range... Do you already have a 70-300 or something similar? The macro I would definitely go 60mm first for the crop sensor bodies... I prefer a 105mm on full frame however! I do have a video about the 55-300 zoom lens and I quite enjoyed that lens with my d500 camera! I posted lots of photo examples in that video as well!
This lens works fine with the D750, D780, D850 etc. etc. You put the lens on the narrowest aperture setting on the ring and you control the aperture on the camera... You must go in to the "Non-cpu" lens functions to add the lens in so the camera knows some details about the lens.. Hope this helps... I love this lens with my D810 and the D800 I used with it before that!! Take care bud!
This is one of the more interesting comments I've received and I've had a few. I would offer that language changes with usage and not the other way around. Just like caramel and potato, I feel like you're likely fighting a losing battle here... I've decided over the years that most regional variations of language are due to the first or second languages of people in the area... The right way to say something is different for people who come from one area versus another. Thanks for correcting my grammar, but how many people have to use a word in a certain way before it becomes the new normal in your view?