Who Moved My Macro?

My Canon FD 35-105mm f/3.5 and 70-210mm f/4 both had macro functions. The DX 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 does not seem to have this function, and the manual makes no mention of it.


Turns out, at 85mm (127mm in the full-frame world) the minimum focus distance is about 7". This yields a slightly larger image than the 70-210 in macro mode, which in turn is slightly larger than the 35-105. But I would like to explore something bordering on photomicrography.

So it’s time for my third lens...

Nikon DX Micro NIKKOR 16-85mm f/22G ED

Picked it up new, for less than ten bucks. You won’t find this lens listed on the Nikon website, or anywhere else for that matter. It’s my DX 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED, reversed. Ten dollars bought me a 67mm reverse lens mount adapter. At full extension, it has a diopter of about 8, with a nice built-in lens hood and comfortable working distance. At the 16mm end (fully retracted), it has a diopter of about 42! And, the working distance is still pretty good. It is manual, and it doesn't have and adjustable aperture…yet. Hence the f/22.

First test: handheld, wide open; razor thin DOF

Yes, it works, and it works well. But I’m not too keen on a fixed aperture of f/22, nor having the rear element of my lens exposed (not to mention the CPU contacts). So, knowing how well this will work, I can spring for a Nikon BR-6…

This is a little doohickie that attaches to the front of the lens (previously the rear lens mount), and has a lever to hold the aperture wide open. It will also accept a standard cable release, which is used to control the aperture. Lastly, it has a 52mm filter thread, so you can attach a filter of your choice to protect the lens and CPU contacts. It’s pricey, about the same cost as a premium circular polarizer. But the nice thing is, I only have to buy one of them and it will fit all my Nikon lenses. And if I were to reverse, say, a 24mm f/2.8 prime lens, I’d have a very fast 28 diopter lens.

I do have such a lens, but it’s Canon FD. That would be one way at least of using a Canon lens on a Nikon body (it’s fairly easy to adapt Nikon lenses to Canon bodies, but not the other way around). But, it’s almost as difficult to adjust the aperture on a reversed Canon lens as it is to find the infamous “Macro Hood”, Canon’s version of the BR-6.

I can however use it with any Nikon prime lens, the wider the better as the shortest focal length yields the greatest magnification.

OK, so it’s not really a third lens. But for now, it will save me the cost of one.

Pancakes, Anyone?

Nikon NIKKOR 45mm f/2.8P “Pancake” lens

During a search for all things pinhole, I came across a pinhole “pancake” lens, and this. Hmmm. I’m in the market for a “normal” lens. Wait, this costs more than my Nikkor 16-85mm zoom, and is really difficult to find! Pass. Cute though, and this gets me thinking.

So, armed with this buzzword, a new quest begins. When the highly respected name Voigtländer pops up, so do my ears. Turns out, they make a similar manual focus lens to the Nikon, only it’s shorter and faster. And, they’ve recently updated it with a CPU chip that permits metering, auto exposure modes and focus confirmation.

Voigtländer Ultron 40mm f/2.0 SL II. Faster, wider, cheaper.

The Voigtländer brand is leased by Cosina, and this lens is made in the same factory as the Zeiss Z-series. Zeiss makes some great lenses for the Nikon, but they’re not chipped.

So now the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G and Voigtländer Ultron 40mm f/2.0 SL-II vie for position.

Stop!

Example of Lensbaby Composer using the Pinhole optic.

My Second Lens

Lensbaby Composer System; Pinhole/Zone Plate,
Plastic Lens, Single-Glass Lens, Double-Glass Lens optics.

Technically, I bought my Lensbaby Composer at the same time as my first Nikon lens. I was drawn to it for the qualities of the images it could produce. They were much like some of the images I conceived during the ’70s and late ’80s, which at that time I could only accomplish with filters. Cokin filters to be exact. God bless them, they’re still in business after all these years. It was almost my first choice as a lens, but that would just have been too weird, even for me.

I’m a firm believer that even that which is old and has been bettered by technology can still be relevant, perhaps even more so amongst a sea of new devices. I have a Kodak Brownie Six-16 special I am just itching to convert to 120 film, and possibly even to 35mm “sprocket hole”. The main reason is its simple meniscus lens. So, when I learned about the Lensbaby, and it’s primitive, swappable optics, it was a vintage camera, Holga, and pinhole camera all rolled into one, only in digital form.

It’s a little long on a DX format camera, but that’s OK; all the better for portraiture. Not being an autofocus lens, it forces a Nikon camera to be fully manual. That means no metering whatsoever. That didn’t stop me from getting it however, as vintage cameras, Holgas and pinhole cameras don’t have meters, let alone aperture and shutter speed settings. (Well, the Holga kind of has aperture settings.) Armed with experience, you shoot, and wait and see how it comes out. Same with digital. Only the wait and see part has been shortened from several days to several seconds. So, I have something better than a meter. I have a virtual polaroid. I would have mounted it to the N80 body before the Nikkor zoom, but I really wanted to see if a new autofocus lens would work with an older body. I really appreciate Nikon’s compatibility with older equipment.

Yes, the pinhole/zone plate optic was a must. Yes, it works remarkably well. Yes, I do still see a “pinhole” body cap in my future. The opportunity to hand-craft and improve upon something so simple is irresistible. But for now, the ability to switch back and forth between pinhole and zone plate is pretty cool.

Lensbaby Composer + Step-up/Shade + Cokin A-series filter holder;
Cokin Orange #002 filter for simulating “Redscale”

The double glass, single glass and plastic optics are equally cool. They give me exactly the effect I was trying to achieve with filters 30 years ago. But the quality is much better. The double glass is actually wonderfully sharp in the very center of the image, where it’s supposed to be, with a nice variable bokeh everywhere else.

Another quality I like is the Composer’s use of waterhouse stops, which really slows you down too. To change the aperture, you have to deliberately select and replace a magnetic aperture disk, which fortunately is in front of the lens. So, you have to think. I like all this thinking. Gives my brain something to do while my camera is taking pictures.

Yes, oddly, the Lensbaby is my second lens. But it’s really like having a second camera.

Slowly Rebuilding my Empire: The First Lens

The compact “standard” zoom is like the holy grail of lenses to me. Back in the day, your first lens was a 50mm prime. If you could get a really fast one, all the better. Today, you can pack a wide angle, normal and short tele into a single, compact lens.


I decided to forego the 18-105mm kit lens, and order my D90 body with a lens having a metal mount and more conservative range (The AF-S DX Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR). My thinking was that since this lens is going to be on my camera 90% of the time, quality was more important than convenience. With a full-frame range of 24-127mm, this is my dream lens.

The 18-105 would have given me a top end of 157.5mm, and the hugely popular 18-200mm (which is like having 4 lenses in one) would have given me 300mm. So, in a fleeting moment of lens-envy, I took a photo with the 16-85mm at full zoom and used Photoshop to crop it as I would have with the 18-200mm. The quality was so good, so void of noise and aberration, that I easily resampled it to match the original pixel dimensions. The results surprised even me.

The secret is to set Photoshop’s interpolation preferences to bicubic smoother, and sharpen afterward at a huge percentage (400%!) but at a very small radius (0.5 px). This reduces the aliasing during enlargement, and sharpens only fine detail, resulting in a better image.

So if I need to zoom in that tight on a whim, I can take care of it in post. No more lens-envy. And if I need to do any serious telephoto work, There’s always the AF-S Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED VR, which would be a nice complement to this lens, and is 100% compatible with the N80. And on the D90, it tops out at 450mm!

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View the full tutorial on how to enhance low-res images >

Nikon P5100 as Digital Holga

Nikon Coolpix P5100, Opteka 3.3x Tele Converter

I received this as a gift, having placed it on my wish list. I was curious how it stacked up to the enormous and expensive Nikon equivalent, the TC-E3ED 3x Tele Converter.

Opteka 3.3x AF High Definition II Telephoto Lens

It sucks. But, it has redeeming qualities, namely that it turns my P5100 into a digital Holga of sorts. It gives me a range of 115.5-405.9mm full of chromatic aberration goodness, lomographically speaking. It’s inexpensive and relatively compact, and I like it a lot. If it cost and weighed as much as the TC-E3ED, I wouldn’t like it as much.

If I need to get this close with the P5100, and still have a reasonably sharp image, using the 4x digital zoom or cropping in Photoshop would be a better option. But neither of those options can duplicate the qualities this lens imparts.

This begs the question, would a similarly inexpensive, moderately wide Opteka converter give me similar lomographic results? It wouldn’t be a big investment to find out.

incidentally, these lenses work just fine with SLR lenses.