Macro lenses with 100mm focal lenght are offered by nearly every lens manufacturer in the world. I was looking for a macro lens for a while now and couldn't decide which one should I go for. So many brands and third party lenses you can find here and there, so I decided to rent one from Calumet photo uk. I had this lens over the last weekend and have had some time to play with it. Here you can find my positives and negatives regads to this lens.
This lens is very bulky, well build with metal casing and metal mount, which make these lens very havey. Presence of a SWM motor and VR-vibration reduction is adding some aditional weight however I found that it is well ballanced while on the camera. Nikkor is weather resistant and teher is no lenght change while focusig as well as back of the lesn is still, which menas that no dust will be sucked inside the lens. What is worth to mention that the Nikon's lens should have a 2.8 aperture and it does, but only from 3m to infinity. If you focuisn 1:1 aperture will drop significantly to as high as f/4.8! Bad Nikon bad!!! VR II works just fine and will gives you arround 3,5 stop of light.
As you should expected from the lens for this price sharpens is on very high level. In the centre of the frame it will score wide open a 40 Ipmm, when stopping down to f5.6 it will go over 44 Ipmm. Same story on the egde of the frame sharpnes will not dissapoint you at all. Below this section you can see the MTF50 chart.
Chromatic abberation is well controled thanks to the ED glass in the construction however, some high contrast images can be left with some abberation but easy to remove in postprodution process.
SWM works very well an I mean very WELL. I havn't had any problem with focusing on the subject and didn't notice any BF or FF however, on some ocasions he was looking for a focus trought the whole range which can be a we bit anoying.
Reflections are the weak point of this lens. In my opinion this is only a medium level with these type of corrction some third party lenses has better corection, while Nikon has Nano Crystal Coating.
I have to say that I love this lens he performs like a dream. Well build great glass and VR gives you very much in return however, the price uuuu which is a big dowside to the lens as it is as high as £619 way too much! You can have a Tokina 100mm macro for a half of these price as well as Sigma and Tamron and all perform very good in temrs of sharpnes, focusing speed etc... Nikon is takin edge with his focusing speed and VR system and thats it! I will not pay these much for a lens, would you do?
Here is a fiew examples of my images taken with these lens have a look and enjoy.
This lens is very bulky, well build with metal casing and metal mount, which make these lens very havey. Presence of a SWM motor and VR-vibration reduction is adding some aditional weight however I found that it is well ballanced while on the camera. Nikkor is weather resistant and teher is no lenght change while focusig as well as back of the lesn is still, which menas that no dust will be sucked inside the lens. What is worth to mention that the Nikon's lens should have a 2.8 aperture and it does, but only from 3m to infinity. If you focuisn 1:1 aperture will drop significantly to as high as f/4.8! Bad Nikon bad!!! VR II works just fine and will gives you arround 3,5 stop of light.
As you should expected from the lens for this price sharpens is on very high level. In the centre of the frame it will score wide open a 40 Ipmm, when stopping down to f5.6 it will go over 44 Ipmm. Same story on the egde of the frame sharpnes will not dissapoint you at all. Below this section you can see the MTF50 chart.
Chromatic abberation is well controled thanks to the ED glass in the construction however, some high contrast images can be left with some abberation but easy to remove in postprodution process.
SWM works very well an I mean very WELL. I havn't had any problem with focusing on the subject and didn't notice any BF or FF however, on some ocasions he was looking for a focus trought the whole range which can be a we bit anoying.
Reflections are the weak point of this lens. In my opinion this is only a medium level with these type of corrction some third party lenses has better corection, while Nikon has Nano Crystal Coating.
I have to say that I love this lens he performs like a dream. Well build great glass and VR gives you very much in return however, the price uuuu which is a big dowside to the lens as it is as high as £619 way too much! You can have a Tokina 100mm macro for a half of these price as well as Sigma and Tamron and all perform very good in temrs of sharpnes, focusing speed etc... Nikon is takin edge with his focusing speed and VR system and thats it! I will not pay these much for a lens, would you do?
Here is a fiew examples of my images taken with these lens have a look and enjoy.
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