Getting a used DSLR camera - advice on how to set up for tank shots!?

[DurocShark]

Don't waste your money with diopters. If they're cheap enough to bother with, the quality will suck. If they're good quality, they're expensive, as much as a true macro lens.

 

The $10 extension tubes on Amazon will work fine, but you lose a LOT of light with those.

 

I use an old Nikkor Micro lens and love it.

 

And yes, Photoshop is your friend. I was lucky enough to meet Ansel Adams in the 80's. He was all about manipulating the photos.If he was alive today he'd be the master of Photoshop.

[farkwar]

I have two sets of diopters. One for my Rolleiflex. One for my cell phone. They are for fun. Crop the crap out of the edges. Just realize they are for fun and not art, you'll be fine. Don't spend a lot on them, $10-20 a set.

 

 

I agree on the the old Nikkor Micro. My first was a 55mm from the 60s. Even had a little fungus on the primary lens inside. I took it apart, a little alcohol and a Qtip got it off, put it back together. I never made art with it. But I did make one wall hanger. Best thing about digital is you can take 10 or 25 thousand photos and it costs you nothing but time. That time is experience. With film, in the 60s, 70s, or 80s, 25,000 shots would have cost you a year or two wages even if you developed yourself.

 

If you get one if those Micros, get the extension tube for it.

[ajmckay]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and the history lesson! I've seen some work by those photographers back in my university class. I didn't realize Ansel Adams used photoshop though... I personally love photoshop, though the latest version I have is photoshop 7, which probably doesn't even support RAW... So I might go with GIMP if that's still around or possibly one of the lighter editing programs like adobe lightroom or PS elements. I am completely in favor of editing images to look more appealing though - even with film people messed with photos. I recall using dodging and burning techniques quite extensively, experimentation with exposure settings and even messing with chemical baths that resulted in some really neat effects.

 

I'm concerned enough about the issue of losing light through the extension tube that I've decided to look harder for a macro lens - it seems that if I set my sights a little lower I can pick up a used Sigma or Tamaron lens for about $50 and have more control... I'm thinking an AF capable telephoto macro lens (so I can use the camera's metering) something around 55-200mm. I just saw a sigma 28-200mm sell on eBay for like $36... While Mr. Rockwell recommends buying manufacturer lenses I think for my purposes a third party will work - especially since I don't consider myself married to Nikon with this current setup. I'll get a lower end setup to learn on and get , sell it and probably recoup most of my investment (based on what people are apparently willing to buy used gear for), and then decide where I need to go.

[DurocShark]

One of my favorite "everything" lenses is the Sigma 70-300. Adequate throughout the range, but great at no point. So it's a good snapshot lens, and I've done some good surfing work with it. And "brand" lenses at the consumer level aren't really much better than Tamron or Sigma, and quite a bit worse than Tokina. (In general. There are always exceptions... For example my 18-55 Nikon VR lens is outstanding in its image quality. Just don't drop it... hehe)

 

I would reconsider Photoshop. While you can do 90% of what you want with GIMP, keep in mind that Photoshop is mature and extremely capable. Get the subscription... $9.99 a month. I actually have the full Creative Cloud subscription even though I don't use half of what it comes with. Well, my company pays for it... hehe

[ajmckay]

I have two sets of diopters. One for my Rolleiflex. One for my cell phone. They are for fun. Crop the crap out of the edges. Just realize they are for fun and not art, you'll be fine. Don't spend a lot on them, $10-20 a set.

 

 

I agree on the the old Nikkor Micro. My first was a 55mm from the 60s. Even had a little fungus on the primary lens inside. I took it apart, a little alcohol and a Qtip got it off, put it back together. I never made art with it. But I did make one wall hanger. Best thing about digital is you can take 10 or 25 thousand photos and it costs you nothing but time. That time is experience. With film, in the 60s, 70s, or 80s, 25,000 shots would have cost you a year or two wages even if you developed yourself.

 

If you get one if those Micros, get the extension tube for it.

 

Yeah it's sounding more like I would be better served getting a macro lens... Not that what I'm intending to do is create art, though I would like to be able to capture the best possible images given the equipment and skill I have.

 

As for the Nikkor Micro, they seem like nice lenses but I could probably only afford an older one. What's the consensus, get a fixed nikkor micro (Like this one) and an extension tube to double the magnification, or a third party telephoto (like the Sigma 28-200)? The nice thing about the third party is I can still use the cameras metering, though I could probably learn to set my exposure manually just fine after some practice... I get the feeling the difference isn't so big that it matters either way, but it's nice to get someone else to agree with me

[DurocShark]

I wouldn't worry about metering. You get immediate feedback, and will quickly be able to get in the ballpark. And you may want to expose for different areas of the scene than the camera does. You're not paying for film and processing. So take a boatload of pictures, pick out the few you like best, then share them and we can use that as a launching point for helping you get better images.

[farkwar]

Get the manual ebay Nikkor 55mm, that's the one I learned on. And extension tube. You don't need auto anything for macro, macro is take your time and think photography. Get a cheap Manfrotto tripod if you can.

 

Take a 1000+ pics with it.

 

Then you will know what macro you will buy next(probably won't be the Tamron).

 

Save up for it, you'll have the time to do that, and you'll be getting needed experience.

 

When you're done, ebay it for what you paid for it. You're out nothing, now someone else can learn with it.

[teenyreef]

Since you have a Nikon, just download Capture NX-D from their site. It's free, handles NEF files, and will do most everything you need for post processing. I used it heavily before moving to Lightroom and Photoshop.

[farkwar]

Make sure it has no fungus or scratches. If not in description, ask, that's in the ebay record now. And you can return it if the seller misrepresents the lens.

 

What the metal looks like doesn't matter for your photos, it may affect your resale value though.

[teenyreef]

Get the manual ebay Nikkor 55mm, that's the one I learned on. And extension tube. You don't need auto anything for macro, macro is take your time and think photography. Get a cheap Manfrotto tripod if you can.

 

Take a 1000+ pics with it.

 

Then you will know what macro you will buy next(probably won't be the Tamron).

 

Save up for it, you'll have the time to do that, and you'll be getting needed experience.

 

When you're done, ebay it for what you paid for it. You're out nothing, now someone else can learn with it.

That's great advice. I learned so much by "making do" with the 18-55 Nikon VR lens (I agree with DurocShark, it's a nice lens) combined with cheap diopters and extensions tubes. It really helped me understand the basics of what I was trying to do before getting my macro lens.

 

Farkwar, by "probably won't be the Tamron", do you mean the 35-90mm one ajmckay linked to on the first page? Or did you mean the 90mm Tamron macro? There's a big difference

[farkwar]

No, Im just saying that after taking a thousand or two macro photos with the Nikkor 55mm, that the Nikon Nikkor Micros or even the Zeiss F.2 Macros might be on the shopping list, over the Tamrons.

 

The Zeiss F.2 100mm F/2 Macro is one of the best lenses available for the Nikon camera line. Its great for portraits, landscapes, as well as macro. Its not fast, but it's great for just about anything not moving.

 

It costs what a good used car costs, so a lot of saving has to take place. But its attainable. If you take care of it, it will be with you, and useful, as long as you can still use a camera. Not once, until you die, will you think, "should I have got Suchandsuch lens instead". It will work on an F100, a D60, D600, D800e, D-whatever-they-invent-in-the-future.

 

That's all.

[zoaddict]

I use the Tamron 90mm and 180mm, both are great for the money.

In fact I sold my Nikon 60mm to buy the Tamron 90mm, I have also been having fun with a TC 1.4 on the macros.

DSC_8033 by chopsie326, on Flickr

 

I wouldn't get to caught up in named tripods either, As long as it is nice and steady.

I use a tripod made by a company called redsnapper, If it had manfrotto written on it I would of probably paid 3x the amount

[ajmckay]

Get the manual ebay Nikkor 55mm, that's the one I learned on. And extension tube. You don't need auto anything for macro, macro is take your time...

 

Well apparently they're still pretty popular... Almost all of them on eBay have bids on them. Looks like they sell for around $50 or so.

 

I just put a $35 bid on a "Nikon Micro NIkkor 55mm f3.5 Micro Ai Lens Nippon Kogaku" but in the last seconds shot up and sold for $52. There are plenty that have sold for a bit less than that but this one was from Adorama, who seems to be a more reputable seller.

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled for another deal, or something similar! Bottom line, expect some horrible macro pics from me sometime hahaha! Actually I think I'll do okay starting off since I do have some experience, but nothing like some of you have (zoaddict your flickr page is full of awesome pics!)...

 

Teeny, thanks for the recommendation on a program! I really like photoshop, but I can't really justify the cost just yet... Would rather put the $10/month away and save up for a vortech or something.

 

I'll check into a better tripod as well, though I'm not overly familiar with the popular brands at the moment. I'll probably stick with my vivitar for at least a little bit. I do think a remote shutter release might be worth it though... They're relatively cheap as well.

[ajmckay]

So I'm doing some research and I searched "Nikon Micro 105mm" thinking that it might be good to look at a longer zoom lens vs. the 55mm. I ended up finding a lot of Ai mount Nikkor 35-105mm F:3.5 lenses for a decent deal and now I found one that has a specific "macro ring". Any opinions on this lens or this type of lens?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nikon-Zoom-Nikkor-AI-S-35-105-mm-F-3-5-4-5-Lens-with-Macro-/291376453890?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item43d763d902

[teenyreef]

The lens you're looking at is a telephoto lens. It's minimum focus distance is .85 meters, so it won't focus on things in your tank unless you set up almost three feet away from your subject. The macro ring is also known as a "reversing ring". It lets you mount a lens on the camera backwards, which turns the lens into kind of a macro lens. You then focus by moving the camera closer or further away, and set the aperture manually on the lens. Like diopters and extension tubes, it's a cheap way to experiment with higher magnification shots, and it's also a good way to learn a lot more about photography by doing it the hard way.

 

If you want to play with a reversing ring, buy one for $9 on Amazon, and get the best conventional lens you want to pay for. But extension tubes will do pretty much the same thing and are far more flexible. Either way, you don't need long focal lengths. With extension tubes, diopters, or reversing rings, anything above 55mm would probably require you to put the end of the lens inside the tank anyway I used to get plenty of nice pictures (imho) using my Nikkor 18-55 kit lens together with a cheap diopter, and later with extension tubes. Or like Farkwar said, the Nikkor 55mm is a nice piece of glass, especially for only about $50.

No, Im just saying that after taking a thousand or two macro photos with the Nikkor 55mm, that the Nikon Nikkor Micros or even the Zeiss F.2 Macros might be on the shopping list, over the Tamrons.

The Zeiss F.2 100mm F/2 Macro is one of the best lenses available for the Nikon camera line. Its great for portraits, landscapes, as well as macro. Its not fast, but it's great for just about anything not moving.

It costs what a good used car costs, so a lot of saving has to take place. But its attainable. If you take care of it, it will be with you, and useful, as long as you can still use a camera. Not once, until you die, will you think, "should I have got Suchandsuch lens instead". It will work on an F100, a D60, D600, D800e, D-whatever-they-invent-in-the-future.

That's all.

Thanks, that's what I was wondering. No question the Zeiss is the way to go if you want to get serious I have heard a lot of opinions that the 90mm Tamron did have some advantages over the 105mm Nikkor, though. Not that it was way better, but that there were pros and cons to both lenses and it wasn't a slam dunk by the Nikkor.

[ajmckay]

Thanks Teeny for the explanation on how that lens worked. It just looked like a popular lens given how many are available but I suppose for the same price I could just get the macro and extender and keep the lens I have.

 

Haha this one's going to take a while to justify

[teenyreef]

Don't worry, by the time you really figure all this stuff out by taking a million pictures, you'll be able to talk for hours about why you need THAT lens and why no other lens will do

And you can quote Farkwar about how it's a lifetime investment and it's way cheaper than a house

[DurocShark]

Wow, I didn't know this:

 

http://www.aiconversions.com/d70etc.htm

 

D40, D40x, D60, D3000 and D5000 series bodies: Good news! Virtually any Nikon-mount lens will fit safely on the camera with no need for conversion. You will have no TTL metering with manual focus lenses but you can set the body to M (Manual) mode and make the shutter speed and aperture settings by guessing or using a handheld meter. Your exposure can be checked in the LCD almost immediately, of course.

 

 

Dang. I may have to go find one of those...

[ajmckay]

Wow, I didn't know this:

 

http://www.aiconversions.com/d70etc.htm

 

 

Dang. I may have to go find one of those...

 

Yeah so initially I was thinking that this was a disadvantage (because I was thinking that I would have to buy the more expensive AF-S lenses to get autofocus).

 

But now that I'm content with using manual focus in general I think it works out to be an advantage - otherwise I wouldn't be able to get that Nikkor micro 55mm lens without modification (I think). Additionally I will probably learn more about exposure control since I'll be messing with my own metering.

 

I'm watching the eBay auctions for a lens, hoping to score one and an extension tube for $60 or less... That would bring my total investment so far to $110.

 

 

Another quick question... So it looks like there are 2 versions of the Nikkor Micro 55mm, an f2.8 and an f3.5. The f2.8 generally costs more so is there a benefit to having the larger aperture? I was under the impression that for macros you want to use a really small aperture (f32) to preserve as much depth of field as possible... I'll probably end up getting the f3.5 version but just wanted to see if there was a reason to spring the extra for the f2.8.

 

Examples:

Nikkor Micro 55mm f2.8

Nikkor Micro 55mm f3.5

[DurocShark]

For macro use, a larger aperture just means more light to focus with when it's wide open. You will pretty much always be using it stopped down to get as much depth of field as possible. So the 3.5 will be fine.

 

Of course, with the "faster" lens, along with higher cost sometimes comes better quality. Less chromatic aberration through the lenses, etc. I don't know about those two to compare, but I have a 3.5 Micro. http://donimages.blogspot.com/2011/01/using-old-non-ai-lenses.html

[farkwar]

You do not need an auto focus lens for macro. If you're taking pics of bugs or coral its going to be a hindrance, actually.

 

I don't know about the D60, but with my D300 the AI-S lenses pass exposure info to the camera, the in camera light meter works.. I would narrow down my search to the lenses with that. Even if you don't or cant use use it, at resale it makes it easier to sell, many buyers will be looking for that.

 

 

IIRC, I bought the 55mm for like $75 with shipping and sold for like $105 with shipping.

 

 

 

That said, I posted a thread ways back, with a bunch of cell phone pics, most are with a cheap chinese macro diopter in front. Ill look for it. Do NOT think that you cant get good shots with inferior equipment. DIGrevTV does photographer challenges with toy crap cameras, the results are usually outstanding.

 

Manual will help you learn what your camera is doing automatically. You can't go wrong using manual lenses.

 

 

Oh, one other pro for manual focusing, if you get serious about macro you're going to try macro stacking for greater depth of focus. You cant do that with auto as far as I know. You can do that with coral, their polyps move between shots, but bugs and flowers and stuff that don't move.

 

Let me look for that macro thread i did.

http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/353276-another-tank-cellphone-polyp-pic-dump-just-for-fun/?p=4877049

 

These were just for fun, and to see what a $10 chinese diopter macro lens could do. Not art, but good enough for NR posting.

[DurocShark]

farkwar, have you tried mounting your phone with those diopters on a rail then doing a focus stack? Might make a significant improvement...

 

Not saying I did that (I haven't) just curious.

[teenyreef]

That's a good idea It would be interesting to see how it works.

 

Btw, just as another example of a decent diopter shot, I took this one last year with a $9 diopter lens and my Nikon D60 kit lens. It's about 50% cropped, more for composition than for detail. Depth of field is always a challenge but it helped me learn about picking a focus sport and thinking about how the image will be composed when it's done. The only change I made in post processing was white balance and cropping.

Blue Zoas by TeenyReef, on Flickr

[farkwar]

farkwar, have you tried mounting your phone with those diopters on a rail then doing a focus stack? Might make a significant improvement...

 

Not saying I did that (I haven't) just curious.

Well, I took those pics with the pumps on.

 

I thought about it while taking the pics. Quickly realized that there was just too much subject movement between 2 sequential shots. And focusing the subjects is a trial and ERROR affair, with the Samsung camera.

 

With a 10 shot stack, nothing would line up.

 

Second, I have a couple Holgas, and a couple Holga lenses for the Nikon. I kinda liked the lofi Holga/Lensbaby look of those cell pics. They are not wallhangers, much less art. They are fun and I like the watery out of focus edges. Good enough to post. And to counter the "All I have are crap cell phone pics" excuse you read all the time. You can take good enough cell phone pics, and its not a good enough excuse on its own.

 

One day, I'll get the Zeiss out and make a serious attempt. Later. Not now.

[farkwar]

Ps, I also like the ease of taking the cell pics.

 

One can take the photos.

 

And while lying in bed or on the couch....

Toss the throwaways.

Hit the keepers with a little in camera sharpen.

Little clarity.

Color correction.

Crop

Save

Upload to Photobucket

Post to NR

 

Hardest part is remembering were I left the little macro lens from the last time.