Bob,
I have thinking about purchasing this very lens for use on my z6ii. What kind of lighting were you using? I would have thought natural light with the setting you have should have produced a great photo , there's a large amount of light reflecting from the pedals so I can't say if you were using a flash or deflectors?? Thanks for posting!
Hi. Thanks for responding.
You'll have a hard time finding a reason to be unhappy with the 105. It's an amazing tool. Here's a couple of links to see lots more 105 stuff that I took and some that others shot. I think it's the best macro lens ever made and probably will be until Nikon decides to build a 180 or 200mm Z macro which would be the dream macro of all time. On my flickr page if you look around you also some Z 70-200mm images. Might find some Z 100-400mm stuff there too but I don't have a lot it posted yet.
Nikon user Gupta: Playing around with the 105 Macro. Super happy with the lens. From the garden last night. [imglink:597906]
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The flower is flashed using the Magmod diffuser. The flash power is jacked up to 1/2. I could have shot that to be pitch black in the background or sharp and crisp and balanced. I wasn't worried about light scatter. It's the bokeh that's striking and that's what I wanted to see. I just discovered the Magmod diffuser and was seeing what it could do. I used High speed sync shot up close looking for extreme bokeh and this is what I got. It looks a lot different on a large photo editing monitor with no website stuff around it to take my eye from the subject. If you isolate that image and get rid of the message thread and all the distractions on the screen you are going to find that there is a hypnotic 3D effect to looking at the flower if you try to stare into the center of it. At least that's what happens when I look at it.
It's more of an image you have to back away from to appreciate than to lean in and pixels peep.
If I had reversed the diffuser the light would have been filtered thru the diffuser material and some of the light artifacts in the background would be lessened but that's I'll try later.
I liked how that looks. It's one of those deals that if I wanted a perfect natural light photograph, I could have taken one that looked just like the half million others posted on flower websites with all the detail cropped out of them this time of year of a Mexican sunflower. It's the end of the summer and finding an original flower picture is about as challenging as finding a female Elvis fan under 60 years old. No offense Elvis fans.
It's shot using high speed sync so you might have noticed the shutter speed is 1/1000s even though I knew it wasn't going to fly away on me
It's shot almost wide open so the background will look like it does with a shallow depth of field. If you want to produce unique image quality and have never done it, experiment with HSS flash. It's a very cool concept and lets you jack up the shutter speed and open the aperture in brilliant sunlight...among other situations.
It's fun way to shot things.
With all that said, that's the true beauty of the Z MC 105mm macro. It will allow you to create images you won't get with other macros. It's fun to shoot and not create conventional images if you enjoy photographing outside the box sometimes and stepping away from trying to create stuff that's already been created.
You'll see more ordinary things I have done with it if you check out those links and look at the other things I have posted on BCG. It's a mighty fine lens for sure.
I'm shooting it today and will have lots more to show at the end of the day and will post more later today for you to check out.
One thing is for sure there's no such thing as a bad Z lens and the newer S series stuff is absolutely amazing.
Sorry for rambling. Forgive any typos and bad grammar.
I'll drop you a line when I post up what I shot today. It's 105 and 100-400 day all day.
Bob H