Photo-Walking w/ Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 G Micro

I spent about an hour walking downtown Tacoma, with my trusty D4 and a new friend the Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 Micro. I wanted to get to know the lens a bit. This was just the basics, no lights or strobes, no tripods.

The build quality is super nice, the manual focus ring is smooth, solid and has great feel.

Manual focus is a dream with this lens, almost as nice as my old F. Zuiko 50 f/1.8 from Olympus, and to my surprise auto focus wasn't half bad either. Auto focus needs some help, like making sure you have your focus dot on something with contrast, and getting it close with manual focus, then taking over with AF. This lens has a bit nicer build quality than the Nikkor f/1.8 primes. It's heavier for it's focal length and the manual focus ring is tighter, heavier and more solid feeling. It is in the price range of the 1.8 primes ($600) yet feels like a higher end lens.

ISO 800, f/11 and 1/125 second shutter speed.

ISO 800, f/4.2 and 1/125 second shutter speed.

ISO 1600, f/11 and 1/125 second shutter speed.

ISO 2000, f/11 and 1/125 second shutter speed.

This is a really fun lens to walk around with and it brings a whole new world to your photography - the tiny! I was fascinated with exploring textures and contrasts.

Some basic macro tips for this lens: shoot between f/2.8 and f/16 for best sharpness results, and f/11 to f/16 to widen up your depth of field. Starting at f/22 you might notice a bit of softening of focus. With a macro lens, I usually shoot a bit faster shutter speed than I normally would, because those tiny close up details show camera shake more. So, instead of 1/60 second, I gravitate to 1/125 second hand held. For more careful work, and professional work, I would use a tripod.

I plan to spend more time with some more challenging macro subjects and will update this post when I do. More to come! On a side note, this lens is really great just as a standard lens also. I find it supports my creative curiosity well, and I am rarely disappointed. Here are some other images from my day today, that were not "close-up".

ISO 800, F/11, 1/125 second, back screen focus with my hands over my head, guessing on focus!

ISO 500, f/16, 1/125 second, cropped a bit in post.

And, I always like to do reflection pictures of myself, not completely sure why, but they really intrigue me.

Here is a post about editing versions of images, in which I used this macro/micro lens. It is also and example of using this lens for a portrait.

Update: March 8, 2018.

Yesterday I spent the day photo-walking and worked on some basic close-up photography with the Nikkor 60mm f/2.8 G Micro. I worked with available light, outdoors and most images have slight crops and added contrast in post. This lens continues to impress me, it has become one lens that is on the short list of being in my bag for all my photographic adventures. If I had a wish list for this lens: VR. However, that might cost it out of my personal price range.

More images done at exclusively f/16 to explore a wider depth of field when shooting close-up with a macro lens.