I will readily admit that for me, a big part of the fun of a hobby is usually the gear itself. In this case the cameras, lenses, accessories, etc… Something about having the latest and greatest just has an appeal all it’s own. Fortunately my wife is incredibly tolerant when I announce the arrival of a new lens with the justification “but honey, this one goes to f1.8 and the one I already have just like it only goes to f4… well no, the pictures are not really going to look any different”.
BUT, my newest toy is far far removed from being the latest with all the best technology. I recently picked up a used Nikon 200mm Micro lens which was made in the mid 1990’s when film was still king. Although it is an autofocus lens it only operates on my current camera in manual focus, so I’ve nick named it Old School. There is a reason this lens has not been updated in 30 years, it is really a very niche lens. There are very few photographic reasons to use a long focal length macro lens, while adding good macro ability to a normal telephoto lens ups the price considerably. But when you are doing up close nature photography in the field, you are solidly in the niche that this lens fills.
So how well does a 30 year old lens design work on a modern mirrorless ICL camera? With no fancy nano-coatings, no computer designed and polished lens elements utilizing exotic glasses, and with manual focus only, would it possibly be able to produce images on par with modern lens designs? To answer this question I hit the Cowles Bog trail at the Indiana Dunes National Park to put it through it’s paces. All of the following images were taken with it, 30 years old and it is still a gem of a lens.
This image illustrates what most people use this lens for, closeups of insects. I have a lot of images just like this one, taken with a much more modern but shorter focal length macro lens. I can say without reservation that the sharpness and color rendition of this 30 year old lens remains superb, even by todays standards. Notice the individual pollen grains on the snout of this interesting bug which seems to have a vacuum hose stuck on his face.
These tiny blossoms on what it probably a blueberry bush are a good test of the color rendition of a lens. The greens and reds are very soft and their subtleties are easily lost. Note that the new Nikon Z mirrorless cameras make using older manual focus lenses a pleasure, it is very easy to see exactly what is in focus before taking the shot.
The physics of the optics required to allow a lens to focus really close to a subject impose a very shallow depth of focus on your subject. It takes some time and practice to learn how to use this characteristic to your advantage. Here I choose a subject and camera position that put the top flower pedals and buds in a single plane perpendicular to the lens which allowed me to bring them into sharp focus while everything else in the frame was nicely blurred. With nothing else to compete for the eye’s attention, the details in the pedals really pop out.
This is the type of image that is easier to obtain with a longer focal length macro lens which allows you to setup further away from your subject. My normal macro lens is a 105mm with a close focus distance of about 9″, the 200mm macro has a close focus distance of about 18″. This tiny little fly would likely have flown off if I tried to get within 9″ of it. I love how the individual little hairs are so clear and sharply focused.
Nothing to do with my new lens, but this is probably the best view I have ever been able to get of Wild Columbine. Because it points down and grows close to the ground it is usually difficult to see the details inside the pedals.
Another example of the niche which this lens fills. Butterflies are often spooked into flying off if you try to get in too close.
The sharp lines and subtle color gradations across this large skunk cabbage leaf are one of my favorites along this particular trail at this time of year.
This shot shows how the lens performs as a regular telephoto lens on a more distant subject.
The amount of detail present in this image is simply stunning. Scenes like this one are among the easier ones for getting good sharp detail across the field of view. Everything in the frame was perfectly stationary in spite of the light breeze that was present at the time.
Getting accurate focus with a manual focus lens on older DSLR’s was always a bit challenging. Their optical viewfinders usually do not have the split screen prism focus aid that was standard on film cameras. But the way in which the Nikon Z cameras have designed their electronic viewfinder allows you to use a combination of optical zoom and focus peaking to see exactly which elements of the scene are in focus.
One of the common shortcomings of older lens designs is false color fringing on the edges of bright white objects. I was pleased to see that no such fringing appeared in any of the images that I took, although admittedly I was not photographing under conditions which would have really high lighted this effect.
I never get tired of water droplets on leaves after a rain. These were left over from the previous day, but the humidity was so high they still had not yet evaporated.