A Study with Flowers and different Lenses

 

Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 MC, @ f/3, 1/30, ISO125

We often worry about our lenses. My recent problem child is the Nikon 28mm f/2.8 which I love because of its portability. It makes the Z5 small and unintrusive. But it is not an S-line lens, and that shows if you look closely. Moreover, this wide lens requires special compositions which may or may not work, and which you may or may not like. To learn more about this problem, I started a study with other lenses on flowers from the garden, placed on a table in sub-optimal light. 

The first candidate for comparison is the excellent Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 macro lens. Clearly, you don't have to use it as a macro lens. It is also a good portrait lens. The image above shows such a "portrait". Aperture is at f/3 which yields a nice blurry background with excellent Bokeh, but also a very small DOF. I focused on the front. The Flowers behind are already out of focus. If you look closely, you find some color fringing on the right boundary in the middle distance. I can assure you that this is rarely a visible problem with this lens.

Nikkor 105mm f/2.8, @ f/6.3, 1/30, ISO 450

A real macro shot is much more difficult with this lens. The flat and low light generates a lot of problems, especially with the colors which need to be fixed carefully. Out of the camera, the flower looked purple. Moreover, ISO 450 is not sufficient and I had to lighten up the image quite a lot. Those hand-held shots in low light are never 100% sharp. But with this subject they don't have to be. I even softened the image with the clarity slider. You cannot expect better results hand-held and without additional lighting. True macro photographers use much more advanced techniques.

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8, @ f/2.2, a/60, ISO 140

Here is another solid performer, Nikon's nifty-fifty 50mm S-line lens. The focusing distance is almost the minimal one you can achieve with this lens. I would love to get closer with 50mm, but it is only possible with macro rings. The background is almost perfect. If you want a really smooth background, you must take a longer lens. Every time, I use this lens I am astonished by the quality it delivers. I wished it was a bit smaller and lighter, however.

Nikkor 70-180mm f/2.8, @ f5.6, 180mm, 1/100, ISO1600

This is what a long lens can do. I did not crop in to the flower, but you could, as you see in the image below. The 70-180 surprised me. It is sharp and has a lot of contrast. I am glad that I exchanged it for my 24-200 lens. I used the better 24-70mm f/4 most of the time anyway. Now, I have to carry an extra lens if a telephoto composition might be needed.

Nikkor 70-180mm f/2.8, @ f5.6, 180mm, 1/100, ISO1600, cropped to about 300mm

This crop show that the lens is capable of acting for wildlife or the zoo, unless you ask for more than 300mm reach, even on the 24MP sensor of the Z5.

Nikkor 24-70mm f/4, @ f/5.6, 70mm, 1/86, ISO 1100

My main lens for hiking, biking and travelling is the Nikon 24-70mm f/4, features in the image above. In fact, the lens is hard to beat for a its handling, portability and image quality. The primes are sharper, but only a tad, and they can open wider, of course. 

But if you use lenses at f/8 anyway, you can just as well have this lens on your camera all the time. One downside is that it does not have VR. The VR lenses, like the 105 MC or the 24-200, gain one stop over the IBIS in my experience.

Nikkor 24-70mm f/4, @ f/5.6, 70mm, 1/80, ISO 720

This "kit" zoom lens has optimal sharpness at f/5.6 almost throughout the range. On the long end, f/8 is a even a bit better. The image shows good background blurriness. But it is not a beauty shot with creamy background and you can still see the environment the subject is in. Use longer and faster lenses if you want to achieve this. For portraits, I prefer f/4 and 135mm.

Nikkor 28mm f/2.8, @ f/5.6, 1/30, ISO 280

Now we see the "problem child". For efficient shots, you need to get close and as open as the the DOF allows. Of course, you need to embrace the resulting distortion. From f/4 on, the lens is sharp enough. It's downsides are a bit of color fringing, distortion, flaring in harsh light and less contrast. But with some fixes in post-processing and the lens correction, you can get good results.

Nikkor 28mm f/2.8m, @ f/2.8, 1/30, ISO 140

If you go even closer and to a wider aperture, you get very little DOF. It is really a special kind of photography.

Nikkor 28mm f/2.8, @ f/2.8, 1/40, ISO 100

If you are further away, the wide image will not look spectacular, even at f/2.8. It just shows a fine background blur with lots of the environment. This is how such lenses should be used. Zooming in to the flower reveals very little DOF. If you do not pixel peep, the flower will look sharp, however. On portraits of people in their environment, just focus on the detail you want to enhance, usually the eyes.

It is still not clear if you really need the f/2.8 version and cannot simply use f/4 on the 24-70 kit lens. The benefit of the 28mm is its small size and light weight. Professionals will opt for the 24-70 f/2.8 instead. But that is out of question for me due to its size, weight and price. I would love to have a really good 28mm, even if it was a bit larger and more expensive. The wider Nikon f/1.8 lenses are already too bulky.

This ends my studies with lenses. My summary would be that all lenses perform well. It depends on your style which one you prefer. I certainly learned that you can do a lot with the 70-180 f/2.8, that macro photography is difficult, the 105mm MC is excellent, and the my 50mm still is solid, but a bit boring.