The 60/2.8 G replaces its predecessor, the 60/2.8 D, both of which are 1:1 lenses unlike its predecessor, it reaches 1:1 through internal focusing alone, and the lens doesn’t extend – the front element on the G is a lot closer to the front of the barrel, and as a result, offers greater working distance at a given magnification than the D (which has a very heavily recessed front element). (I suppose Carl Zeiss gets away with it by sounding German and putting a ‘k’ in Makro-Planar – these are 1:2 lenses.) Almost nobody seems to get this right online, even the manufacturers ‘macro’ mode almost never yields 1:1 magnification, and there aren’t that many lenses that achieve this natively. a 20mm wide object in reality would be 20mm or wider when projected on the sensor plane) whereas micro refers to magnification slightly less than this but more than would be encountered during normal photography – ‘close focus’ might perhaps be a more accurate term.

Simply, macro refers to 1:1 or greater magnification (i.e. I prefer it over the 85 PCE for images that require high magnification, as this lens natively reaches 1:1 magnification on its own thus requiring fewer extension tubes to reach even smaller levels of frame coverage.īefore we start talking about the lens specifically, I would like to debunk some myths about macro vs micro photography: both have to do with the reproduction ratio created by the lens on the imaging medium it is format independent. As you might expect, I use this lens for the majority of my commercial watch photography. In what appears to be a hideously enormous oversight on my part, I seem to have neglected to review what is ostensibly my most used lens: the Nikon AFS 60mm f2.8 G Micro-Nikkor. The same goes for film: a web scan isn’t going to have anywhere near the same amount of information as the original negative even printing introduces an additional variable into the mix which might lead a review to conclude erroneously. When evaluating images in the analog domain, it’s already difficult enough to form an opinion based on a small websize jpeg this is why it’s important to go along with the words of the reviewer as they’ve (hopefully) seen large, uncompressed files on a calibrated monitor – what you’re seeing is merely for illustration and perhaps to break up the enormous blocks of text.

Differences are down to glass, assuming that processing is carried out consistently. Still, there are definitely characteristics that shine through regardless – part of this is perhaps down to the equality of media across all cameras – an F6 has the same sensor as a Mju II, which in turn has the same sensor as a 1930s Leica I. Reviewing film cameras both takes a little longer and always somehow feels a little less complete than doing the same for digital I suspect it’s because there really are quite a lot of unknowns in the equation which you can’t determine whether are due to the camera or some other portion of the process.

D2x type e focusing screen grid lines