Buying a New Lens

Paddle Surfer, Waikiki Beach, Hawaii

www.dennismook.com

I'm getting ready to buy a new lens.  Why?  Because I have a project I want to start soon.  Can't I accomplish this project with the gear I have?  No.  Which lens are you going to buy?  I don't know yet.  What is your process for going about buying a new lens?  Read on.

First of all, I really don't like spending a lot of money.  I used to like spending a lot of money, but I'm retired now and have just about all the things I need or want.  Every once in a while, I find that I need (or really want) to buy something that is expensive, but it is a fight between two sides of my brain whether or not to spend the money to get it.  It takes a long time to convince myself.  (One day I'll tell you how long it takes me to finally buy an automobile!)  If mental gymnastics were physical exercise, I would be in great shape!

When I finally decide I really want or, more likely, need something, there is a research process I go through before getting the wallet out.  I have been accused of overthinking things, but I want to ensure myself that a) I bought exactly what I needed to do the job I exactly need it to do and, b) I received the best value for my money.  Best value doesn't necessarily mean cheapest price.  There are other considerations.  I would hate to spend a lot of money on something that doesn't do the job I need it to do--wrong tool.  I would hate to spend a lot of money on something only to find out afterward, if I had done a bit of research, I could have gotten a much better value.  I want to be totally happy with my purchase for a long time and not be kicking myself for cutting corners and not conducting due diligence.

Step one--develop a conceptual plan to fully flesh out what, in the end, I want to accomplish, what steps I need to take to achieve my goal(s), what "things" I need to use to reach my goal(s) and in what time frame I want to reach my end goal(s).  Step two--develop a plan of action both in the acquisition of needed tools as well as carrying out the project details in the logical manner and timeframe.  Step three--review what I have done and assess if I met my goal(s) and, if not, what modifications I would make next time.

So what is it that I want to do that will cause me to buy a lens?  Well, I have probably 10,000 to 12,000 35mm, 120 and 4" X 5" slides and negatives that are in boxes filed away.  I want to digitize those slides and negatives as they are travel, family, etc. images that I have made over the past 43 years.  The goal is two fold.  First, I have files that I want to covert to submit to my stock photo agency.  Second, there are many family images that I want have accessible to me as well as my children after I'm long gone for family history's sake.  I need to make excellent, high resolution files to reach the first goal, and excellent, medium resolution files to reach the second goal.  That being said, if there are family photos that are of possible stock use, I will make high resolution files of those.

Upper West Side of Manhattan, NYC

Last year, I went the way of having a couple of thousand slides and negatives scanned by Scan Café but that gets expensive for the professional level scans.  I want to see how it will work out if I do it myself. I plan on using my D800E with a top quality macro lens to digitize these files.  Currently, I don't have a macro lens.  I sold mine about 2 years ago as I was not using it much.  It was a 60mm Nikon AF-D Micro.  Nice lens but I don't like to tie up money on equipment if I am not getting use from it.

Here are the facts.  First, I have an Epson 750 flatbed scanner that does a wonderful job on medium and large format slides and negatives.  However, I'm not satisfied with the quality it gives me of 35mm work.  Second, I have a Nikon D800E with a wonderful 36.2mp sensor with great dynamic range.  It produces huge files, as large if not larger than the Scan Café scans.  Looking over some of my recent files here are some figures that I found:

Scan Café Scans
15-32mb jpegs (they only return jpegs and they have limitations)
130mb TIFF conversions from the jpegs

Nikon D800E Files
37-50mb NEF files (raw)  which have a much greater leeway for improvements to be made
115 to 280mb finished TIFF files after processing and conversion

Based on those figures, I think I can get the necessary quality from the D800E and a good macro lens.  But I will test and find out for myself when I start the project to confirm.

Also, I have a high quality daylight balanced Acculight light table.  I used to use this to view my slides and negatives in my film shooting days.  It will make a perfect diffuse background light source for the copy work I plan.  Additonally, I have a very sturdy Induro CT410 tripod that is like a rock.  I will use that.  Recently, I purchased a Four-Way Macro Focusing Rail so as to be able to fine tune the camera position for copying the frame exactly.

My plan is to use the Epson 750 to scan medium and large format negatives and transparencies.  For the 35mm work, I will use the film holders from the Epson 750, for which there are two--one that holds 20 slides and the other which will hold 4 negative strips  I will use the light table, which will sit at a 45 degree angle, and use black cardboard with gaffer's tape to rig up a system to place the film holder on the table, then move the film holders so each slide or negative will move in front of the camera lens.


Moose, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming

The D800E will be mounted on the Four-Way Macro Focusing Rail and the new macro lens on the front.  I need a comfortable distance from the front of the lens to the surface of the slide or negative, so that will have an impact on which lens--all part of the overall planning process of which lens to buy.

I will need to experiment with placement of the light table and tripod, but I'm initially thinking of having the light table low as I plan on using "live view" to check the focusing before each exposure after the initial setup.  Live view focuses directly off the sensor so there should be no error.

So, that is my plan.  What lens?

I started by researching what lenses are available and reading several reviews of each.  Also, I try tro read reviews of different lenses by the same reviewer so I can make a direct comparison.  I looked at maximum aperture (faster is better because you lose 2 stops of light when you focus 1:1).  I looked at minimum focusing difference.  Focus speed is not really a major consideration for this project, but the lens will be used for general purpose photography, both macro and regular, at times.  After reviewing what is available, I first decided on a focal length.  In my case, I was looking at focal lengths longer than 100mm.  The are good macro lenses available at 105, 150, 180 and 200mm.  I then looked at maximum aperture and they ranged from F/2.8-F/4.  I thought that F/4 would be too slow unless it is tack sharp wide open.  I looked at build quality, chromatic aberration, vignetting (shading), resolution, age of the design (which could affect anti-reflection lens coatings) and even looked at bokeh, if it was available in a lot of reviews.  I talked with knowledgeable friends who are photographers and have experience with macro.  I read comments from purchasers of the various available lenses.  Lastly, I considered whether or not the lenses were readily available on the new and used market and their prices.

Here are the lenses I considered:

Nikon 105 F/2.8 Micro VR (image stabilization)
Nikon 200mm F/4 Micro
Tamron 180mm F/3.5 Macro
Sigma 180mm F/2.8 Macro
Sigma 150mm F/2.8 Macro; with image stabilization
Sigma 150mm F/2.8 Macro; no image stabilization (no longer in production)

After going through this "review all the available literature process", I made the decision to look primarily at the Sigma's two 150mm F/2.8 macro lenses, based upon all information I could find.

The older model does not have image stabilization and seems, from what I read in more than one review, resolve a bit more.  The newer one has image stabilization, but its resolving power is just a tad bit less.  Considering my mantra that "almost all the lenses out there are better than almost all the photographers" I felt the asset of image stabilization for general macro or distance photography work would out weigh a loss of a couple of percent of resolution.  In my opinion, I don't think the difference in resolution will even be noticeable.

So, after deciding that I need a macro lens to accomplish my upcoming project, weighing what is available and deciding on a focal length range, then reading many reviews, looking at features, etc. I made my decision.  All that being don, I will still thoroughly check out the lens in real world circumstances, only after calibrating it to my two cameras with the FoCal software so as to fully extract the lens and camera combination's potential.  No sense in spending a lot of money on a lens and a lot of money on a superb camera body only to have a slight focus mismatch.  I use FoCal on all my lenses to adjust the micro focus and to determine the best aperture and best aperture range on each lens.

So there it is.  Lots of planning, thinking, assessing, reading before the decision.  I plan on buying the lens the first part of next week and I will have a follow-up with results of my tests and copy work.

Thanks for looking.

Enjoy!
Dennis Mook