When Thea had the yard worked on last year, she included a raised garden square that she imagined might be for vegetables or roses or something. Late march rolled around and we were no closer to deciding what should go into the plot. Since it was just bare dirt, it wasn’t doing anything aesthetically for anyone. So I took it upon myself to sow some hummingbird wildflower seed mix. The plot didn’t take off for some time and I almost dispaired of spending the seven bucks. But here we are in the beginning of July and there are lots of things blooming, flies buzzing, bees foraging, etc.
When Richard asked me what I was doing with the 60mm Macro Nikkor that I begged him to let me borrow, I admited that it was still resting. “Well, get out and shoot something with it already.”, he said. And I promised that I would. Well here’s what I shot with the 60mm and I decided to tack on some similar pictures taken with my Sigma 105mm.
My conclusion so far: There’s something more natural about the 60mm. All this was done without adjustment or compensation. I think that the 105mm might have been better if it were stopped down a bit.
7/09/2023–As an aside, an overnight storm system flattened a lot of these blooms.
Nice stuff. That 60mm is pixel-for-pixel the sharpest lens I own. You mentioned stopping down, and it’s absolutely true that you need to stop down a bunch for really close macro, since depth-of-field is vanishingly shallower the closer you get. Let me know when you’re ready for another photo challenge!