AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D

Today the whole family went to the mall.  Our intent was to get new batteries for the flash, get haircuts, and play in the kiddie area.  We ended up buying an AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D lense, eating dinner and then finally visiting the kiddie play area at the Glen Burnie mall.  As you can see, it wasn’t quite the plan we had in mind.

Mommy and Daddy have been looking at macro lenses for a while now.  Mommy has been developing her skills quite rapidly, and she wanted to expand into closeup photographs.  Our friend Andrew at Ritz photo showed us the lense and we fell in love.  Then Mommy reminded Daddy that he forgot to get her a Mother’s Day gift:  hence the new lense.

The lense is incredibly easy to use in either manual or autofocus. In manual, its best to use this mode when going for extremely close up shots because the depth of field can be limited with such high accuracy.  The tight depth of field issue can be difficult for the autofocus to handle, even in center spot focus with our Nikon D200, so its best to keep it in manual when you are right up on the subject.

On the other hand, for longer ranges in photograpy, the autofocus works great. The powerful took is a true asset for something like portrait photography.  We even found that we like the time of response in the autofocus function when it is acquiring a new subject.

Daddy also found it to be a great teaching asset because the F-stop is excellent with its range of 2.8 to 32.  With the Nikon D200 in Aperture Mode, two photographs of the same subject at both ends of the F-stop can show how the change in the amount of light entering the camera is effected.  There is nothing like comparing it to an iris to explain such things!

Well, everyone can look forward to the lense helping us bring new and interesting photographs to everyone.  Too bad it can’t take a picture of the past where Daddy swears he did something for Mommy on Mother’s Day.