2:1 Macro Lens

I stopped the video when he said a Vivitar was his sharpest lens. He's not picky enough to inform us if he thinks a Vivitar is his best lens. There's a review:

http://www.nikoncafe.com/xenf/index...ested.286805

He does a little coin work on Page 3; his results do not meet our standards. He thinks f/16 is the "sweet spot" and doesn't notice diffraction until f/22. This does not encourage me either.

So, no mention is made about how Venus chooses what to call aperture settings. Since it's a variable-magnification lens, aperture will change with mag and I have to guess the operator needs to do the math for effective aperture.

Working distance seems problematic, as well. The image results look decent so perhaps in the hands of a coin photographer it will do better.

RMPSRMPS: Love to see your review on that lens

I have an AF-S Micro Nikkor 85 mm 1:3.5 GED on my Nikon D90 mounted on a tripod for my coin and medal photography.
This may be old hat to the experts here and I may be reinventing the wheel, but here it is anyway. I have some Swiss shooting medals with proof like fields, which under the high magnification this lens produces, look to the novice to have been badly mishandled and filled with hairlines. I have come to conclude these are in the die, the flat high part of which was not polished enough to eliminate these hairlines. Comparing these 150 year old medals and coins with today's frosted proofs is just unrealistic. So what is my point? It is that photographing with a tent, or any other method where the light is coming straight down at 90 degrees these 'hairlines' show up like a sore thumb. I have found that by using a hand held fluorescent light
close to the medal (low angled illumination) these lines disappear and the fields are a uniform black, with the raised features
standing out like a frosted proof. You can't go too low, or the shadows become a problem. I crop off most of the shadow of the medal,

Has any one else experimented with tethered shooting?