World's Best 1:1 Macro Lens

That is an excellent photo. How much of a close-up can it take? How much does the lens cost?
John1

That is an excellent photo. How much of a close-up can it take? How much does the lens cost?
John1

The 105mm Printing Nikkor is optimized for around 1:1 magnification, so is not designed for extreme closeups. It should do very well at 2:1, possibly at 3:1, though the bellows extension is going to be very long. Better to use shorter focal length lenses that are designed for higher mags.

Cost...you actually can still buy these new, though I've never seen a published price. Probably between $3k-$5k. Used ones show up on ebay occasionally, and sell for $1500-$2500 depending on condition. About the same price as the famous 105 Apo-EL Nikkor.

Excellent photo, really nice coin! What kind of lighting are you using?

Thanks, it is my favorite coin to photograph. Lighting is by two LED's with custom-made diffusers. You can see the "shadow vignetting" caused by the diffusers to left and right of the coin. I get the light in as close as possible without shadowing the coin itself.

Wow...great photo--well done!
I thought I knew the whole Nikkor lens lineup, so if this is something special, that's interesting to me.
There is the older Micro-NIKKOR 105 2.8 AI-S (manual) with an all-metal housing, and the newer AF-S VR Micro-NIKKOR 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. The IF lenses are easier to focus on close objects.
The newer lens runs less than $1K, and the manual about half that for a good used example. Anyone who needs a good lens source, PM me.

Ray-
that's interesting--the lens must have nearly perfect flatness of field for reproduction/printing situations that require it. I'm not surprised by the added expense, and every Micro-Nikkor lens I've owned has served me well; macros are my specialty.

Amazing!

Won't a picture with that much quality cause potential buyers to down-grade it? Great lens, btw. Makes the coin look like aged leather.

After focus, lighting is the next most important element to getting a good coin shot. Compare your sixpence with my cent: the
sixpence is highlighted mostly on the left, and there are no shadows on the design elements on the left side, indicating it was
taken with one dominant light source coming in at a fairly low angle (maybe 45 deg) at around 9:00. The low angle creates
shadows on the surface features, emphasizing texture. The light source was also fairly "large" compared with the coin since it
is evenly lit, resulting in little apparent luster emphasis.

My cent photo, on the other hand, has highlights on nearly the topmost surfaces, and there are shadows showing evenly all
around the design elements, indicating it was taken with multiple light sources coming in at very high angles. The high angles
emphasize color but de-emphasize surface texture. As with the sixpence, the light sources were "large", so de-emphasize
luster.

To emphasize luster, you need a "small" light source that will cause specular reflections off the tiny mirrors all over the
surface of the coin. The pattern of reflection off these mirrors is the luster we see. Shine a small source at 6:00 and you see
luster in a line across the coin from 9:00-3:00 due to the reflections off the "luster mirrors".

It's difficult to get all the desired properties in a single photo:
- luster requires a small source at fairly high angle to the coin; clock position determines where on the coin the luster appears
- surface texture requires a large source at low angle (or natural lighting coming from ALL angles)
- design feature definition requires shadows around the features, achieved with large sources at medium lighting angles
- color definition requires very high lighting angles (even axial) and large sources

rmpsrpms, care to comment on the axial lighting? I had played with it a bit a few months back with my point n shoot with mixed results.