Recently, I bought a used Nikon Coolpix 990. I wanted to fool with
digital a bit, and I had a particular interest in trying macro work with
instant feedback and gratification. I chose the Coolpix over the somewhat
easier-to-use Olympus digitals mostly for the macro ability. Out of the
box, the Coolpix can focus as close as 2 cm, and photograph a field 2 cm
wide.
Add a reversed normal or wide-angle camera lens with the Coolpix on
infinity and telephoto setting, and you can do even better. With a 35/2
Leica Summicron-M, the field is 1 cm wide. With a 28mm Zuiko, there's a
little vignetting, and the field is 8mm wide.
Here, the all of the above, is my first foray, up close and personal, into
the six-legged world. This subject was immortalized posthumously, but I
hope to work with live subjects in the future.
Coolpix alone at closest distance:
http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/Bug2cm6221.jpg
With 35/2 Summicron-M as closeup lens:
http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/Bug1cm6219.jpg
Detail of the above:
http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/Bug1cm6219Detail.jpg
With 28/2.8 Zuiko, cropped a bit:
http://www.2alpha.com/~pklein/temp/Jaws6233.jpg
When the last one came up on the screen, I imagined a line that might have
come from some 1930s pulp science fiction novel: "His murderous mantibles
gaping in anticipation, General Gzalpth loomed above the supine Princess
Aurelia. . ."
The 28/2.8 has nice bokeh. The picture also clearly shows the contrast
limitations of a digicam, and *you* try getting a strand of dust out of a
mouth less than 1mm wide! Still, it's fun to photograph things so small
you can't see them.
BTW, I tried the reversed-lens trick with a borrowed Olympus C3030, and
the results were nowhere near as good. There was a great deal of
vignetting even with the 35mm Summicron-M. Both the C4000 and the C5050
have excellent macro ability right out of the box, but the split-body
Coolpixes beat them significantly even so.
--Peter Klein
Seattle, WA
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