02-25-2011, 05:51 AM
Thank you all again.
It appears to me that some of you (or all of you) are saying that when being used as a normal lens, a macro lens cannot beat a good normal lens like 50 1.8. I tend to believe your statements since I have never used a macro lens. However, I am still curious: by design a macro lens should have superior resolution, and should have better resolution and contrast off the lens center than a normal lens. However, you are saying that as a normal lens the 60 2.8 macro cannot produce an image better than 50 1.8 at the same aperture in terms of resolution and contrast. Is this because the 50 1.8 is too good?
From the MTFs provided by Nikon, the AF-S 60 2.8 macro has a very impressive MTF at f/2.8. Nikon did not provide a MTF for the 50 1.8D at f/2.8. But from the test on this website (on APS-C cameras) I saw that at the lens center the resolution of the 50 1.8D beats that of the AF-S 60 2.8 macro; but the off cetter resolution of 60 2.8 is better.
Frank
It appears to me that some of you (or all of you) are saying that when being used as a normal lens, a macro lens cannot beat a good normal lens like 50 1.8. I tend to believe your statements since I have never used a macro lens. However, I am still curious: by design a macro lens should have superior resolution, and should have better resolution and contrast off the lens center than a normal lens. However, you are saying that as a normal lens the 60 2.8 macro cannot produce an image better than 50 1.8 at the same aperture in terms of resolution and contrast. Is this because the 50 1.8 is too good?
From the MTFs provided by Nikon, the AF-S 60 2.8 macro has a very impressive MTF at f/2.8. Nikon did not provide a MTF for the 50 1.8D at f/2.8. But from the test on this website (on APS-C cameras) I saw that at the lens center the resolution of the 50 1.8D beats that of the AF-S 60 2.8 macro; but the off cetter resolution of 60 2.8 is better.
Frank