Of more interest to some than the latest Canon geegaw was the announcement, pre Focus on Imaging / PMA, of Nikon's new 105mm F/2.8 105mm macro lens with VR.

A macro lens with VR...about time There is some question about how effective the VR will be at macro distances, but any help would be great for handheld close ups, something my wife, as an award winning botanical photographer, and I will both use a lot.

Quentin

This is good news for me as well. I often forget how effective VR is until I switch to a lens without it. That gives me hopes that it will provide significant service in macro lens.

Any news on how this lens will be priced? I'd expect it to be in the ~$1000 range. I'd happily pay that: I handhold lenses at close-focusing distances much more often than I should.


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Daniel Bell

List price is 120.000 in Japan, which will mean a bit less than 100.000 Yen on the shelves.

I'd say about 1100 US$...

Regards,
Bernard

I just picked up a Minolta 50mm macro on eBay for $239. Guess what? On my K-M 7D it's a 75mm with the equivalent to VR. . I guess that makes K-M the poor man's Nikon.

indeed.

I rather like Minolta's lenses. I haven't used any of their digital bodies, but i'm sure having the anti-shake functionality in the camera body is nice. That aside, 50mm is too short for me to use for macro work (not enough working distance). You'd have to compare Nikon's new offering to Minolta's 100mm macro lens in order for it to be a comparison of lenses with similar functionality. In fairness, that lens costs about half of what Nikon's 105s do.


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Daniel Bell

I have a Konica-Minolta A2 that uses the anti-shake system similar to that of their DSLR. It works very well. I thought I would use it most often when shooting at the equivalent of 200mm, but find that its best use is when shooting in dim light. The ability to shoot at 1/30 second and get a tack sharp image is very nice.