AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Talk Belize Photographs Chat Amazing macro images

... from a current Nikon-sponsored competition
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pic...e-in-microscopic-pictures-of-nature.html

very cool. i like the first two the best.

Peter,
Nippon Kogaku has always specialized in what they like to call "micro" photography. Indeed, before they produced the Nikon camera they manufactured microscopes and military/industrial optics.

Their involvement in high resolution macro phototography was a result of microfilming documents in the years after the Pacific War. Japanese characters require higher resolving power due to their complexity.

here is an interesting article about the origins of their micro lenses. I own the legendary 55mm/f3.5 Micro Nikkor in F mount. It might be the sharpest lens that Nikon ever made for small format photography. The optical formula was compromised in later designs to include better resolving power at infinity focus.

I've had a lot of fun shooting macro over the years. Macro shots have plenty of "wow", because we're not used to seeing things up close. Plus, I can have a photo safari in a very limited area-I've spent hours in the back yard, goofing off with camera and tripod.

Dan

Dan - how did the east fare against the west? I know that Minox cameras were regarded so good that the British used them as well as the Germans. I used to have one of their 35mm cameras and it could produce absolutely fantastic images, so I can believe that their spy cameras were also very good. Wonderful lenses. I'd still have it if I hadn't been relieved of it by a mugger in Johannesburg!

Peter

Dan - just read the article. Fascinating. For some reason it brings a question to my mind - clearly Nikon were photography pioneers, but does Canon have a similar history? I know (believe) they're a much bigger company than Nikon, quite an industrial conglomerate though (again, I believe) mainly in the imaging business, but do they have their routes in pioneering development work or in commercial exploitation (what I call "me too")?

It happens that when I bought into a digital SLR last year I went for a Canon because at the time they had the best camera for low available light work. If I were starting now I'd be likely to go for a Nikon D700. These two companies leap-frog each other, though they do seem to me to have a different development ethos. I'd say the current Nikon range is of better rounded cameras than the Canon range - Canon have lots of cameras with very high mp ratings, whereas Nikon seem for the time being to have stopped at quite a modest level. I wonder what the truth behind this is.

I've recently been experimenting with my 5D, and took a very acceptable portrait at ISO 12800. Not bad for a camera first released 3 1/2 years ago, in a market where a few months is a long time. Makes me glad I bought it - I had been concerned at the very high ISO levels the best Nikon cameras are said (by Nikon) to be able to operate at, compared with the greatly lower levels declared by Canon. But I suspect in reality there isn't a lot to choose between them, and it's the marketing people who muddy the waters.

Peter,
actually, Canon produced a 35mm camera long before Nippon Kogaku. The Hansa Canon was relased in the 1930s, not long after Leitz developed their Leica, the first successful camera to use 35mm movie film. Interestingly, the Canon used a Nikkor 50mm/f3.5 lens, according to the Canon Museum.

Nippon Kogaku produced industrial optics, including many of the superior rangefinders and other military optics used during WWII. After the war, Nippon Kogaku Tokyo (NKT) produced lenses for small format photography, including Leica and Contax compatible lenses. These were discovered by journalists covering the reconstruction of Japan, and later the Korean War. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Cappa were early believers in Nikkor optics.


Death of a Loyalist Soldier, by Robert Cappa

About this time, NKT developed their own camera body. Unsure if it would be a success, they were reluctant to market the camera under the Nippon Kogaku brand name. The camera was the Nikon I.

The Nikon camera was released with lenses adapted from NKT's existing products: Lenses designed for Canon, Leica and Contax. The Nikon became a preferred photography platform for journalists using small format film in a time when large and medium format photography was dominant.

The portability of small format cameras was especially useful for sports photography and other mobile disciplines, but the image quality of the larger negatives made the Graflex and Roleiflex platforms hard to beat. Then, in the late 1950s the Nikon F became available. The F was the first truely successful single lens reflex. SLRs are very good at high magnifications, such as long telephotos and macro lenses. The lenses that NKT had developed in the 1930s and 1940s were adapted to the F mount, and new telephotos were designed. The F was a sports photographer's dream come true, and NKT sold boatloads of them.

About this time film was improving and the advantage of medium and large format photograpy started to diminish, just as the Nikon star was really rising.

Soon, the brand value of "Nikon" was higher than "Nippon Kogaku", and the company was renamed Nikon. I have a few of the early NKT lenses and they throw a beautiful image onto the film. For example, the NKT 50mm/f3.5 macro may be as sharp or sharper than their current macro lenses. It's certianly capable of publication quality images, even though it was designed in the 1940s.

These classic lenses are a joy to use. Nikon's optics and their mechanical construction were so good that the lenses feel like precision tools. The new autofocus lenses are nice, but they don't have anywhere near the build quality of the handmade lenses of the 50s and 60s.

Now, Nikon would just as soon lose the photography business. The margins are thin due to competition. They make as much selling a few of their steppers, used in semiconductor manufacturing, as they do making all their point & shoot wondercams. However, the old guard at Nikon keep the photography business alive, although it's no longer their bread & butter.

It's an interesting story, at least to those of us who are really geeked up about photograpy. I'll sign off with a link to some of Henri Cartier-Bresson's work. Take a look the next time you're thinking that you have made a good shot or two. It's a humbling experience to examine the work of the masters. I could spend my whole life trying to learn to be as good as Cappa, et al, but those guys were simply gifted.

Dan

Magnum Photos-Album of Henri Cartier-Bresson. Click here

Article on the legendary Nikon 1

WOW - Thanks for sharing I love the picture of the moth wing
Your narrative is very enlightening.