Last week I was sitting in the Jeep waiting for Gemma to finish up an appointment. With time to kill, I decided to search the area for a camera shop. As luck would have it, Paul’s Photo was sitting directly across the street from me. Of course, I headed straight there.
I have a mental list of the Nikon lenses I’d love to have, and near the top was the NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S. This is a newer macro offering that has been highly reviewed both for its macro ability, and for its versatility as a flattering portrait lens. It’s been on backorder every time I’ve checked for it, so I figured it would be a while before I was able to add it to the collection. But I got lucky again because Paul’s Photo had just received a delivery, and a copy of the 105 was included in the shipment. I spent a few minutes playing with it in the store. The clerk, visibly annoyed, watched as I changed half a dozen settings in the demo camera. I just wanted to get a good feel for the lens as I would use it.
I was surprised by how light and comfortable it was to handle. It felt nicely balanced latched onto the front of the Z 6II I’d just rearranged. And the images looked really nice as far as I could tell from the three-inch OLED: incredibly sharp, razor thin depth of field while wide open, and the color rendition and contrast were really rich, too.
I brought it home. This evening, I took it for a walk around the block with Gemma, and here are my first photos with it. I’m really pleased with the results. It’s my first macro lens, and it’s so fun to shoot. I can’t wait to explore more with it, both as a depth of field macro monster, and as a gorgeous portrait lens with smooth, compressed backgrounds.
