travelair Offline Upload & Sell: Off
|
Don't have any experience with the newer G, but have plenty with the older 55's, both 3.5 and 2.8 MF, as well as, the 60/2.8 AF-S. If that focal length works for you, they are more than capable for portraiture. Most of the older designs are not terribly complex optical designs, which seem to render out of focus areas in a pleasing fashion (ie good bokeh).
Despite great optical qualities, macro lenses can be somewhat difficult to work with at normal working distances, well outside of the macro range. Most modern lenses, with a coupled focus ring, only take about 3/4 of a rotation (270 degrees) to go from their closest focus to infinity focus. It takes a much greater movement of the optical elements away from the imaging plane the closer one focuses, although, newer designs play some games with internal focusing. In practical terms, what that means is going from say 5 ft to infinity may only require 15 degrees of focus ring rotation on a macro lenses, versus perhaps 60 degrees on a non-macro design. In other words, focusing can be a little touchy in manual mode, and some designs can hunt a bit in AF mode.
The older 60 AF-S lens I'm most familiar with is a screw drive lens, and is one of the ones that tends to hunt. From what I understand, the 60G has an integrated silent wave motor, and tends to be much better.
Ming Thein has an excellent review on the 60G with helpful examples.
https://blog.mingthein.com/2013/02/01/review-nikon-afs-60-2-8-g-micro/
FWIW, I used to use a Pentax 120/4 macro, on 645 format, as my favorite wedding portraiture lens. Also, Leica made the incredible 100/2.8 APO macro Elmarit R, which may have been the single finest optic that I have ever had the chance of using. It was a MF only optic, and the only 35mm lens that I've used with a greater than 1 turn focus throw (almost 2 full turns), which made it much easier to live with in the non-macro range.
http://slrlensreview.com/web/reviews/leica-lenses/leica-macro/418-leica-apo-macro-elmarit-r-100mm-f28-leica-apo-macro-elmarit-r-100mm-f28-e60-lens-review
|