Tilt Shift Lens or FX body?

[ozmen]

I use DX format Nikon D7000 with Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S. I shoot food and tabletop products mostly.
And here is my problem. In my shots I loose DOF as I close to the subject naturally and I don't like stopping down to f22 or f32 due to diffraction.
Generally I shot from a distance of 50-60 cm to fill coffee cup in the frame. Not much closer macros.
I would like to know which one of the following is the best choice for my case.
- Buying a Nikon PC-E 85mm to use on existing D7000 and able to get higher DOF with wider apertures without diffraction problem
- Buying a Nikon D800 to use with my existing Macro Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S
(To have sharper edges and less diffraction on full frame with higher f stops like f16 or f22 as well as shooting farther to get more DOF and cropping in post production)

If your answer is to get a Tilt-Shift Lens then will I have difficulty about the tilt movements due to small DX format on my D7000?

Thanks

[dubaiphil]

Your camera body will probably not have enough clearance to fully tilt/shift on a D7000

[dubaiphil]

A far cheaper option would be to learn about focus stacking

[Manfred M]

Going full-frame will gain you perhaps one stop worth of DoF, so FF is going to help, but only only to a limited extent. So far as I can tell, shift-tilt lenses are not neccessarily going to be a complete solution either, depending on what you are shooting, as they will handle some correction, but may or may not do everything you are after.

What you might want to consider doing is renting one to see if it works for you (and how it works on your camera body). Don't forget that these lenses are 100% manual. Another option that might be interesting is that Samyang has announced a 24mm shift-tilt lens that should be hitting the shelves in March. It will cost less than 1/2 of what the Nikon and Canon lenses are running at. I'm watching for reviews and am considering getting one of these if the reviews are reasonable. I have a Samyang DX 8mm fisheye and its optical and build quality are excellent.

[Black Pearl]

Been said above but I'd go the software route and use focus stacking. Best software out there is Helicon Focus as it has features beyond any of the basic ones.

Two points that may interest you:

1* You can download a 30 day trial.
2* The software tethers to the camera and works it all out for you so your workflow can be very fast and straight forward.

A friend of mine shoots lots of product photography for a living and it has totally transformed the way in which he can take pictures. An example was a shoot for a spectacle firm who wanted everything sharp from the front corner of the frames to the ear hook thingies. Helicon set to work taking slices from front to back and combining them into one shot and he ended up belting through dozens of the products in very little time. Amazing to see it work and amazing results.

[DanK]

In my shots I loose DOF as I close to the subject naturally and I don't like stopping down to f22 or f32 due to diffraction.

Check out this link. Full frame will get you narrower DOF with a given field of view, not wider. This is why many macro photographers prefer a crop sensor camera.

In my experience, even with a crop-sensor camera, I can shoot macros at f/20 without enough loss from diffusion to matter, when printing up to 8 * 10. However, the best solution, as others have suggested, is focus stacking. For that purpose, I use Zerene, which is also the software used by many of the other macro photographers I know.

I'll post two examples.

Canon XTi (old Rebel), 60mm macro, f/20:



Canon 50D (also a crop), roughly 20 images stacked with Zerene:

[Hero]

I use DX format Nikon D7000 with Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S. I shoot food and tabletop products mostly.
And here is my problem. In my shots I loose DOF as I close to the subject naturally and I don't like stopping down to f22 or f32 due to diffraction.
Generally I shot from a distance of 50-60 cm to fill coffee cup in the frame. Not much closer macros.
I would like to know which one of the following is the best choice for my case.
- Buying a Nikon PC-E 85mm to use on existing D7000 and able to get higher DOF with wider apertures without diffraction problem

a PC-E lens will not give you a higher DoF persé, it lets you tilt the focal plane so you can better fit the DoF to your subject.

- Buying a Nikon D800 to use with my existing Macro Nikon 60mm f/2.8G ED AF-S
(To have sharper edges and less diffraction on full frame with higher f stops like f16 or f22 as well as shooting farther to get more DOF and cropping in post production)

To my knowledge diffraction has not so much to do with fx/dx but rather with pixel size (or pixel pitch for a more technical term). The smaller the pixels the earlier diffraction starts showing up. a D7000 has 16MP which amounts to 24MP on a full frame camera. The D800 has 36MP. So the pixelsize of the D800 is even smaller than that of the D7000.

If your answer is to get a Tilt-Shift Lens then will I have difficulty about the tilt movements due to small DX format on my D7000?

Thanks

I'd prefer a lens with a larger focal length so you get more distance between lens and subject. more distance is larger DoF.
(oh and before you start out on a buying spree, consider renting a few lenses to see which works out the best for you. Theory is one thing, hands-on experience is much better.)

[ozmen]

Thank you All,

What made me think is not "FX bodies has more DOF than DX bodies" but attached information from photozone.de of my lenses MTF values on DX and FX bodies. DX body MTF value at f/8 almost equal to FX's f/22 value. So I will get same sharpness of my DX body at f/8 with f/22 on FX which will increase DOF as well.

[GrahamH]

I was going to make the same point as Hero about the DoF.
Getting so close to a 3 dimensional item as a coffee cup, the height and depth are approximately the same.
As such, if you have issues with current lens of getting front to back sharpness, tilting the lens so the focal plane is in line with the horizontal plane, then the sharpness issue is now transferred to top to bottom rather than front to back.
Taking a focal plane intermediate between the two planes (vertical/horizontal) would improve matters to a degree.

However moving the focal plane has the issue to be considered about bringing into focus other objects within frame that you may not wish to have. For example, taking a pic of a coffee cup in a coffee shop, there are background objects that may detract from your desired composition.

Solving one problem may just lead to a whole new array.

If you wish to have the coffee cup totally sharp front to back and top to bottom, focus stacking may be the best way to go (as mentioned by those with far more experience).

Love to know more about your approach and set-up to your shots and the reasons behind them.
Are you using a white box? Not wanting effects such as shallow DoF for some reason? Product shots for e-bay? Personal project?
Graham

[ozmen]

I was going to make the same point as Hero about the DoF.
Getting so close to a 3 dimensional item as a coffee cup, the height and depth are approximately the same.
As such, if you have issues with current lens of getting front to back sharpness, tilting the lens so the focal plane is in line with the horizontal plane, then the sharpness issue is now transferred to top to bottom rather than front to back.
Taking a focal plane intermediate between the two planes (vertical/horizontal) would improve matters to a degree.

However moving the focal plane has the issue to be considered about bringing into focus other objects within frame that you may not wish to have. For example, taking a pic of a coffee cup in a coffee shop, there are background objects that may detract from your desired composition.

Solving one problem may just lead to a whole new array.

If you wish to have the coffee cup totally sharp front to back and top to bottom, focus stacking may be the best way to go (as mentioned by those with far more experience).

Love to know more about your approach and set-up to your shots and the reasons behind them.
Are you using a white box? Not wanting effects such as shallow DoF for some reason? Product shots for e-bay? Personal project?
Graham

My shots mostly for microstock and about food. My coffe cup example was because of its size. I shot on pure white seamless background. I need tack sharp images from top to bottom because of the fastidious inspectors, who rejects every blurry things, of stock agencies whereas I like shallow DOF.

Thank you

[Manfred M]

The D800 has 36MP. So the pixelsize of the D800 is even smaller than that of the D7000.

Actually no, the pixel pitch of the D7000 is 4.78µm while the D800 has a pixel pitch of 4.88µm, so the D7000 actually has a slightly smaller pitch than the D800.

[Hero]

Actually no, the pixel pitch of the D7000 is 4.78µm while the D800 has a pixel pitch of 4.88µm, so the D7000 actually has a slightly smaller pitch than the D800.

My bad, so much for quick (and thus sloppy) calculations