On Wed, 25 Dec 2002 18:53:51 GMT, "Tony Spadaro" wrote:

> Because I'm obviously a much ruder person than you - and one who assumes,
>perhaps wrongly, that any sane person looks at his pictures in a fairly
>normal manner instead of studying each and eery one with a 10x loupe looking
>for the smallest imperfection. Dust on the subject is a bigger problem than
>diffraction on a 50mm macro lens at 1:1 with an aperture of f32.
> Diffraction is simply not an important factor at any aperture the lenses
>are designed to use.

I look at film, not prints at 10X (10X on a print
reveals nothing of interest...). If you think f32
on a Micro-Nikkor is sharp, I've got a bridge in
Brooklyn for sale, at a VERY good price....;-)
Or, run an aperture sequence from f8 to f32, look
at the results on film with a good 10X (hardly a
taxing magnification), and you will see a BIG
difference in the image going from f8 to f32 (or
even from f16 to f32). If you don't care that
the image is noticeably sharper at f16 or wider,
that's OK for you, but not for some of us who are
looking for the best sharpness (as one of many
image aspects to be optimized...). I'm assuming
that you mean the "marked" f32 on the lens (which
will give you an effective stop of f64 at 1:1 with
normal extension). If you mean the lens-marked f16
(which becomes effectively f32 at 1:1), I would
agree that this is an acceptable stop to use for
macro work with some gear... BTW, a big air
hand-syringe works wonders for cleaning macro
subject areas... Also BTW, I have some macro
images you may find interesting, at:
http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/phun.html
("Bugs"), all "hand-held", at magnifications
up to 3X, including some insects caught in the
air...