Because I don’t have the 17-70mm C that long, in the last couple of days I’ve used the lens exclusively, in order to learn more about it and get familiar with its features and character. This is how I came to notice that you can get very close to your subjects at wide angle as well as at longest telephoto setting. At the long end (70mm), you can get as close as 22cm to your subject, thereby achieving a 1:2.8 image ratio, which of course is slightly better than 1:3 of the DP3M without additional accessories. Because I know from experience what kind of magnifications one can achieve with the DP3M and an achromatic lens (you can find my review of the Marumi +5 DHG200 and DP3M setup here) I’m a bit frustrated because of not having an achromatic lens with 72mm filter thread and because it’s not summer. Otherwise I would use the 17-70mm C to mess with all sorts of bugs. 🙂
Due to better image ratio (1:2.8 vs. 1:3) and longer focal length (70mm vs. 50mm), 17-70mm Contemporary should by default be able to achieve results more comparable to 1:1 macro lenses than the DP3M.
You can find more of my 17-70mm C on Flickr and Pinterest.
