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Nikon glass - 70-210mm F4.5 AI and 105mm f4 Micro
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 6:58 am    Post subject: Nikon glass - 70-210mm F4.5 AI and 105mm f4 Micro Reply with quote
I promised to post a couple of shots from my new Nikon glass, a 70-210 f4.5 and a 105mm f4 micro. I have had a busy day with little time to do much shooting but here are a couple of informal shots to start with, taken on my front balcony. I may be able to add more tomorrow if I get the chance to get out and about. They were shot in the late afternoon with the sun at a very low angle. They do not prove anything except that these are competent lenses (perhaps as opposed to the photographer.) And I was impressed with the very creamy bokeh on the last two shots although I am not convinced that the focus is just so on the close up

The Nikkor 70-210 at the short end shot at around f8



The Nikkor 70-210 at the long end shot at around f8



The Nikkor 105mm shot at around f5.6 from two or three meters



And the nikkor 105mm shot at around f 5.6 up close (ish)



And one more from the 70-210 shot slightly earlier in the afternoon at the 210 end of the spectrum. Nice bokeh here I thought.



PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
NIce! I not see many difference!


PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Nice examples. I think you'll love the 105


PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 5:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
They both look good. The 70-210 was always a bit of a sleeper. It's a consumer lens but has surprisingly good performance. I used to use it at gymkhanas for taking shots of my daughters riding. I did not want to risk any good glass in an environment like that. Smile Smile


patrickh


PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks guys. It got me interested to see what these lenses could do compared to a couple of other favorites. My SMC Takumar 85mm f1.8 and an old preset Super Takumar 195mm f 2.8. The latter is especially useful for shooting on digital with an adapter as I can shoot wide open then stop down with a flick of my index finger. You can see why these were popular. Just so easy to use. And no discernible focus shift.

So this morning I shot a couple of shots wide open just to see. Mainly Bokeh tests more than anything else. I cant say they prove anything but the lenses are certainly sharp enough - although lacking the startling sharpness I have seen in some German glass, render good color and display nice Bokeh. The lack of super duper sharpness may be a feature of the lenses or may be that I still have trouble manually focusing precisely with my Panasonic L1. More testing will tell. But both would certainly make nice portrait lenses.

Super Takumar 105mm f 2.8 Preset Both shots wide open.





SMC Takumar 85mm f1.8 Both shots wide open.





Last edited by peterm1 on Sat Mar 01, 2008 10:04 pm; edited 2 times in total


PostPosted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 9:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I prefer the better contrast, saturation and detail of the foreground leaves in the Nikkor 70-210 compared to the Takumar. I'm not so keen on the 'squirmy' oof areas.


PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I agree with Chris.

patrickh


PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 2:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes I think the 70-210 has an inherently contrasty rendering. Which of course can be good- as in the shots from yesterday but I took it out today (a bright and sunny 25c early autumn day with hardly a cloud in the sky at midday) with the intention of taking some more shots for this post but found that all are so contrasty that there is little shadow detail. I also took a 55mm f2,8 Nikkor AF and tried that and on similar scenes it handled the contrast much better - more advanced coating perhaps. In any event I am inclined to agree about the shots from yesterday.


PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 7:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
I used to use the 70-210 and the 24-85. Both are consumer lenses from nikon that give excellent value for money. But they are not the pro line and have deficiencies. Distortion at the ends and that contrast. I had a look at some of my old shots with them and I never really noticed before how contrasty they are. The shots from the good nikkor primes are "cleaner" - good colour, sharpness (at least in the center). little distortion and much less contrast, which makes any sharpening look weird.


patrickh


PostPosted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
I used to use the 70-210 and the 24-85. Both are consumer lenses from nikon that give excellent value for money. But they are not the pro line and have deficiencies. Distortion at the ends and that contrast. I had a look at some of my old shots with them and I never really noticed before how contrasty they are. The shots from the good nikkor primes are "cleaner" - good colour, sharpness (at least in the center). little distortion and much less contrast, which makes any sharpening look weird.


patrickh


Thats interesting. Usually one thinks of high contrast lenses as better. But yesterday as I said, I took the 70-210 out for a spin in bright midday sun. None of the shots were very usable due to the extreme contrast it manifested. The sunlit areas were pale to the point of being washed out and the shadow details seemed non existent. There was no way to get a good exposure.

I have mainly been shooting older Nikon primes which are said to be a little lower contrast than some other Japanese glass of the era (See Ivor Matanle's book on collecting and using classic SLR cameras where makes this observation.) Perhaps this has not let me to think about this issue.

As I said above I tried a later Nikkor prime in the same conditions - the 55mm AF 2.8 Microwhich was the only other lesn I was carrying and I cannot describe it properly except to say that while the shots were still contrasty due to the conditions somehow the lens handled it much better and produced a nicer looking result.

When I got home I tried using the curves tool in Photoshop to lower contrast in the old zooms shots in order to pull some detail out of the image but even that did not work. It was as if the shadow detail just was not there. All very interesting an new to me.

Its odd. I use Leica glass and on the Leica Boards we will often discuss their relative advantages adn disadvantages for use in certain situations. And its recognised that some Leica lenses are far less contrasty that others (the 50 Summarit compared with a later 50 Summicron for example.) I had just never stopped to consider the same issue with Nikon gear.


PostPosted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
For some weird reason that even I cannot fathom, I have been calling this lens a 70-210 f4.5 all the way through this post, whereas in fact it is of course an 80-200 f4.5.
Brain fade?
That bump on the head when the Obstetrician dropped me at the age of 3 and a half minutes
Early onset senile dementia?
An excess of vodka martini's (shaken not stirred, Moneypenny!)
Who knows! In any event here is something I have noticed about this lens. While it is sharp enough it is too contrasty for bright sunlit situations. Here is a shot I took on the weekend which demonstrates how harsh this otherwise fine lens can be in bright sunlight. (And this is one of the more acceptable ones.....) I think the sharpness evidenced here is good enough but the contrast leads to an overly harsh rendition that detracts from the scene. And no amount of Photoshop fiddling could do much to rectify it.

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