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The case of the Nikkors...
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 7:52 pm    Post subject: The case of the Nikkors... Reply with quote
Hi,

here's a pic of the manual gear I aquired so far, all in all still less than 1000 Euro paid - see my sig for details



I'm planning to post some reviews and sample pics in the next time - hopefully, if I find the time soon as I'm afraid I got a lot of work currently. Sad

However, what still I miss (desperately) is a 85mm lens - although there are so many to choose from - and the 180/2.8, that I would really like to see attached to my 2x TC on DX, giving a POV equivalent of 540/5.6! Shocked


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Looks all are in MINT condition! Congrats! We all look forward your review!


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Yes, I was lucky on some of them, e.g my copy of Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 looks like never used but gives tremendous image quality!

What bugs me a little is the 20/4 I have - it has some scratches on the coating and does flare heavily when the sun is put into the frame - pretty akward for a 20mm lens. But it does deliver good pictures aside from this.

And the big zoom - there's lots of dust inside and something that may be spreading fungus - but I don't dare to open this!


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
With good shade perhaps it will not flaring ?!

Not easy to clean zooms and perhaps not necessary too. To be sure store separately in a transparent box with humidity remover chemical keep all time humidity 30-50% in box and fungus will not grove at all. (without caps!)


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks Attila, I'm already looking into a shade for the wideangle - but the original one (HN-14) did not show up once in a year on the bay! So now I'm looking into a HN-1/2 or some other replacement as I'm shooting it on DX, so everything that can be used up to 28mm should be fine.

Regarding the zoom, I do store it separately - the 95mm front diameter is too big to fit in the case anyway! Wink

If it really is fungus and not dirt, at least it did not grow significantly lately - but the 20 elements in 13 groups optic is THE red stop sign for trying any fixing for me Shocked

By humidity remover chemical you mean e.g. silica gel? Or something else?

Thanks to you, I'm currently replacing all caps with cheap UV filters for storing, good hint indeed!


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
You can found humidity remover chemical for rooms, bigger dose than silica gel.

http://www.henkel-cee.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0AC8330A-9E138790/henkel_cee/hs.xsl/1815_2801_CEE_HTML.htm


PostPosted: Sun Apr 19, 2009 8:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thanks for the pointer, I will pick these up alongside my next visit to the DIY store.


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:02 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
That is a nice collection of nikkors - and yes the 180/2.8 and 85/1.8 are definitely worth getting.


patrickh


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Congratulations, wonderful set and they all look to be in fantastic condition!

That 105/2.5 is plain simple outstanding even on lens-critical D3/D3x sensors. It allows a minimum focus of 1m so you'll be comfortable to use it as portrait lens until you acquire the 85mm.

The 20/4 was succeeded by the 20/3.5 which is much better what comes to flare, and also much better close focusing performance. I have owned both and still regret selling the 20/3.5 when I got my 17-35/2.8D. Can't beat the compact size, especially on smaller Nikon bodies.


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 6:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
That's a very nice set! Congratulations!
(And the 2.8/135 is bigger than I thought.)


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Wow ! Nice set of Nikkor lens !

I got a few of same lenses as yours.

Heres mine :

Nikon Nikkor-P 105mm f2.5 = Great for portrait , tested recently and love it

Nippon Kogaku Japan Nikkor-Q 135mm f2.8 = sharper when stop down, i click abit maybe 3.5

Nikon Zoom-Nikkor 50-300mm f4.5 = red CA at full tele wide open but overall great lens which also got some unknown stuff at middle element

Nikon Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5 = very very sharp lens. both micro and portrait works very well.

Nikon Series E 50mm f1.8 = nice bokeh, great portrait lens

Nippon Kagoku Japan Nikkor-H 28mm f3.5 = ???? i use for wide but not very wide for my camera as crop factor is 2x


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 4:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I want and looking for 85mm and 180mm too ! 85mm i heard is great for portrait. guess you could tell i am portrait shooter. Laughing


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Carsten

The 135/2.8 AI(S) is a lot smaller than this version. I believe it is a better performer too. Personally I love the 135/2 which is fairly huge (72mm filter) and very expensive now.


patrickh


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Krisgage wrote:
Nikon Zoom-Nikkor 50-300mm f4.5 = red CA at full tele wide open but overall great lens which also got some unknown stuff at middle element


Good choices on your lenses! Wink

I can confess the horrible CA on the 50-300 (non-ED) - on one occassion I had to stop it down to f11 and still the CA was not gone completely! But besides, a very good resolving lens from my experience.


PostPosted: Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
patrickh wrote:
Carsten

The 135/2.8 AI(S) is a lot smaller than this version. I believe it is a better performer too. Personally I love the 135/2 which is fairly huge (72mm filter) and very expensive now.


patrickh


According to Roland Vink, the 135/2.8 Q.C I have has a front diameter of 72.5mm and goes to 96mm length at 620g - indeed quite a huge difference against the 64mm front, 83.5mm length and 435g of the newer Ais!

Performance wise, my lens is really sharp at full aperture - only contrast improves a bit when stopped down, providing best results at f4-5.6. I like it a lot, although the 135/2 is surely very tempting...


PostPosted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 1:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
cpn wrote:
Yes, I was lucky on some of them, e.g my copy of Micro-Nikkor 55/3.5 looks like never used but gives tremendous image quality!

What bugs me a little is the 20/4 I have - it has some scratches on the coating and does flare heavily when the sun is put into the frame - pretty awkward for a 20mm lens. But it does deliver good pictures aside from this.

And the big zoom - there's lots of dust inside and something that may be spreading fungus - but I don't dare to open this!


A nice selection of primes.

I would not expect great results, optically, from any zoom of that age with such a wide range of focal lengths (50-300 i.e. 6x).

Your selection of wider primes - the f/4 "K" model for 20mm, the Nikkor-N for 24mm and the AIS f/2.8 for 28mm - is well chosen (I have the same selection). However, your 20mm should not be flaring like that, indeed its one of the strengths of that model. You might need to look for another example.

You seem to have a bunch of 50s, interesting to see which you like best.

I agree that a 180mm f/2.8 ED AIS would be a fine addition, and with a 1.4x TC (eg Nikon TC-14A) the resulting 252mm f/4 would, I expect, be totally superior to your 50-300 zoom.

I can't offer advice on 85mm (except that the AIS 85mm f/1.4 is well liked for portrait, somewhat expensive, and suffers from axial CA) since I went for a 90mm APO-Lanthar for that range. However, I suspect that my CV90 outperforms the AIS 85/1.4 at all apertures which they have in common Smile


PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
ChrisLilley wrote:
You seem to have a bunch of 50s, interesting to see which you like best.


Yes, they are so cheap to have and yet so cool! I started the whole thing with the 50/1.8 E which I really liked because of its small size. Next I got the 50/1.4 - a great lens, currently the 50mm I use the most. My copy is really excellent when focussed accurately.

However, it came to happen that I was offered a 50/2 for cheap money, and from what I read over at Bjorn Rosletts site and here, I thought I had to give it a try at least...and it is truly a superb lens - very sharp already fully open, very little distortion, the only thing I do not like is its size when compared to, well, what looks to be my final standard lens: the 50/1.8 Ais "pancake" version which focusses down to 0.45m that I just got recently. Those are quite hard to get, but give great results and I think of this and the 20/4 + 105/2.5 as making a great small (no pun intended) set to carry always with my D40.

Finally, the best of all my 50ish lenses if it comes down to terms of sharpness and contrast is clearly my 55/3.5 P.C - probably my best resolving lens so far!


ChrisLilley wrote:
I agree that a 180mm f/2.8 ED AIS would be a fine addition, and with a 1.4x TC (eg Nikon TC-14A) the resulting 252mm f/4 would, I expect, be totally superior to your 50-300 zoom.


Good idea Chris, I currently own a TC-200 that I use from time to time on the 105mm, but a TC-14 would probably be a better choice for the 180/2.8 as it already long enough on a crop-cam. Indeed I only wanted to try the zoom and see what it can do at 300mm and f4.5, having been a dedicated pro lens back in the days, but I doubt I will use it very often once I acquire a 180mm. Wink


ChrisLilley wrote:
I can't offer advice on 85mm (except that the AIS 85mm f/1.4 is well liked for portrait, somewhat expensive, and suffers from axial CA) since I went for a 90mm APO-Lanthar for that range. However, I suspect that my CV90 outperforms the AIS 85/1.4 at all apertures which they have in common Smile


Have been thinking about a 85/1.8 H or H.C - the "K"-type which focuses to 0.85m is most often overpriced. Unfortunately, all of these do show up on Ebay very rarely...

Another idea would be the Jupiter-9 - which also increased in pricing lately.
In the end, I would dream of upgrading any of these to the Hartblei 80/2.8 - at least, I personaly feel like I don't necessarily need f1.4 at 85mm...


PostPosted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
One more thing I'd like to add:

I started with the plan to buy some cheap lenses for the start (all 50mm cost me less than 25 Euros except the 1.4) and then make a selection of those that I like best and do upgrades from time to time - but in the case of the Nikkor 50's, all are so nice and show some subtle but interesting differences (the 50/2 has a special bokeh, the 50/1.8 goes to 1:6.6, etc.) that I end up keeping all of 'em. Laughing

The same is currently happening to me regarding the wideangles - the 28/2.8 Ais is a very nice lens for close-ups, but I can imagine better results when focussing towards infinity, that is why I am still looking for 28mm f2.0 as well...
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