Which Nikon Pancake to Get?

[SkvLTD]

Starting to be a bit torn between the collector legendary 45mm 2.8 AI-P in black, or cheaper Voigtlander 28mm 2.8. Both would fill what I want- an ultra-light street package.

28mm is a better working angle for me in or outdoors, but 45 (~67.5mm on crop) is much more suited for street photography for the "zoom."

Nikkor is a collector item, plus the black version even more so, at the extra cost.

Nikkor is a tessar design, which I really want to play with and own for the sake of variety.

Voig is muuuuch cheaper.

Any input guys?

[iangreenhalgh1]

Nikon E 1.8/50, very cheap, pancake sized, IQ is as good as the Nikkor 1.8/50s.

If you want a Tessar for Nikon cheap, get a Voigtlander Color-Skopar-X 2.8/50 or Schneider Retina-Xenar 2.8/50, both come in DKL mount, adapters to Nikon are on ebay.

[SkvLTD]

Hmm. Whole point is to have metering and ultra-compact design. Else, I'm an avid collector and that is a pretty big factor since I love my cheap-o Sigma Super-Wide II as a workhorse kinda lens.

[iangreenhalgh1]

Stick a dandelion chip on it and you have metering with all Nikon bodies. It will meter without a chip on the higher-end bodies anyways.

It's only 150g and far outperforms the Nikkor 2.8/45, it's only slightly bigger too.

Main thing is the price and availability the E 1.8/50 is dirt cheap and very easy to find.

[philslizzy]

You can put dandelion chips on your adapters too if you want to use a DKL adapter. I have one on my M42 adapter, I can get metering with a Helios attached.

[flaviomaia]

[iangreenhalgh1]

[SkvLTD]

Hmmmmm. Collector sense is still tingling, but black 45 went too high in price at this point. Voigtlander should still be do-able though.

I do appreciate the alternative suggestions, definitely, but question at hand is having that collector's item if reasonably possible or just getting another full-metal pancake.

[Ema90]

I have the Nikkor 20mm f4 Ai , It's the smallest nikon 20mm but the later 20mm f3.5 Ais is a better lens and not much bigger.

I also own the 50mm serie E, it's sharp from f2.8 but I don't think is as good as non-pancake lens.

Also the 28mm serie E is a really small lens.

[Lightshow]

Other than being small, the E 50 doesn't do anything for me, I prefer other lenses that have a better, more pleasant rendering. YMMV.