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Writer's pictureTakashi Iwamoto

I compared the lenses that change with the times and the Nikon lenses that I have at hand.

Updated: Aug 12, 2022

This article is a continuation of the previous article (Why use Nikon cameras! Looking back on the history of cameras).


table of contents

  1. Cameras used by Nikon and successive managers

  2. Ai Nikkor 50mm f1.2S

  3. Nikkor AF 85mm F1.8D

  4. AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED

  5. At the end

 


Nikon, successive cameras used by the caretaker


Cameras used in the past



From the left, Ai Nikkor 50mm f1.2 and F3T, AF Nikkor 85mm f1.8D and F4S

, AF Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 G and D3


  1. Ai Nikkor 50mm f1.2s, released in September 1981

  2. Af Nikkor 85mm f1.8D, S type released in 1988, D type released in March 1994

  3. AF Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED released on November 30, 2007



In the photo above, I attached three lenses of different ages, which I still use often, to cameras of the same era and arranged them according to the era.

The short focus and zoom lens are mixed and lacking in unity because of their charm.


Below, I talked about the changes in each camera and lens since the times.

 

Ai Nikkor 50mm f1.2S


Ai Nikko 50mm f1.2S



Manual lens released in 1981,

The cameras used in this era are F3, F3HP, F3T


Making a lens

Of the above three lenses, we made an overwhelmingly solid lens that doesn't feel any omissions.

It was a matter of course at that time, but compared to recent lenses, it is a masterpiece.

It's heavy, but almost all of it is metal parts. And the glass of the lens. Each lens is also firmly fixed on the optical axis of the lens barrel and has been used for many years, but no play has occurred yet.


The aperture ring is also made of metal.

The quality of the paint is good, and the base does not come out even after using it for many years.

The finish is also engraved on all lens information and even color coded.



F3HP (T) with a cool design that surpasses modern cameras



F3 and 50mm f1.2, nearly 40 years after their release, they are still very cool and feel more novel. This is probably what design and fashion repeat every few decades.

(I'm sorry for my personal impression, but this blog is all the discretion and prejudice of the administrator!)


The F3T Black in the photo was released in September 1984.

The red accent on this body has become a trademark of Nikon cameras since F3.

Since then, most (maybe all?) Nikon SLR cameras have been accented with red.


In this era (1980s), cameras and lenses were mainly made of metal.

Even for beginners, it was a camera with a solid metal skeleton, and the viewfinder was as good as a professional camera today.



NEW FM2, vertical titanium curtain shutter, fastest 1/4000, X1 / 250 (seconds) Fully mechanically controlled mechanical camera. It's amazing when I think about it now.

By the way, F3 is a horizontal titanium curtain shutter, maximum speed 1/2000, X1 / 80 (seconds), electronic control + mechanical type (1/80 seconds + T time), even if the battery runs out, it is 1/80 seconds for the time being. I was able to prevent the shutter from not being able to shoot anything.



MF 50mm f1.2 Focus ring operability

Even if you turn the focus ring, it is moist and smooth, and you can operate it silently, so you can use it with confidence even in movies. The stroke is also moderate and very easy to use.

However, it is a heavy operation to focus on children who move nearby.


The material of the rubber knurling at that time was extremely durable, and the texture and feel did not change forever.

The material of recent rubber knurling quickly becomes buyobuyo. The difference in durability will surely be more than 10 times.

Ai's manual lenses used by the caretaker, 24mm f2, 35mm f2, 500mm f4, all lenses have been around for decades, but the texture of the rubber knurled material is almost the same as the new one.


Hood (HS-12)

The hood is also made of solid metal, and the internal reflection is also threaded in a ring shape, so the light-shielding treatment is perfect. This shading ring is firmly cut to the front part.



Internal reflection of hood HS12 for 50mm f1.2



Even if the hood is attached, the lens cap can be attached and it can be reversed, making it convenient to carry. A design that firmly holds down the basics so that the lens cap can be attached even when reversing.


At that time, Nikon lenses and aperture blades used 7 or 9 blades, but 9 blades were mainly used for bright lenses and defocused lenses.

Nikon released the standard lens 50mm as f1.8, f1.4, and f1.2, but only the bright f1.2 lens used 9 blades.

Also, I can think of 35mm f1.4, 85mm f1.4 and other bright lenses with 9 blades.

Of course, it is not a circular aperture like it is now.



50mm f1.2 diaphragm blade shape



The squeezing feathers I handed out also gave the photo a taste.




summary


I covered the details in the blog I wrote earlier, so please refer to that.


This Nikon 50mm f1.2, a versatile lens that can handle anything from portraits to celestial bodies and landscapes.

The image is also very astringent and tasty compared to the recent over-made lenses.


When the aperture is changed from the maximum aperture, the image quality changes significantly, and the aperture ring feels like a control ring.

The range of expression is very wide, and it is the lens that makes taking pictures the most fun of all the lenses I have.


A lens that creates an image, holds it firmly, and takes pictures one by one, or a lens that lets you do that.

Unlike the lens that anyone can take a clear picture by pressing it now, the image swells before taking a picture, and it is a lens that makes you want to take a picture.


 

Nikkor AF 85mm F1.8D

Nikkor AF 85mm f1.8D


Released in 1988

The camera of this era used by the caretaker was F4S


The distance information was built in from the S type, and it changed to the D type, but basically it is the same.

Apart from the F3 AF lens, it is an autofocus lens designed by Nikon.


design

The appearance is a design that is far from being favorable due to the texture that uses a lot of plastic. It feels cheaper than the manual lens used when it was mainly made of metal parts.

However, the contents of the body are solid aluminum die-cast.

Since the surface is coated with plastic and rubber, it can be said that it is a reasonable design in terms of durability in a sense.


While it is new, it has a slight matte finish to give it a slight texture, but the surface becomes shiny as soon as it is used.


Rugged design, but the F4S was the most user-friendly camera



F4 which was discontinued before F3.

Before graduating from high school, I spent the money I earned from my part-time job to buy and use F4s for a long time. Many parts have been renewed except for the die-cast contents due to repairs and so on.


Released in December 1988.


My personal favorite film camera.

The reason is its operability, functionality, and exposure accuracy. In terms of operability, it can be said that it is the ultimate analog operability that has been well thought out.


Almost all settings, exposure, aperture, exposure mode, exposure compensation value, continuous shooting mode, metering settings A, S, M, P, and autofocus mode can all be groped without looking.

Keeping an eye on the subject, you can check the settings by groping and shoot immediately.

Even now, there is no other camera like that!



Of course, in the case of an exposure manual, you need to look at the numbers.


The AF looks sloppy, but when I attached 80-200mm f2.8 to the F4s and used the AF auxiliary light of the flash SB24, I was able to focus up to nearly 20 meters even in the dark.


The mountain of focus in the viewfinder, which can be said to be the life of a single-lens reflex camera, was very easy to grasp.


I think it's a complete camera.

Due to its operability, the manager preferred to use F4 over F5 in the film era.


When I looked into the viewfinder of the F4 for the first time in a while, I was impressed by its ease of viewing and the ease of grasping the mountains.

It has a focus aid, and when it comes into focus, a green round mark lights up. Even at the edge of the field of view, the color changes from the orange arrow, so it has a very good function that you can clearly see that it is in focus.


Equipped with a contact that can also drive the lens of the motor inside the lens, which was not yet released at that time. Therefore, even the current AFS can be driven properly.

However, VR image stabilization is not driven.


This plump design, Land Cruiser would be 80 series, while F3 is likely to be Land Cruiser 70 series.

It seems that the changes in the car design and the camera design are in sync.

It's probably the time when rounded designs became popular.


Cameras, lenses, and surfaces of this era were mainly made of plastic.

The F4 body is also designed with a plastic die-cast skeleton covered with plastic.

The texture of the lens, camera body, and surface is unified by saying that it is shiny.



Aperture ring


The lens aperture ring can be attached, but the material is plastic.

I feel that this is difficult.


A long time ago, when I sent the old and old AF300mmf4S to Nikon Service for inspection, I exchanged it because it was necessary to replace the aperture ring.


The reason is that a part of the exposure-linked claw of the aperture ring is missing, and the accurate aperture value cannot be transmitted to the camera side.


Within a few months of replacing the part with a new one, the same place was missing again and it was decided to replace it again.

It was within the warranty period, so I was able to repair it for free.

The cause of the lack was that I was climbing up and down the mountain with a tripod equipped with a 300mm teleconverter and a camera.


When asked why Nikon services use plastic parts for the aperture ring, which is important for interlocking exposure.

I received a reply saying, "Because the glass is contained in the plastic, it has sufficient strength." Words that still leave a lasting impression on me.


Most of the aperture rings of lenses made by other lens manufacturers are made of metal, but it remains a question why Nikon genuine used plastic.


The feel of the rotation of the aperture ring is not as smooth as the lenses of various lens manufacturers, and it is squishy. It's far from a good feeling.

It's difficult to make subtle adjustments in the video, and it makes a squishy sound.



Focus mechanism


The manual Ai85mm lens is a full-group extension method.

Since all the lens groups are moved to focus, it is too heavy to move the optical system with a motor.

In order to move a heavy lens, the gear ratio must be lowered, which slows down the drive.

Weight reduction is important to move autofocus quickly.


With that said, this AF85mm f1.8 is a lens that uses a mechanism that drives only the rear group of the lens, not the entire group, for autofocus.


As a medium telephoto lens, it is a pioneer lens that uses rear drive.


The rear lens group is a mechanism that transmits the rotation of the motor of the camera body with gears and drives it.



image quality


The image quality is slightly noticeable near the maximum aperture, but it almost disappears when the aperture is reduced to about f2.8.

The contrast does not become too strong.

If you squeeze it, it will be clicked to the surrounding area.


I often shoot the starry sky with this lens at f2.8, but the stars appear in point images up to the periphery and it is very flat.

The number of lenses is small, there is no stuffy feeling of the zoom lens, and it comes out comfortably and obediently.



Autofocus performance


This lens and autofocus motor are not built-in, but the motor built into the camera is linked by gears to drive it.

At that time, Nikon used this method for all lenses.


A long shaft passes through the old and old Sanyon, a telephoto lens such as 180mm f2.8, and an AF drive lens.

When this shaft turns, it makes a slurping sound.


The autofocus speed depends on the camera motor and will vary depending on the camera used.

There is no AF drive motor in the camera body of recent Nikon and consumer models.

Therefore, please note that autofocus does not work with old body-driven autofocus lenses.


If you use D3 or D850 for autofocus speed, I feel that a lens with a short focal length has a faster drive speed than the current f1.8 series AF lens.


As expected, the drive of the telephoto lens is slow with this method.



Since it is easy to operate and is directly connected to the gear, it is basically impossible to make fine adjustments manually during autofocus.


Basically, it doesn't use a worm gear, so if you turn it forcibly, it will turn.

Usage that is not covered by the guarantee, which is not recommended.

You can also make fine adjustments by quickly switching the body AF selector switch to MF.

This cannot be used for moving objects.



Manual focusing


Manual focusing when shooting movies.

If you turn the focus ring by hand, the AF drive gear and shaft will make a "slurry" sound, and the focus ring will feel a little squeaky.

Therefore, it is difficult to use in videos.



Hood (HN-31)


The hood is made of metal and has a thread on the inside like the 50mm f1.2.

The pitch of the screws is finer than 50mm f1.2, and the internal reflections on the edges are very well handled.


Treatment of internal reflection of 85mm f1.8 hood HN-23



Perfectly processed inner hood reflection.


The drawback of this hood is that it cannot be reversed and is inconvenient to store.

Furthermore, if you attach a hood, the lens cap will not be attached to the ball.

It's not a conceived design, but I think it's okay because it's a high-performance hood. It's a formula hood that puts the highest priority on compactness and performance.



summary


A lens that is flat to the periphery and is useful for astrophotography.

Chromatic aberration is a little noticeable from full aperture to f2.8, so I usually focus on f2.8.

When you take a picture with this lens, a blue halo appears around the star, so the star shines beautifully.


I used this lens for the last solar eclipse time lapse.


If you stop down to f2.8 or higher, you can see the edges of the screen.


Chromatic aberration is quite noticeable in f2, so it doesn't really come into play in portraits. Personally, I inevitably use 50mm f1.2.


 


AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED

Released at the same time as D3 in 2007


The change from Nikon lens, focal length number, S, D type to G type is that the aperture ring has disappeared.

However, in the G type, the aperture mechanism is still mechanical. After that, it became E type and became fully electronically linked.


When using with G type lenses, Micro Four Thirds, etc., there is no particular problem because the aperture ring on the mount adapter side can be used.

The latest E-type lens is a musician, and the aperture is electronic, so it can no longer be used until now.


If it's for Canon, an adapter compatible with electromagnetic aperture is available, but could you release a mount adapter compatible with Nikon's E-type lens somewhere soon?



When shooting movies, recent cameras such as the D850 can be adjusted smoothly with the power aperture, so even a G-type lens without an aperture ring can be used quite well.

However, since the aperture value can only be set for each 1/3 step, it is hard to say that it is a complete analog operation.

Once you touch it, it will move 1/3 step.

And the speed of movement cannot be adjusted and it is a constant speed.

So I can't use it much while shooting.



During the actual video recording, it is common to have 1/10 steps, a little aperture, open, slow and sometimes fast so that you don't even know it.

An electronically controlled aperture is perfectly suitable for an infinite number of mechanical apertures that can be operated freely.


This is the big point that makes the ring-type analog operation attractive.


D3 and 24-70mm f2.8G Nikon's first full-frame digital camera



This lens was released as Nikon's full-frame digital in November 2007 at the same time as the D3.

The size of a professional full-frame SLR camera is much larger than it was in the film era.



AF mechanism


The autofocus of the 24-70mm f2.8 lens is driven by an ultrasonic motor inside the lens.

This is a big evolution, the autofocus is very quiet and it drives at high speed.

In addition, it's a full-time manual, you can fine-tune the focus manually at any time, and it's ideal operability that you can't hope for any more.

This method, which has been used in Canon for quite some time, has finally been adopted by Nikon.


It's just an f2.8 zoom lens and a large ternary lens, so it's not as good as a manual lens, but it's quite solid.


Manual operability


Both the zoom ring and focus ring move smoothly and smoothly.

It doesn't feel as moist as the manual 50mm f1.2, but it's not bad.

The operation sound of the focus ring is also small enough to be used, so it can be used without problems even in movies.



Hood


You can't just have the inside of the hood exposed to plastic.

No matter how much it is treated with matte black, the internal reflection is as you can see.



24-70mm f2.8 hood HB-40 internal reflection



(The photo inside the hood, exposure, and flash settings are all examples, exactly the same.)


However, due to the combination of shading inside the lens and the nano crystal coat, it is more resistant to backlight than the MF50mm f1.2 without using a hood, and ghost flare is less likely to occur.


The hood protects against the rain and is always worn as a bumper.

In any case, it seems better to stick a flocked paper.



Kenko Tokina 100mm f2.8 Macro Hood


If the flocked paper is pasted, the reflection will be processed so much.



durability


Why is the rubber knurling material for this zoom ring and focus ring?

It doesn't last very long.

Until now, I exchanged it twice.

However, if you go to the Nikon service, you can buy one for about 200 yen, and you can easily exchange it yourself, so there is no particular problem.


The lens I'm using, and recently the parts on the outside of the tip of the lens, have begun to play.

It looks okay yet, but may need to be inspected.



The filter diameter of 77mm is compatible with lenses such as 70-200mmf2.8, 300mmf4, 18-35mmf3.5-4.5, and I am very grateful.


It is quite troublesome if only one filter diameter is 82 mm.

If you try to do something with filter work, you will have to spend extra money.

More than that, it is troublesome to handle in the field.

I wonder if everything should change to 82mm.


The performance is good, but this kind of maneuverability is also an important point in practical use.

Thirteen years have passed since the AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 G lens was released.

This lens has already become an old lens one generation ago.


Since then, the lens has evolved further.


The evolution after this is that the aperture will change from mechanical interlocking to electronic interlocking.

Then, with image stabilization, to a lens with fewer failures.


However, from the aspect of durability, it may be said that it is degenerate.

This issue will also be revised over time.


 

At the end


Of course, if you want to shoot as a job, you should have a lens that can shoot reliably with few mistakes.

But when I take it as a hobby, I think it's best to have a lens that is fun to shoot.

It doesn't matter if you make a mistake.


As the lenses and cameras evolve to make it easier to take pictures, I feel that taking pictures becomes boring.

  • If the image stabilization is correct, the photographer will not be able to hold it firmly and will be able to shoot in a textbook.

  • If autofocus evolves, I'll be able to take pictures without thinking about focus.

  • If the exposure gets better, I'll start taking pictures without thinking about the exposure.

  • This is no different from shooting with a smartphone!



It's only natural, but manufacturers seem to be aiming for a camera that can take beautiful pictures.


Of course, if the photo taken with a single eye is blurred and the photo taken with a smartphone looks better. No one will buy a single eye.


If you can't take a picture well, it's because of the camera and the lens! I feel like it overlaps with a golf club.

It's the club's fault that the slices come out. And.

There is no way that a soul can be included in a photograph with Tekito.


This may be Ossan's Showa ideology.


When I think about it now, old cameras couldn't even take in-focus photos without focusing and using techniques, considering the price of film and development one by one.

But I think the fun of shooting was exceptional.

I could only take pictures of about 37 films, but I felt that 37 of them were so many.

The weight of one photo has changed completely.

With today's cameras, even a 3-year-old child can take in-focus photos.



I think that the fun of taking a picture will be lost if the natural process of raising one's arms while making mistakes and inspiring new ideas from mistakes is lost.


Well, it's not gone at all.

In terms of making a work, the fun will not change, but


However, since the number of modes and functions has increased so much, is it interesting in terms of operating the camera?

It's because of the self-sufficiency of owning the best machine.

Unlike using a simple old camera, I don't feel like I'm operating a modern camera or something amazing.

However, I'm only operating the basics, aperture and shutter speed, and focus.


It seems fate that the makers, machines, and cameras that make things for sale will end up like this.


A good camera that can be used for decades.

It's more interesting to take pictures with an old camera and lens! Please.

Old lenses have some quirks and tastes.

That habit sometimes gives a unique taste to the subject and the light conditions.


I think that the reason why cameras are not selling as before is not only the cause of smartphones, but also the reason.


Even a child before going to kindergarten can take a picture. Even if you play with a camera and take a picture, the act of taking a picture is not very interesting.

The resulting photo is different.



Will there be any chances that cameras and lenses will sell again in the future?


He was a caretaker who couldn't help but hope that the camera industry would be rejuvenated.


Second-hand stores are crowded.

By the way, the caretaker always doesn't buy second-hand goods.

You haven't been coked with the manufacturer, right?

Once you use it, it's already used!

So if you use a used one from the beginning, it won't get old!


Sometimes it's new and you can't buy anything!

Also for camera gyokai.


"Hi, I do that once in a while!"


As I came up with it, I wrote a lot.

This time around here.


Next time, I'll talk about the camera body.




Until the end Thank you for reading.


 

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