Old, manual lenses...anyone else still play around with them?

[Tim Tucker]

I only use old MF Nikons with the D600.

In the range of lenses I use there are a handful of MF Nikons are small cheap and extraordinarily good:

Micro-Nikkor 55mm f3.5 (Compensating, PC and Ai)
Auto-Nikkor PC 105mm f2.5 (Gauss)
Auto-Nikkor 105mm f2.5 (1966 Sonnar)
Auto-Nikkor QC 135mm f2.8

And a couple that are small cheap and easily good enough:

Auto-Nikkor OC 35mm f2
Nikkor 50mm f1.4 K

With the wide angle and long telephoto there is no doubt of the superiority of modern glass but I simply do not use them, or really have any use for them. I would like a better 35mm MF lens but with the prices and sizes/weights of them I simply don't bother.

As for AF, I found that it became quite a chore to understand the automated systems and their programming. I find it far easier, far more accurate and far more repeatable to achieve the focus I want with a simple turn of a ring than I ever did with with the countless buttons and settings designed to mimic the same thing.

It's the limits of a creative media that provide it's creative solutions. If you remove these limits with technology then you have a technical solution that you can use creatively, which just doesn't suit my approach. To me an alternative perspective or viewpoint is not provided by the distortion of a UWA but with creative use of my more standard focal lengths. The UWA is a technical solution with a look and feel that is always "UWA shot".

I haven't even started to get the best of my current lenses, even after 30 years, so don't think I'll be swapping them yet.

 

[Ron Smith]

I have two E series, 50/1.8 and a 70-150/3.5 I use the zoom the most, and as I shoot static subjects and usually switch off the auto focus on my other lens, it is really not much of a problem. It would not be as easy if Nikon did not have the nonCPU lens setting and the "in-focus" indicator.

 

[gsgary]

If you still have you old canon lenses geta Sony A7 and use them on that and you will be blown away

 

[hamlet]

It was before my time but i really love the 50mm 1.8d's look. I've always wanted to get one for display purposes.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

 

[annamaria]

My collection of utterly useless, blur-inducing glass paperweights:

Oops. Sorry. I had an utterly useless, blur-inducing manual focus lens on the camera. Let me change that to an autofocus lens as we now know it's impossible to get an image in focus without the aid of modern technology.

Sparky you had me howling, you are so funny!

 

[unpopular]

View attachment 114052​

I pretty much learned photography on that lens and MANY rolls of Sensia.

Oh I miss original Sensia in all it's medium contrast, low saturation goodness!

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I actually bought that lens form a member here. And I would give up all my other cameras to keep the F5. I got lucky with that. It is mint and as far as I can tell (photo secretary) it had only 26 rolls run through it before I got it. No longer the case.

 

[epatsellis]

somebody please tell me where the AF button is on my camera:

810P.jpg by erie patsellis, on Flickr

 

[480sparky]

somebody please tell me where the AF button is on my camera:

810P.jpg by erie patsellis, on Flickr

It's between your ears.

 

[Solarflare]

I qualify now for this thread thanks to a AI-S 300mm f4.5 lens !

My other two manual lenses are NEW though (Zeiss Makro-Planar 100mm f2 and Voigtländer Nokton 58mm f1.4).

 

[MartinCrabtree]

Manual lenses are fun!

 

[Shmelvis]

I run a portrait studio here in the Uk and my favourite lens is the Nikkor 105mm 1.8 AI. Its big, heavy (weighs a ton!), manual focus and delivers the most pin sharp results I have ever seen. I'm using it on my D700 and D800E without any problems whatsoever.

 

[ruifo]

 

[hartz]

I just upgraded to a D7100 and I'm loving it.

Then I found a little manual lens quite by accident, and I'm burning to tell the story

I've been wanting to try out some older lenses for a long time (because I'm a stingy bastard / because photography is a side hobby that I can't really justify spending much money on / because I don't even know what I'm doing with a camera, never mind on this forum)

So I responded to an add on the local classifieds website and on Tuesday agreed to meet a guy about a lens. I decided not to buy it (the aperture prong was stuck and the zoom was really jerky) but he had another lens in his bag, one he had not advertised. I asked if that one was for sale, to which he said he would consider offers.

It turned out to be a Tamron 24mm F2.5 Adaptall-2 lens with the Nikon Adapter. After looking it over I decided to risk it despite the focus feeling a bit stiff, but still smooth. I explained to him that I the lens would probably end up back in a drawer so I could not offer too much, that he might do better by waiting for another offer, he thought about it and accepted my offer.

And so I bough my first old, fully manual lens. (I think it dates circa 1968...)

It has been a learning experience, almost like having to learn how to take photos all over again. Am I in focus? Is the light meter giving the right values? AM I IN FOCUS?

So yesterday I went for a little sunset walk and took a bunch of Meh photos, but the star-burst effect shooting into the sun at large Aperture values really surprised me, I like the effect.

P.S. To everyone who feels they had to have a stab at the guy who offended you so badly, enough already.