Mine is hopefully arriving today (USPS is taking forever to deliver it) for use on my D300 and future FX body.
I'll shoot some side-by-side comparisons with my 50/1.8 AF-D.
Mine just arrived! All that glass stuffed into such a small lens is really impressive. You can see where Nikon had to really make some adjustments to fit that large rear element into the F-mount.
I've taken some quick snaps in my office and the center looks pretty good wide open when you can nail the focus. I'm going to take if for a quick spin this afternoon to make sure there's no major issues (like de-centered elements from the rough USPS handling).
I can sure see why it would be almost impossible to turn this design into an AF-S lens - there's almost no room for CPU contacts!
I received my copy of this fine lens yesterday together with two smaller brothers, the 20 f/2.8 AIS and the 28 f/2.8 AIS. I played a bit with the 20 yesterday afternoon but once the 50 f/1.2 AIS found its way to my D700 I've wanted to shoot with nothing more. Here are a couple of shots from yesterday, all wide open. Last evening I went downtown my sleepy hometown and did some available light shooting. As my friend said when he saw the photos they were more like available darkness. I love the lens. Shooting manual focus with the D700 is a delightful experience.
Man is it just me or are a lot of people re-discovering older AI and AI-S lenses around here lately? Great stuff. The beauty is that you can sometimes find these gems for a song on the used market. They may not have all the bells and whistles and switches all over them, but dang some of them are capable of some really great IQ.
dj dunzie wrote:
Man is it just me or are a lot of people re-discovering older AI and AI-S lenses around here lately? Great stuff. The beauty is that you can sometimes find these gems for a song on the used market. They may not have all the bells and whistles and switches all over them, but dang some of them are capable of some really great IQ.
400/5.6 ED-IF AIS - Nice light-weight 400mm that is good wide open and great at f/8
200/4 AIS - Small 200mm good wide open, great at f/5.6. Wonderful Bokeh.
105/2.5 AIS - What can you say - fantastic!
40/2 SL-II Voigtlander (OK it's technically an AI-P lens) - Great rendition and sharp. Very small and a joy to use.
28/2 AI - Very usable wide open for low contrast stuff (people shots), excellent from f/2.8 on up. Great colors too. Great focal length on DX.
16/3.5 AI Fisheye. Very sharp wide open. Point it at the sun all you want. Low low flare and ghosting. This is my compact DX wide angle lens when the distortion is partially corrected.
35-70/3.5 AI - This renders very very nice images and is pretty darned sharp. Prone to flare. Have not used mine much and am considering selling it.
Some others that I found to be not so fantastic:
24/2.8 AIS - It's just OK. Good for wide open people shots. Pretty good stopped down.
135/2 AIS - Still working on getting to know this lens. Tough to use wide open. Probably better used on FX.
300/4.5 ED-IF AIS - It's fine, but I found it only slightly better than my 70-300AFS. This may change on an FX sensor so I'm keeping it for a while.
I have not met too many AIS zooms that I really cared about:
25-50/4 AIS - Supposedly legendary. Found it very good for up close stuff, but at infinity it was definitely NOT very good.
50-135/3.5 AIS - Competent, but I found I did not use it much
So yes, there are a lot of fine AIS lenses out there if you want to spend the time looking for them. Bjorn Rorslett has been pretty spot on in his reviews compared to my own experiences, so he's a good guide.
Fortunately, here in Seattle, there's a pretty good selection of quality used AIS glass either in the local shops or on Craigslist.
dj dunzie wrote:
Man is it just me or are a lot of people re-discovering older AI and AI-S lenses around here lately? Great stuff.
When nikon won't make what you want new....have to go back to when they made what you wanted. No other 1.2's, no newer 35 1.4....and there are the venerable 24 and 28 2.0's. Long lenses...quite a few deals for 105's and 135's.
Depending on how you shoot and the lens, it being MF a non factor as distance scale has you go to inifinity real quick and its pseudo AF adn doing real small tweaks at that scale. CRC is nice up close as well.
We have purchased D700's lately
This too. Tried on a d90...manual meter not fun. New d700 and its metering....thing of beauty.
dj dunzie wrote:
Man is it just me or are a lot of people re-discovering older AI and AI-S lenses around here lately? Great stuff. The beauty is that you can sometimes find these gems for a song on the used market. They may not have all the bells and whistles and switches all over them, but dang some of them are capable of some really great IQ.
For me, it came with the addition of a D700 to a kit that had focused on Canon for quite a few years. I not only didn't own a Nikon lens at the time, but the lens nomenclature was completely bewildering to me. It was as i was educating myself about all those letters following focal lengths that I learned of the great older lenses that still fit on my new camera. I read enough folks praising the 105 f/2.5 AIS that it became my third purchase after a 35 f/2D and a 85 f/18D, both bought on this board. The AIS lens i picked up on E-Bay. I was so impressed with that lens that I first bought long and then more recently bought wider. Thus far I've not been disappointed with any of the six manual focus lenses I've bought. They are beautifully made... real works of art themselves. I'm really enjoying shooting manual focus as well. It slows me down in the nicest way...
CGrindahl wrote:
For me, it came with the addition of a D700 to a kit that had focused on Canon for quite a few years. I not only didn't own a Nikon lens at the time, but the lens nomenclature was completely bewildering to me. It was as i was educating myself about all those letters following focal lengths that I learned of the great older lenses that still fit on my new camera. I read enough folks praising the 105 f/2.5 AIS that it became my third purchase after a 35 f/2D and a 85 f/18D, both bought on this board. The AIS lens i picked up on E-Bay. I was so impressed with that lens that I first bought long and then more recently bought wider. Thus far I've not been disappointed with any of the six manual focus lenses I've bought. They are beautifully made... real works of art themselves. I'm really enjoying shooting manual focus as well. It slows me down in the nicest way... ...Show more →
Hey I hear exactly what you are saying there. There is definitely something very satisfying about seeing the results a 30-year-old lens design is capable of on the new generation of Nikon bodies, especially when the lens only sets you back what some of these older AI and AI-s lenses do. Funny you mention the 105/f2.5 AI-s... as I just picked one up and I've been amazed at the sharpness these thing is capable of on a D700:
... that's at f2.8. I'm seriously impressed for $160. I am also picking up a 200mm f4 AI-s and a 28mm f3.5 AI to replace my 28mm AF this week, so I'm with you... it's addictive!
At first I considered Ai-S lenses to be cheap thrills, something to spend extra cash on to stash away in the lens cabinent. After getting the 50/1.2 from keh.com last week, I am starting to see some real potential here. The built is super solid, the MF is very smooth and precise like Suisse clockwork, the aperture makes a confident 'click'. I am used to MFing from my Leicas, but since the D3s is no rangefinder, getting desired focus is just a little slower (focus confirmation helps). I am happy with my first AI-S lens thus far, there shall be many more in my near future.
Hardly seems fair Vlad, shooting with an f/1.2 lens mounted on the D3s. You literally can shoot in the dark... Lovely photos by the way. I'm especially fond of the menu and the set table.
I shot this on the street last night, wide open at ISO 2000. I love this beautifully made lens...
dj dunzie wrote:
...Funny you mention the 105/f2.5 AI-s... as I just picked one up and I've been amazed at the sharpness these thing is capable of on a D700... I'm seriously impressed for $160. I am also picking up a 200mm f4 AI-s and a 28mm f3.5 AI to replace my 28mm AF this week, so I'm with you... it's addictive!
The 200 f/4 AIS arrived shortly after the 180 f/2.8 AIS. Here is a shot I stumbled onto with the 105 wide open. I'd never shot manual focus before and was still trying to get my mind around how to set up the lens. I ended up shooting a spray of flowers just as a bee sailed into my field of view. Wouldn't you know it? With the lens wide open the shutter snapped at 1/8000th and the camera froze the bee in place...
