When it comes to alt gear, I traditionally love Zeiss glass, but this fast and wide Nikkor 28/2 ($185 on eBay, thank you) is alot of fun for the money. The only thing better is watching of my "Canon-only" buddies cringing at the sight of this hybrid monstrosity.
Cheers,
Robert
www.combier.net

a shot at f2.8

I like number two a lot. Very nice bokeh in each pic. There's something about putting a Nikon lens on a Canon body. Produces a weird kind of energy...sort of like mixing matter and anti-matter.

(By the way, is the guy in the last image trying to rob the Benz or your camera?)

#2 is #1 at 100%. The last guy is a benign roommate, and the Benz is his girlfriend's. I'm not sure he'd know what to do with the camera anyways.

I also noticed that the first shot wasn't wide open at 2.0 (look at the aperture ring OOF shapes, but at 2.8 instead. Oops. The third shot is wide open though.

Nice bokeh! Shame about that whole manual focus thing though.

yes, BUT manual focus is always better than bad autofocus. With Liveview on the 5D2 and semi-static subjects (groupshots, brides in dressing room, and flowers), its a non issue.

Heres the same shot taken at F2.0 instead of F2.8.

Geez man, this lens might have better bokeh than your Zeiss 85/1.4. You might have to start moving a little bit closer for your portraits.

Fantastic bokeh, really starting to love the Ai-Nikkors. Really nice shot and colors as well.

I recently recieved a second copy of this lens (after the first literally fell apart) and I'm quite hapy with it - It's quite a fine optic within its limitations (strong field curvature). It's been glued to the 5D since arrival.

Wide open, hand held at 1/80 sec, slightly sharpened in LR2

at f2.8 the image really cleans up, f4 is not much of an improvement over 2.8, and 5.6 is excellent (on the plane of focus).

I compared a zuiko 28/3.5 head to head with the nikkor and the zuiko was better, particularly around f11-f16 and in the corners. The nikkor is slightly sharper in the central region until f8 or so.

Oh and the other thing, the nikkor makes excellent sunstars!

I loved my 28/2.

Very nice shot. I love the radial bokeh effect (my old 80-200L Drainpipe and Zeiss 85/1.4 have a similar look). The 100% crop looks great too, though I just can't dig the LR sharpening.

When I went snooping around for 28's it seemed that all the 28/2.0s (Zeiss, Nikkor, Canon EF1.8) were great on center and up close but suffered field curvature and edge softness... and the 28/2.8s were stunningly sharp and flat across the frame at slow speeds.

16-9 jas a great review:
http://www.16-9.net/lens_tests/18.html

rcombier wrote:
yes, BUT manual focus is always better than bad autofocus. With Liveview on the 5D2 and semi-static subjects (groupshots, brides in dressing room, and flowers), its a non issue.


I use mf at these large apertures, but there's nothing wrong with the AF in one shot mode at all on the 5D/5D II. Expecting critical focus at f/1.4-f/2 with AF is asking for trouble.

However, LV is a fantastic when you can use it.

PP, I agree entirely.

I think some of the distaste from manual focus lenses comes from folks whose only experience with it is on an AF lens in MF mode. On a lens built for MF I find it to be quite tolerable and pleasant, especially knowing that the focus wont snap to the background if I miss slightly.