p.1 #1 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
Hi Everyone,
A dear friend passed away at 91. He & I knew each other from the 60's & 70's, working on Redwood NP creation & expansion. Oddly we never were in the field together.
I shot Nikon F & Hasselblad 500C film from 1964 to early 80's. After those were drowned and stolen, it was an early 645 Mamiya's turn, though it was not very good. So now in 2026, I thought film was a mere ghost from the past. My friend's passing changes all that!
I spent 5 days sorting through his massive film collection, pulling all the redwoods materials together for donation to Redwood National Park. My "reward" is now I have Nikon F3's and 5 lenses AND a Linhof Super Technika V 6x9 outfit with 2 roll film holders and 5 lenses - Yikes
I will share images of all these things, plus have some questions. But in this post I want to show just ONE item - a Nikon Ai-S 400mm f3.5 monster that I'm guessing is app 54 years old + / - I hope this isn't old hat for all of you. I have a lot to learn about all this stuff.
Photo 1 is the 400mm f3.5 lens & companion TC's compared against my Z 100-400 zoom "stretched" out to 400mm.
Photos 2 & 3 more details of old lens. Then I went outside and took some photos with my Z8 and captions describe those.
Photos 4 & 5 show rendering differences of each lens wide open. And, of course depth of field change between f3.5 and f5.6
Photo 5 of bowl (with birds jumping in right as I'm exposing), the bright highlight was rimmed on both sides with green fringing very evident at 200-300% and partially removed.
Dave
Very similar length but NOT similar weight!
Front opening sizes 77mm vs 122mm
Nikon filter protects big ED front element
Taken from my modern zoom at 400mm wide open at f5.6
Taken with OLD lens. NOTE: Birds jumped into bowl as I was taking photo!
p.1 #2 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
Sorry about your friends passing.
That 400mm f3.5 is one of less than 12,000 made. It looks pristine. I always removed the heavy/thick UV filter while in use, because I believed it gave sharper results (this was on a 300mm f2.8 and 200mm f2.0 - same front element size), but would return it when storing. The filter drawer filter is a part of the optical formula and is necessary for best results. Also, pulling the shade out completely increases contrast. It doesn't surprise me that it's bokeh, and sharpness is better than your zoom. Chromatic aberration is easy to fix in PP, but the penalty for that is the weight. Wait til you feel how heavy that 122mm UV filter is - I have entire cameras that weight less than that one filter.
p.1 #4 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
Thank you for the condolences. Yes, that filter is amazing. I will test removing it and comparing sharpness. My ancient eyes sort of considers the new vs old lenses being tied in sharpness but the oldie has nice bokeh rendering of the grassy field.
Weight of oldie is 6lbs 12 oz. Weight of zoom 3lbs 9 oz. That includes the arca feet, filters, caps.
The only reason I would choose the old lens is I have TC's for it, which I haven't used yet. Otherwise the zoom wins out for this old guy
p.1 #5 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
old_hikingman wrote:
Hi Everyone,
A dear friend passed away at 91. He & I knew each other from the 60's & 70's, working on Redwood NP creation & expansion. Oddly we never were in the field together.
I shot Nikon F & Hasselblad 500C film from 1964 to early 80's. After those were drowned and stolen, it was an early 645 Mamiya's turn, though it was not very good. So now in 2026, I thought film was a mere ghost from the past. My friend's passing changes all that!
I spent 5 days sorting through his massive film collection, pulling all the redwoods materials together for donation to Redwood National Park. My "reward" is now I have Nikon F3's and 5 lenses AND a Linhof Super Technika V 6x9 outfit with 2 roll film holders and 5 lenses - Yikes
I will share images of all these things, plus have some questions. But in this post I want to show just ONE item - a Nikon Ai-S 400mm f3.5 monster that I'm guessing is app 54 years old + / - I hope this isn't old hat for all of you. I have a lot to learn about all this stuff.
Photo 1 is the 400mm f3.5 lens & companion TC's compared against my Z 100-400 zoom "stretched" out to 400mm.
Photos 2 & 3 more details of old lens. Then I went outside and took some photos with my Z8 and captions describe those.
Photos 4 & 5 show rendering differences of each lens wide open. And, of course depth of field change between f3.5 and f5.6
Photo 5 of bowl (with birds jumping in right as I'm exposing), the bright highlight was rimmed on both sides with green fringing very evident at 200-300% and partially removed.
I'm sorry to hear about your friends passing. Now that you have some of his kit he will live on in your images in a way; at least that's how I like to think about it . Sounds like he had quite the collection! The F3's are always a great camera to have. I don't know much about the Linhof, but I'm sure it's wonderful as well.
p.1 #6 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
Thank you for kind words. Yes, I'd say his film collection numbers in the ten's of thousands of images and include Alaska, Canada, Europe and all of the western US.
As one who is working on my own collection and a report to the park service, my friend's images dovetail nicely with mine. RNP will have two large collections dating to before its creation.
I'll be posting pics of the other 35mm stuff and hope to actually shoot the used F3 but I will also use the lenses with my Z kit.
The real thrill for me is the Linhof because I mostly shot medium format. I look forward to hopefully getting some nice images.
My dilemma is time that I don't have much to spare, so trying to get back into both 35mm film and 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 film.
p.1 #7 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
old_hikingman wrote:
Thank you for kind words. Yes, I'd say his film collection numbers in the ten's of thousands of images and include Alaska, Canada, Europe and all of the western US.
As one who is working on my own collection and a report to the park service, my friend's images dovetail nicely with mine. RNP will have two large collections dating to before its creation.
I'll be posting pics of the other 35mm stuff and hope to actually shoot the used F3 but I will also use the lenses with my Z kit.
The real thrill for me is the Linhof because I mostly shot medium format. I look forward to hopefully getting some nice images.
My dilemma is time that I don't have much to spare, so trying to get back into both 35mm film and 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 film.
That's amazing! For the national park photos, will those get a public release? They sound very interesting. Looking forward to seeing what you produce with it all, and the future photos of the gear.
p.1 #8 · Sad passing of the torch - a friend's gear comes my way.
I show a few of my early images here, where I am having to correct for bad color imbalances. p.2 #17 ยท What is the point of digitally post-processing film?
I have no idea if the park service will distribute it. I still have almost 2 years to go on it.
