This is an amazing thread with folks from all over the world all sharing the same keen interest in vintage Nikon lenses. Hat's off to all of you!
This set was taken in Houghton Michigan as far north as you can get in the Upper Peninsula. They say, although I did not dig that the perma-frost lies 3" to 6" below the surface, It is the home to a large technical college founded by GM. School was just getting into session while we were there.
Happy tenth anniversary all!! Have spent a lot of time on this forum and I've learned a lot and enjoyed it very much.
Cheers for another 10 years y'all!
Congratulations to all concerned ! 10 years and still going. I'm not sure when I first posted, maybe 8 years ago? I know I wasn't here at the very start but I do remember going back and reading from the beginning.
These 2 images don't show what my eye was seeing, but I thought I'd share them anyway. This tree has lost most of its leaves, but the fruit is still hanging on. It looks really odd.
After a few days of wet and very windy weather the butterflies returned en-masse to the garden.
In the space of 15 minutes I clocked 7 different species feeding from one small Buddleia bush and nearby flox.
Used the 180/2.8 and PK-13 combo that has served me well over the last few weeks.
This is a moth - a Hummingbird Hawk-Moth that feeds during daylight hours.
I took this a few days ago.
These little blighters are incredibly fast and twitchy, never hovering in one place for more than a few seconds. Best of a bunch of OOF shots - but I love the wing action.
I found some time today to cut/file into the aperture ring of the 50/2 'HC' that I bought last week.
I took some boring images today from the same tripod position using the 'H' and 'HC' variants.
I am not one for detailed lens comparisons but the 'HC' does show better contrast and colour than the 'H' when imported into LR using the same settings. However, I can achieve just about the same effect from the 'H' by twiddling a few sliders in LR.
Either way, both lenses punch way beyond their weight - particularly for the low costs involved. After getting the 50/2 H a few years ago I immediately sold my D and G variants. No contest.
What the 'HC' gains in full spectrum, it will probably lose in infrared. I have a comparison set of IR images too but have yet to download and compare.
The 20mm 2.8 ais finally got me out of the house. Did a lot of testing with the 15mm 5.6, 15mm 3.5, 18mm 3.5, 18mm 4.0, 20mm UD, and 20mm ais.
I will not bore you with samples and commentary, they are all excellent lenses with different characteristics, main difference is the field curvature. They can all be sharp fully open across the frame if the 3D field matches the lens curvature. My copy of the 15mm 3.5 is the hardest to focus. The rest can be set at infinity and f/8 or f/11 and used all day.
Let's stop subjective opinions and show some real photos with the 20mm 2.8 ais.
Not many will be interested on this post. I made a comment that the 15mm 3.5 ais, my copy, is hard to focus for top performance. Now that I own many other 15mm to 20mm wide angles, it is evident to me that other lenses just need to be focused at infinity and closed down and the frame becomes sharp within the lens curvature of field.
The 15mm 3.5, my copy being like new and tested by Nikon El Segundo, needs to be accurateliy focused closer than infinity, not too far, not too close, and it will give a sharp frame at f/8 and f/11. At bigger apertures it works at closer distances but not at infinity. My other wides work at all apertures. Ken Rockwell says something similar.
In any case, if you put the time in and shoot at a couple of different focus distances you can get this good with the lens:
, someone forgot to mask the tires before spray painting their wheels!
