Ran into a guy today at the shooting range and struck up a conversation about a rear sight he needs for a High Standard Target 22 pistol. Made arrangements to sell him one of my extras.
Found out he’s into wildlife and birding and he owns a D5, D500 and a D850. We started talking about lenses and told him I have a Z6 and only shoot MF glass, own a NOCT and several other pieces of good glass etc..
Then he told me his best lens is the 500mm f4. Uses it with the D500 & D850. Thinking thats a $10,000 lens I felt enormously lucky about us here and our MF glass. Perfectly good, yet affordable and hate to think how expensive this hobby would be if there wasn’t any NMFGAS to save us.
Ken, Save us? Still, ya gotta spend money to save money. I owned a 500mm f4 afs for years, and it was beautifully constructed. It is the lens that forced me to reassess birding, and my general photography direction. I was chasing a bird trying to get an even better shot when I tripped, and almost fell into a lake. It was because the feeling in my feet was compromised by peripheral nephropathy. I would have been gutted if that lens had met such a pathetic end - so I sold it. Oddly, the lens had appreciated in the 7-8 years that I had owned it, and I got almost 50% more than I paid for it originally. However, I wouldn't suggest buying MF or AF Nikkors as an investment. Anyway, The MF 500mm AI-P f4 is reported to be as sharp as the 500mm afs I, II, VR etc. and is a fraction of the expense.
Ken Hill wrote:
Ran into a guy today at the shooting range and struck up a conversation about a rear sight he needs for a High Standard Target 22 pistol. Made arrangements to sell him one of my extras.
Found out he’s into wildlife and birding and he owns a D5, D500 and a D850. We started talking about lenses and told him I have a Z6 and only shoot MF glass, own a NOCT and several other pieces of good glass etc..
Then he told me his best lens is the 500mm f4. Uses it with the D500 & D850. Thinking thats a $10,000 lens I felt enormously lucky about us here and our MF glass. Perfectly good, yet affordable and hate to think how expensive this hobby would be if there wasn’t any NMFGAS to save us. ...Show more →
Rafael, most excellent photos with the 400/3.5 monster lens. From the moon to wildlife, that is the most diverse set of captures I have seen in a single post.
The Dakota, ca 1884. A few steps beyond the entrance gate, John Lennon was tragically shot.There are normally folks here taking photos and one has to wait for the coast to clear, not so much now.
As Ken explains, the MF lenses are very affordable, yet shine in their own right. For the past few years, I sold pretty much every AF lens I owned, except the 85mm f1,4 AF-D. I never regretted doing so, because each and every MF lens I bought offered me a new tool that worked perfect for my photography.
The way I explain this to people who are less into photography is explaining that the way a lens draws an image is like language. And these older lenses speak a language completely different to newer lenses. You might take exactly the same photo with an older lens, and with a newer, and the feeling you get when looking at the photo will be different between the two.
That is a pretty long intro to say that I will, for the first time after selling my AF lenses, expand my AF lens portfolio by one lens. Kristinas joy from using the Sigma ART lenses had me looking into them more then once, and I have the luxury of being able to just pick them up and try them. Kristina owns the 35mm f1,4 Sigma ART, the 135mm f1,8 Sigma ART and soon the 85mm Sigma ART. Still, none of those made me any happier at those focal lengths then a manual Nikkor at the same focal length.
But now a situation arose, and my employer ordered me the 105mm f1,4 Sigma ART, so I guess that I will no longer carry a pure MF lens kit in the future.
Back to MF Nikkors though, today I took out the 105mm f2,5 Nikkor-P to celebrate the fact that, for the first time in 2 or 3 years, we finally had some snow
Rafael, most excellent photos with the 400/3.5 monster lens. From the moon to wildlife, that is the most diverse set of captures I have seen in a single post.
Serge when I was stationed in NYC I lived on W71st just around the corner from the Dakota and was there just after Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon. Area and Strawberry Fields in the Park became a circus!
I often said if I was the investigator looking for an assassin I’d focus my search for people who went by three names. Ie. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Warnock Hinkley, James Earl Ray. What ARE the odds?
I think the three names come about after the assassinations, not before.
Ken Hill wrote:
Serge when I was stationed in NYC I lived on W71st just around the corner from the Dakota and was there just after Mark David Chapman shot John Lennon. Area and Strawberry Fields in the Park became a circus!
I often said if I was the investigator looking for an assassin I’d focus my search for people who went by three names. Ie. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Warnock Hinkley, James Earl Ray. What ARE the odds?
Thank you Serge. Lumi will be 7 this year. We got her as a pup, shortly after Kristina and I moved together. How time flies. I was already posting in this thread back then too.
