First the 300mm temptations, and now James going on and on about 55mm sharpness at infinity. Keep talking and you'll make me doubt my 55 f2.8 AIS that I've never doubted, but now feel a strange compulsion to test out at infinity. I started reading a couple of articles about infinity focus and luckily backed out of that rabbit hole before it was too late.
I always just thought Scott's (mp356) pictures were sharp because of the photographer, based on the consistently good output.
Here's another 55mm f2.8AIS shot at decidedly non-infinity focus. (It's just fine, it's just fine, it's just fine, don't go looking for trouble .......)
pbraymond wrote:
First the 300mm temptations, and now James going on and on about 55mm sharpness at infinity. Keep talking and you'll make me doubt my 55 f2.8 AIS that I've never doubted, but now feel a strange compulsion to test out at infinity. I started reading a couple of articles about infinity focus and luckily backed out of that rabbit hole before it was too late.
I always just thought Scott's (mp356) pictures were sharp because of the photographer, based on the consistently good output.
Here's another 55mm f2.8AIS shot at decidedly non-infinity focus. (It's just fine, it's just fine, it's just fine, don't go looking for trouble .......) ...Show more →
Ray (and James), I give the credit to Nikon and the lens. Any image quality I add is minimal.
Scott
James Markus wrote:
Sorry about the diversion - sometimes I become...ah, too focused.
No, no James, that was very interesting and very pertinent, at least for me. I've just got my 55mm f 3.5, it's the non AI with the scalloped focussing ring. It came from Indiana (Laura has kindly been following the saga of the delivery process) and it's a Rafael quality sample. No, I'm kidding, it's not at that level, but it's pretty good. It came in the plastic bubble, with the extension tube and the original box. I've never seen a Nikon box like this. It's not the soft cardboard with the folding lid. It's a hard cardboard, in two pieces wherethe whole top section comes off and slides over the bottom section. It may not be unusual, I don't know, but I've never come across it.
The lens does everything you say, and it is ridiculously sharp. But I am a little disappointed. I wanted it to be super lightweight like the one I had in Australia. All the black paint had worn off and it was almost silver on the outside. It looked like aluminium. It had become a silver Nikkor and it was so incredibly light it seemed like a toy. This one weighs as you'd expect, it's not a noticeably light lens for what it is. I don't know which one I had. I know it had the same scalloped focussing ring, but other than that it must have been an earlier model, it was certainly much more worn cosmetically. I assume that at some stage they were using a very light type of aluminium. I can't keep buying more lenses (famous last words) but I do miss it.
Ben
saph wrote:
18mm for closeup street Ben? Not something I could ever do. Medium to a bit longer telephoto is my comfort zone.
Me neither Samy, but when you're constantly running into Americans eating McDonalds in the middle of the road trying to dodge traffic and get the burger in their mouths at the same time, what you gonna do?
James Markus wrote:
Thank you Gerry, and Martin! My N>EF adapter is an AF confirmation version, but the beep is occurring so close to the hard stop that I thought it was confirming that hard stop. I will check out the performance on my D800, and I suspect it would then be accurate hard focus infinity lenses. Since all three were off by the same amount, I would assume my adapter (same one used on all three lenses) is the culprit. I had always thought the red dot was infinity for Infra-Red (which is why "IR" is on the labeled photo), but searching online the only confirmation of that is with KR. I was a bit blindsided by the cult status this lowly lens has gathered. Oddly, the oldest version of the 55mm seems the sharpest for infinity.
Jim
...Show more →
I've owned an example of the Ai 55mm 3.5 for nearly 30 years, thousands of copy negs etc taken on it in film days, and since scanners took over for flat copy now used for studio type 'still life' on both Nikon and Fuji. I also have a rather 'well used' 105 f/4.
I've also used the 55/2.8 for many thousands of copy type stuff and macro of models, but I like the simplicity of the slower ones, no CRC to go wrong! Never used any of them for distant stuff, always used 'normal' lenses for that, smaller, lighter and faster, and good enough for the odd 3 dimensional close up with a tube.
And regarding the other debate here, I have a very nice 300/4.5 ED/IF, no comparison items apart from with my old Tokina 400/5.6 AF, and the Nikkor + x1.4 TC14B is sharper than the Tokina till they are similar at f/11. Focussing the ED/IF is like manual focussing an AF lens!
bruni wrote:
Me neither Samy, but when you're constantly running into Americans eating McDonalds in the middle of the road trying to dodge traffic and get the burger in their mouths at the same time, what you gonna do?
It seems that that is called multi-tasking.
And something the the female of the species do every day. (No, not necessarily eating McDonalds)
Stokesey wrote:
It seems that that is called multi-tasking.
And something the the female of the species do every day. (No, not necessarily eating McDonalds)
Sorry ..... I couldn't resist.
Steve
Nikon rules OK
Steve - sorry? really? Actually, I'm a bit surprised it's you. I thought one of the Americans would bite (excuse the pun).
This thread is a constant surprise.
Took a few quick minutes to run a D50 test this morning on the 800 F/6.6 Ais ED IF. Nothing fancy, limited to my Driveway today, maybe over the weekend I will get out and try some more.
I have two other questions, I used an older flash card and noticed some colorful horizontal lines on some of the frames, see attached, anyone see that before? Hoping its not the D850 and just the flashcard.
Ahh, found my green dot on the Z7 I will be excited to try this later!
I will be excited to try this later! 
