grantgoodes wrote:
Beautiful piece of kit! If I had a non-AI native body, the 58/1.4 in mint condition would be on my shortlist for sure: Congratulations on your purchase.
Thank you.
it was a fortunate snag after several weeks of searching.
I do not use the focal length enough but it is one of my favorite lenses.
I love my 105/1.8, balances nicely on my GFX50S. I would like another 85/1.4 but I was put off after my last one seized up when thye grease in the helicoils went solid
On a recent trip to Milford Sound in Fiordland NP, I stopped at a popular waterfall. I had seen a youtube video that showed there was another hidden falls upstream so I wanted to get up there. As it happened it was a near vertical climb up rock faces and tree roots but I got there in the end !
For some reason I had left the camera on iso3200 for the first one from the day before
Welcome Alex! So far looks like you only have a little bit of an issue
AlexCruise wrote:
Yes it was the one on B&S.
George was awesome to deal with and all of his items he has had for sale have bene super mint.
I also have the 28/1.4E and Z 26/2.8
Always love seeing the original packaging, especially for something as rare as the Oscilloscope Nikkor. There are so many interesting Nikkor options for macrophotography, especially the industrial lenses. Looks like your copy is truly mint. How do you adapt it to F-mount?
cadman342001 wrote:
On a recent trip to Milford Sound in Fiordland NP, I stopped at a popular waterfall. I had seen a youtube video that showed there was another hidden falls upstream so I wanted to get up there. As it happened it was a near vertical climb up rock faces and tree roots but I got there in the end !
For some reason I had left the camera on iso3200 for the first one from the day before
Lucky shot, this morning I decided to take my Nikkor Noct 58 mm F1.2 with a Z8 out on the driveway and aim at the adjacent mountains at 5 am and while shooting a dozen or so shots wide open this meteor was perfectly positioned centered for me as I was taking 2 sec shots. I didn't even bother with a cable release although it was on a solid tripod, I just thought I'd take a few photos. This is a legendary Nikon lens made for doing this type of photography and this is the type of photography that is the reason why I bought it. I thought it would be a nice predawn for the noct and I can not believe just how photographically lucky this to spend just a few minutes a dozen shots and a perfect centered bright meteor, maybe I should get a lottery ticket !
EMH2025 wrote:
Lucky shot, this morning I decided to take my Nikkor Noct 58 mm F1.2 with a Z8 out on the driveway and aim at the adjacent mountains at 5 am and while shooting a dozen or so shots wide open this meteor was perfectly positioned centered for me as I was taking 2 sec shots. I thought it would be a nice predawn for the noct and I can not believe just how photographically lucky this to spend just a few minutes a dozen shots and a perfect centered bright meteor, maybe I should get a lottery ticket !
Very nice. Lucky indeed, but I wouldn't recommend buying a lottery ticket now. You blew your year's quota of good luck on the photo!
Your signature says Alaska; I had no idea that Saguaro cactus would live in that environment.
The stop after Setinel was Ronda, a jewel of a city sitting 2,460ft above sea level. The visit was rushed since it is impossible to cover both of these places in the short time we had.
The approach after a trek form the bus station. At the end one is greeted with awesome views of the mountainous setting.
Ronda is best known for the Puente Nuevo (1751-1793) which towers 390ft above the canon floor and connects both parts of the city. The Guadelevin River runs through the deep gorge. More on the bridge later, need to process a few photos.
One of many views, this one from near the bridge. I would have loved to have been around for the sunset.
EMH2025 wrote:
Lucky shot, this morning I decided to take my Nikkor Noct 58 mm F1.2 with a Z8 out on the driveway and aim at the adjacent mountains at 5 am and while shooting a dozen or so shots wide open this meteor was perfectly positioned centered for me as I was taking 2 sec shots. I thought it would be a nice predawn for the noct and I can not believe just how photographically lucky this to spend just a few minutes a dozen shots and a perfect centered bright meteor, maybe I should get a lottery ticket !
Yesterday (Pi Day) we visited our friends Jim and Katy on Cape Cod, folks we've known for half a century. More story and pictures later but first, here are a few domestic scenes.
I made them pose in front of the clock, which had been in Jim's family.
Jim baked a cornbread to have with dinner.
It was not a Pi but because it was round Pi still applies. It is no longer round, but more like Pi / 2 now.
Their cozy living room. Their house is decorated with great art, some of which are prints from Jim's career as (among other things) a photographer.
The living room shot was with my 35mm F/2.8. The others were with the Nikkor PC 105mm f/2.5 Jim was handing over to me.
I had the opposite keeper rate with the 85mm vs 105mm. I sold my pristine 105mm f1.8 ais at the end of 2025. It was much lighter than the 85mm, easier to focus, but I didn't get as many critically sharp images out of it - compared to the 85mm green dotting it. Perhaps making an in camera focus adjustment would have solved that, but I stopped doing that many years ago (D2X and D300 days). It is a beautiful lens - particularly on a film body. Plus, it has a very pleasing bokeh.
This little Yellow Diecast Maisto Smart City-Coupe 1:33 scale "Pull-n-Go" Car survived 7 kids and three grand sons until one of the fathers of said grand kids broke it. I went to find a replacement, and that is when I found out they are collectable. - so I fixed it instead. Everyone can still play with it except Ben. Shot with the Canon A2E with an adapted Nikkor-S-auto 5.8cm f1.4 Non-ai lens wide open as are the other photos except I stopped down for momma cat.
That recent blizzard hit Cape Cod really hard. Some tree trunks snapped. Pine trees have wide-spread roots but no taproot. Most of the ground is just sand.so some trees pulled their entire root system out of the ground. Many of the downed trees took out power lines and much of the Cape was without electric power for four days. Our friends have a generator fed by the same propane tank which feeds their stove. They calculated how long they could go with it and then minimized their electricity use for fear their tank would run out. It ended up using about half of their expected rate. Many of the affected houses are summer cottages, vacant this time of year. When people return for the summer they may find their houses still powerless if no one on their line was present to report the local outage.
One of the reasons we visited Jim and Katy yesterday was to pick up some camera stuff he had offered me. Two F-mount film bodies, five lenses, two hoods, assorted other stuff such as two polarizing filters, several other filters, a second focusing screen for the Photomic, two hot-shoe mounts, macro mount extender, macro auxiliary lens, owner's manuals, a photography book (now quite "vintage"), and a light-seal replacement kit for the F2. And as we are walking out his workshop he says to me "Need a tripod? Here, take this." Then he handed me a Panfrotto tripod, stronger and more rigid than the two Magnus tripods I have. We had agreed that I'd pay him for all this. I didn't expect the tripod.
The lenses, 105mm, 55mm, 50mm (1.4 and 2.0), 28mm.
I had figured some would be redundant to what I already have, 50mm (1.4), 55mm, 105mm. It turns out that his are older and carry slightly different designations. They may be similar but maybe not; they are worth a test. Perhaps in the coming days.
I plan to put my Nikkormat back into service for color negative film, perhaps one or both of these bodies too. It should be a fun adventure. BTW, Jim is keeping another F model, some lenses, and the TLR Rolleiflex he showed me, as well as his Leica M4-P.
These pics (and the downed-tree shots above) were taken with my 35mm f/2.8.
