Old Glass, Treasures or Trash?

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Larry S.

Larry S.

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The shift to mirrorless platforms has left orphan glass on shelves and in camera bags. The once valued lenses have fallen out of favor for new designs. Well built glass by Nikkor, Canon, Takumar, and others have been thrown under the bus for the latest and greatest lenses designed for mirrorless cameras. Lenses are “Tools not Jewels”, right? Likely true… but..

Not having a cash cow handy to feed my newly acquired Z cameras it was financially prudent to explore the possibilities of in-house glass…🤔 retirement income does not feed the need…
Enter the “FTZii” for these lenses and a re-visit of pre-AF glass for evaluation…. Here’s a sample with a 85mm f/1.4 ai-s on a D850. The images w/Z9 and this lens were equally sharp. Catch? Manual focus…..
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This is a birdbath in our yard shot with the D850 and 85mm f/1.4 ai-s…and an enlargement of focus point…
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I use a AI-S 50mm 1.2 and 35mm 2.8 all the time on my Zf.

Apparently using a E to Z adapter and F to E enables the manual focus assists as though you had a chipped lens like the voghtlander.

Zf has specific manual focus assists that cause the points to turn green in focus and uses subject detection in manual focus, with a bound key it will then lock on a face or eye and you can click into 100 zoom to check focus or if it’s setup as above the point will turn green to let you know. I’m pretty sure holding the shutter and using focus priority will let you trap focus shots like this as well.
 
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Lee R said:
I use a AI-S 50mm 1.2 and 35mm 2.8 all the time on my Zf.

Apparently using a E to Z adapter and F to E enables the manual focus assists as though you had a chipped lens like the voghtlander.

Zf has specific manual focus assists that cause the points to turn green in focus and uses subject detection in manual focus, with a bound key it will then lock on a face or eye and you can click into 100 zoom to check focus or if it’s setup as above the point will turn green to let you know. I’m pretty sure holding the shutter and using focus priority will let you trap focus shots like this as well.
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Yup…do all that with the Zf and M/F lenses…ie..24, 50, 58NOCT, 85MM… fun stuff
 
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Larry S. said:
The shift to mirrorless platforms has left orphan glass on shelves and in camera bags. The once valued lenses have fallen out of favor for new designs. Well built glass by Nikkor, Canon, Takumar, and others have been thrown under the bus for the latest and greatest lenses designed for mirrorless cameras. Lenses are “Tools not Jewels”, right? Likely true… but..

Not having a cash cow handy to feed my newly acquired Z cameras it was financially prudent to explore the possibilities of in-house glass…🤔 retirement income does not feed the need…
Enter the “FTZii” for these lenses and a re-visit of pre-AF glass for evaluation…. Here’s a sample with a 85mm f/1.4 ai-s on a D850. The images w/Z9 and this lens were equally sharp. Catch? Manual focus…..

This is a birdbath in our yard shot with the D850 and 85mm f/1.4 ai-s…and an enlargement of focus point…
Click to expand...

I've been using vintage lenses for some time (a long time if you count from when they were not vintage...) and now have about 33. I use them more than my modern lenses for my day to day photography now.

My Zeiss Pancolar 50mm f1.8 is insanely sharp. The close up of the names is cut from the larger image after zooming in to make the picture about 6 feet high!! Take no notice of the EXIF. It was taken at f8 IIRC. It is the 2nd column from the left.


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Trash or treasure is in the eye of the beholder. While I enjoy the tactile feedback of a classic manual focus lens - and I have several - I find that under challenging conditions the optical properties of these lenses often fall short of modern designs. Chromatic aberrations in particular can be quite pronounced and will appear as color fringes at high contrast edges. I enjoy them for what they are but when I want higher image quality I find myself using modern lenses.
 
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Among the AI and AIS Nikkors, a couple of notable primes include:

  • the Twenty-eights, especially the f2.8 primes, which Nikon changed updating from AI to AIS;
  • The 55 Micro Nikkors, I still use my 55 f2.8AIS;
  • 105 f2.5 - the AI has 9 aperture blades, which renders lovely bokeh. The f2.5AIS is a legend.... It captured the Afghan Girl and many many more portraits
  • 200 F4 both versions were excellent telephotos in their day, and are still widely used on retro cameras
Of the AFD screwdriver Nikkors, my firm favourite is the 85 f1.4, and I still use a 70-180 Micro Nikkor.

There are many other classic optics, being resurrected in the 'Old Lens Revival' as named by Haruo Sato :

 
fcotterill said:
  • 105 f2.5 - the AI has 9 aperture blades, which renders lovely bokeh. The f2.5AIS is a legend.... It captured the Afghan Girl and many many more portraits
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There were two optical designs of the classic 105mm f/2.5: the earlier version was based on a Sonnar design and IIRC is the one used to make the Afghan Girl portrait. It was certainly not the AIS version. The later version was a more symmetrical design based on the Gauss formula, which improved optical performance at close range. The two types can be identified by the rear element, recessed with the Sonnar design, and nearly flush with the flange with the Gauss design. Any 105mm f/2.5 designated NIKKOR-P or NIKKOR PC is the Sonnar design, the P meaning 5 elements (i.e., Penta). The Gauss design has 6 elements but the expected -H (Hexa) designation was dropped before the switch to AI-S.

BTW I was not impressed with the earlier 200mm f/4.
 
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Among the treasures I'd include the 180mm f/2.8, either ED or earlier non-ED, and Nikon's first ED lens, the hard-to-find 300mm f/4.5 ED (not the same as the ED-IF), with the disadvantage of a long MFD and stiff focussing ring.

THe 55mm Micro-Nikkors were good in their day (I've used 3 versions) but cannot take full advantage of high-resolution sensor. I now use the 65mm f/2 APO-Lanthar macro lens.
 
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rjpawl said:
This is an interesting topic. I have an FTZii and a Z8. Any recommendations for older manual focus lenses for landscapes?

Thanks
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You are not limited to Nikon lenses either. Cheap Fotasy adaptors from rainbow_imaging in New York are good and cheap. I have a Canon FD 24mm f2.8, a Miranda 24mm f2.8 (Cosina?), a Vivitar 24mm f2.8 a Sigma Super Wide II 24mm f2.8, a Takumar 28mm f3.5and a Soligor 35mm f2.8, all of which give great results. Most cost around 30GBP but the Soligor was 20GBP. Probably cost more now though.

I have a page on my website with example shots - no wall hangers, just showing what they can give:

www.wizardlyimagery.co.uk

Vintage and Manual Focus Lens Index - Wizardly Imagery

www.wizardlyimagery.co.uk
 
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I am a big fan of my 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6 D Macro lens that went out of production in about 2004.
I can still use it on my D850 and really like it on the Z bodies with the peaking highlights. I usually use it at ground level in our spring gardens and for mushrooms. It is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
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dabhand16 said:
I've been using vintage lenses for some time (a long time if you count from when they were not vintage...) and now have about 33. I use them more than my modern lenses for my day to day photography now.

My Zeiss Pancolar 50mm f1.8 is insanely sharp. The close up of the names is cut from the larger image after zooming in to make the picture about 6 feet high!! Take no notice of the EXIF. It was taken at f8 IIRC. It is the 2nd column from the left.


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Just wow! Amazing resolution….. Vertical lines straight also…
 
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rjpawl said:
This is an interesting topic. I have an FTZii and a Z8. Any recommendations for older manual focus lenses for landscapes?

Thanks
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Yes….. I have a 200mm f/4 D Micro that really does well on the “Z “ platform… Here’s a sample with this lens on a Z8…
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There was a question from @groob about older lenses for landscapes when used with mirrorless cameras. For the last 55 years I have used Nikon equipment so I cannot vouch for Canon, Pentax, Leica, Sony…etc.. So, I hooked up a 24mm f/2.8 ai-s lens to my Z9 and out the door to the creek for a sample to show. I was impressed with the resolution of this combo. Unfortunately, in order to post in this forum the image size & resolution had to be reduced significantly…45mp>3mp & 25mb>2.8 😕 Here’s the JPEG straight out of the camera,…. I like to shoot the shoreline grass which gives me an opportunity to check resolution….
The EXIF data is not showing up… f/11-1/100sec-iso220
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JAS said:
I am a big fan of my 70-180mm f/4.5-5.6 D Macro lens that went out of production in about 2004.
I can still use it on my D850 and really like it on the Z bodies with the peaking highlights. I usually use it at ground level in our spring gardens and for mushrooms. It is not going anywhere, anytime soon.
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I use the peaking hi-lights also…. your flowers are gorgeous….meet the “shoe-pod”🤩
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