Summing up the experiment…….

Well, tomorrow the actual Nikon workshop starts and there will be little or no time to test the manual lenses for the rest of this trip.  So what have I learned?  Here goes:

1.  Not too surprising the older classic manual Nikkors were tack sharp back then and they still are today.  Are they sharper than current lenses?  No, but they are a lot better than you might think.  Some individual lenses are still very viable if you don’t mind the effort.

2.  The effort to use the older manual focus glass is considerable.  I found my work flow in the field to be a lot more “fits and starts”.   If you want to make yourself slow down and work more carefully, this is a great way.  Through out the trip I found myself missing, the shorter zooms, autofocus, and the general comfort zone I’ve come to have with the modern lenses.

3.  What will I do in the future?  I enjoyed the experiment and I’m certain that, from time to time, I will get back on and ride these horses some more, but I won’t sell all my modern lenses, I just need to be able to work faster much of the time and the manual focus workflow, does slow things down, considerably.

4.  The final conclusion is that the old Nikkors hold up very well when compared to modern glass, but they do lack the more modern coatings, and except for close-up work, where I always focus manually anyway, I really missed the speed of the new lenses.  What’s neat is that manual lenses are still plentiful and can be an attractive bargain for something you just would love to play around with.  One thing is for sure, I don’t think my work suffered, it was quite pleasant to slow down and remember how things used to be!!!!!

the pilgrim