Going Old School……

One of the things that I love about being a Nikon shooter, (yes, I do work for them, but I’d say this anyway!), is that we have never changed our lens mount, the tried and true Nikon F mount is still going strong.  So what’s the big deal?  Well if you were a Canon shooter in the 60’s – 80’s or for that matter a Pentax shooter or Olympus shooter, and you saved a bunch of great old glass (lenses) they wouldn’t work on your new DSLR!  That’s a big deal because Nikon made some sterling manual focus glass for many years and virtually any of them can still be use today on our current, higher end DSLRs.   if you own a D7000, D700, D3s or D3x you can still enjoy all that old great glass.  To the right are four lenses I really love, left to right, the 50-135 f3.5 Nikkor, the 80-200 f4.5 Nikkor, the 105 f2.5 Nikkor and the 24 f2.8 Nikkor.  All of these lenses are legendary in their optical performance and work wonderfully on our current cameras.  Now you may be thinking but they are manual focus!!!!  Actually for some kinds of photography and for video the older manual lenses are a perfect fit.  The older lenses have depth-of-field scales and that is very handy when your shooting for maximum depth-of-field using Hyper-focal distance.  It’s an old trick from old guys like me, but it really works and when working slow and carefully it can give you wonderful results.

In the next few months I’m going to start a project of shooting with the old glass and try to show some examples of just how terrific this classic glass can be.  the great news is that many older manual focus lenses can be bought for a great deal less than current lenses.  Now don’t get me wrong, I own and use a number of the current, latest, greatest Nikkors, but it’s fun sometimes to step back and remember how tact-al photography was in the old days.  I bought the 80-200 above some years ago for $120., the 24 f2.8 for less than $150., I’ve seen mint condition 105 f 2.5’s for under $150.  These are great lenses and the smooth focus makes them also perfect for video work.  If You’re a Nikon shooter you can make these lenses available to yourself, if you shoot other brands….. not so much!

I look forward to wringing them out for you.

the pilgrim

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