Interview re 58mm f/1.4G

<p>It is not independent, otherwise all high quality lenses would have super smooth transitions. Many zoom lenses, for example, have rather poor out of focus rendering especially if they have been designed for the best corner sharpness at wide apertures (by eliminating SA, the corner sharpness is improved but bokeh gets worse, and vice versa). This is the classical tradeoff.</p>

<p>Nikon explains it very clearly in their original article on the 58/1.4 AF-S: of the designs that produced the best transitions from sharp areas to out of focus areas, they selected the optical design which had the lowest aberrations but they didn't allow the correction of aberrations to cause compromised transitions to out of focus.</p>

<blockquote>the fact is that every single lens review i have seen scored higher marks for the Sigma 35ART</blockquote>

 

<p>Maybe, but I don't just look at the numbers on lens reviews - I read the text and look at the sample images. Several have pretty scientific ways of measuring bokeh (which is absolutely not some aetherial unmeasurable quality - just take an out-of-focus shot of a candle and see whether the result is smoothish). Reviews might prioritise the contribution from bokeh differently from some readers - just as presumably a lot of Canon owners have a different concept of the need for low-level dynamic range than DxO does when it's scoring their sensors - but if you read a summary, you can't blame the review for not having all the information.</p>

 

<blockquote>"Where's my replacement 135DC?" - without knowing the actual sales of 135mm lenses versus the 58mm lenses, you're making the same error as the rogue engineer that goes for 58mm.</blockquote>

 

<p>You are, of course, right, Ilkka. I'm hypothesising based on my own frustrations with it (which actually makes me more informed than many of the opinions I express here!), the popularity of the Canon 135 f/2, the age of the Nikon DC lenses, the relatively recent appearance of updated designs from Zeiss and Samyang, and industry observers who have commented that the 135mm is possibly due an update. But it's possible that a 58mm really was the right lens for Nikon to prioritise - I've not seen the numbers. You could certainly argue that it's a better 85mm-equivalent portrait lens for DX bodies than the 50mm alternatives (though for the money I'd have taken the old Sigma), so I'm absolutely not claiming it's useless - just that it seems that there are more obvious alternatives. At least we finally resolved the "where are the new 300mm f/4 and 24-70" problems.</p>

 

<blockquote>It's also hard to separate LoCA from residual SA, such that there's no colour "halo" around the OOF points close to the plane of paraxial focus.</blockquote>

 

<p>And yet, the 200 f/2 has pretty "good bokeh" by most standards, but almost no LoCA, and the Sony STF and Fuji APD lenses show that there's another way (at the cost of some light transmission). I appreciate what the 135 DC was trying to do, and switched from Canon to Nikon partly because I cared enough about bokeh that I wanted it, but I couldn't stand the design compromises.</p>

 

<blockquote>Personally I have had no problems with the 135 f/2 DC</blockquote>

 

<p>I don't dispute it, Michael. I do claim that f/3.2 and a D4 is a bit less demanding than f/2 and a D8x0, especially with non-neutral DC. I wondered whether my lens was out of specification (it was new, and had a visible bubble in the glass) - but Nikon UK claimed there was nothing wrong with it. (Though I did later have to tell them what field curvature was, so in retrospect it's possible that not everyone there was qualified to comment.) I raised my initial concerns <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00WKaw">here</a> and posted some more detailed tests <a href="http://www.photo.net/nikon-camera-forum/00ZIso">here</a> (back when I still had the lens). The advice given to me seemed to be that this was fairly normal - although as with your image, I've seen shots with the DC lenses that don't seem to be quite so... colourful. If you're not pixel-peeping, I'd not lose sleep over it, but I shoot enough subjects which gain (bad) coloured fringes and have wasted enough time sorting out the mess that I elected to give up on my lens. I'm still considering the Samyang, but it's probably a statement about my opinions of Nikon that I vaguely expect Sigma to produce a decent 135 f/2 before Nikon do. And if I'm getting one of these, I really want it for losing the background (and I already have a 70-200); the "it's fine by f/4" argument doesn't really cut it for me - I'll want it to be usable at f/2.</p>

 

<blockquote>ignoring completely the weight their designers could implement more complex optical designs than the Nikkor</blockquote>

 

<p>You really think that was a design issue? Fine if it matters to you (yes, the Sigma and Otus are 2-3x the weight of the 58mm, but in a bag with a 70-200, a 150mm macro and a 14-24, it doesn't make that much difference to me), yet it costs more than the Sigma (and the Milvus). While I'm glad it has a niche, I'd argue that a 58mm f/1.4 that costs four times as much as a 50mm f/1.4 probably ought to have been designed without such an optical compromise. And yes, I do appreciate smaller lenses - which in the case of a 50mm means I wish Nikon would stop it with the stupid indented front element that makes the lens so much longer. That's why I own a 50mm f/1.8 E as well as my 50mm Art.</p>

 

<blockquote>You're welcome to suggest a fast normal lens with better out of focus transitions, global contrast, flare resistance, and resolution than the 58/1.4 AF-S Nikkor with similar or lower weight and show that it achieves a better result.</blockquote>

 

<p>I'm happy that you're happy with your 58mm, and I'm not going to tell you you're wrong to have it. All photography is compromise, and we pick the factors we care about. I'm just suggesting that others may have different priorities, and the 58mm surprised me in terms of the priorities that I expected people to have and how well it met them. I've no idea how well it's selling. Not having used it, I'm relying on reviews such as photozone's - but in their sample images, the bokeh doesn't seem particularly better-behaved than the Sigma's, no matter the intent of the designers.</p>

 

<blockquote>It is not independent, otherwise all high quality lenses would have super smooth transitions.</blockquote>

 

<p>I was under the impression that all Nikon's big superteles had pretty smooth transitions without visible spherical aberration issues. Yes, allowing spherical aberration does help smooth the bokeh (at least in the DC lenses) - but I can't vouch for how much of that is "smoothing the colour of the bokeh rather than the intensity". I'm bitter because I wish there was a better way, and even in a 50mm lens I'm prepared to pay for it. Hence my passing over the 50mm f/1.4 AF-D (soft bokeh, soft lens) and the 50mm f/1.4 AF-S (sharp lens, harsh bokeh) in favour of the Sigma Art - and even that was simply the first option good enough to get my money, I'm not claiming it's in any way perfect.</p>

 

<p><em>"You are, of course, right, Ilkka."</em></p>

<p>If I'm not mistaken, you were responding to Wouter's post there. I do think the 135/2 DC should be replaced with an AF-S lens. I've waited for a good Nikon 135mm prime for >20 years. The 135 DC has quite a lot of CA (unlike the 58/1.4 AF-S which is well corrected in that respect), imprecise AF, and is prone to flare (the 58/1.4 AF-S is excellent in that respect). I still use the 135 occasionally (usually stopping down to f/2.8 or f/4 where it is much better behaved) but I by far prefer the 105 DC and 200/2 II for their optical quality.</p>

<blockquote>If I'm not mistaken, you were responding to Wouter's post there.</blockquote>

 

<p>Damn it. Too much scrollling for one post, and I lost track. There really should be a photo.net Nikon meet-up at some point so I can learn to tell you all apart...</p>

 

<blockquote>I've waited for a good Nikon 135mm prime for >20 years.</blockquote>

 

<p>I'd be less bitter about this if it weren't for the "switching to Nikon because the 135DC seemed like a lens that achieved something that I wanted". Of course, there was also the small matter of a well-known blogger whose site I'd not yet learnt not to trust, who asserted that it was a perfect lens... Anyway, I'm essentially using the 200 f/2 because it was the nearest approximation to a 135 f/2 I could get that lacked the irritations I saw in my DC lens (although obviously it offers more subject isolation). So I've rewarded Nikon quite substantially for disappointing me!</p>

<p>Okay Andrew<br>

Same situation but wide open.<br>

135mm DC @ f/2<br>

Crop<br>

Full frame<br>

<p>I have used it on a borrowed D800 and it worked just as well as on my D4. Maybe I just got lucky and got a magic copy. But on my D100 it was not as good. I had to dial in a little negative DC for it to be sharp wide open.</p>

<p>If you want a slightly-longer-than-normal lens with artificially extended DoF due to under-corrected SA and "creamy" (whatever that means) character, then I'd suggest Nikon's old 55mm f/1.2 S-C Nikkor. It's certainly a lens with a look all of its own, and with darn poor resolving power wide open to boot! Well, actually it's the micro contrast that lets it down, since there is a reasonable amount of detail hidden under the surrounding fuzz.</p>

<p>Of course you might have to hunt around on auction sites and the like for a while, but chances are you'd pick one up for well under half the price of the 58mm f/1.4 G Nikkor. The real point is that for what it delivers the new 58mm lens is well overpriced, since there are plenty of old and underperforming - by today's criteria - 50mm or thereabouts f/1.4 lenses flooding the used market. Without adding a new overpriced and underperforming one. The only thing it brings to the table appears to be AF.</p>

<p>And BTW, I'm curious how its AF performs when fighting against the "slow transition" from what can loosely be called in focus, to OOF.</p>

<p>I don't have a shot to hand from my 55mm f/1.2 S-C Nikkor, but the 50mm f/1.2 Ai-S is very similar. Here's a shot taken under less than ideal conditions at a photo-expo with the 50mm f/1.2. I think it looks "creamy" enough for anyone. That's straight off the camera with no soft-focus added in post.</p><div></div>

Are they little or big dragons?

 

States both.

 

18-200 DX distortion issues fixed easily in post. Same with the FX analogue.

<p>I had not heard of the dragons, so in case anybody else is curious: http://www.nikkor.com/history/04.html</p>

 

<p>Michael: Well, I wouldn't claim the optical aberrations in your image are perfect, but it doesn't look as bad as what I saw. I may have had a bad sample despite Nikon's assertions to the contrary. (Does everyone else's 14-24 have extreme field curvature?) Or it may be that I was having trouble at shorter range. I'm rid of it now anyway. I wouldn't suggest everyone avoid the 135 DC even if it did have the aberration behaviour I believe I was seeing (and the 1001 nights article on it really does suggest it's deliberate), I just think it's only fair to warn people who might care as disproportionately about LoCA as I do that they might want to check their sample.<br />

<br />

RJ: I'm perfectly happy with the "soft-focus" look, but I'm far keener to apply it digital in post-production. I'd rather have a tack sharp image that I can selectively soften than a soft image that I have to sharpen. Softening tends to make bokeh look nicer; sharpening makes bokeh look worse, and adds ringing. Likewise I'd prefer to add artistic vignetting myself manually. Unless you're really in a hurry or shooting on film (and not including any digital processing in your workflow), I've never really seen the merit of the "use a lens that doesn't expose all the skin imperfections" argument - although I vaguely see why an extended depth of field caused by residual aberrations might have some appeal. (But I'd rather focus stack - Nikon, where's our focus bracketing option?)<br />

<br />

Black Silver (both dragons?): I'd certainly not worry too much about fixing the distortion of most lenses - you might lose a pixel's worth of sharpness, but there's enough detail there in modern sensors that it shouldn't be a major issue unless things get really extreme. The 14-24 has pretty epic distortion, but it's sharp enough to sort out the mess. Most other aberrations bother me more.</p>

<p>There is the Voigtlander Nokton 58/1.4 (manual focus) but very nice character in my opinion</p>

<p>IRT Mr. Oshita claim that Nikon's "UW-NIKKOR was the world's first lens dedicated to underwater photography." What about the ELCAN (ERNST LEITZ CANADA) UNDER WATER SYSTEM? Which was first? Admittedly, ELCAN developed its system for the US Navy; Nikon for underwater enthusiasts. Both systems' lenses were in direct contact with seawater. I don't know if ELCAN's system was offered to the general public, and it doubtless was expensive. Nikon's was affordable and practical. I carried a Nikonos underwater camera during my first tour in Vietnam as a Marine rifle platoon commander. Its 35mm lens was corrected for both underwater and land photography, and I never worried about rain--or mud, for that matter. I quick rinse in a stream, and it was ready to go.<br>

S/F H. Wayne Gardner</p>