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Which one is the best 50 mm AI (or AIS)?


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<p>Hello. I searched about this subject in Nikon forums and found a lot of information. They were all about the different characteristics of 2 particular focal lengths that I am looking for which are f1.4 and f1.8 . As I read, all of the subjects were discussed for digital cameras. I don't know if they make such a big difference between digital and film photography in terms of performance but I am going to ask anyway since I am just a novice photographer. And I am sorry if I should have written this topic in ''Beginner's question''. I thought Nikon section would be more appropriate about this subject because it is about Nikon lenses.<br>

So if you accept my long explanation we shall begin :)<br>

I own a Nikon FM2 and love to shoot street photography, travel photography and portraits and I have been thinking about buying myself one of the old manual facus Nikkor AI or AIS lenses. I can't choose between f1.4 and f1.8and I don't know which variant is better than the other (AI or AIS). I am currently having little problems in low light situations and would love to take pictures in lowlights. I have limited access to high speed films and that is why I started to think of buying a f1.4 but at the same time I like the sharpness of f1.8. So basically I want to decide on buying one of these choices to handle my interests on street, travel, portrait and lowlight photography and want to have your suggestions on this matter.<br>

As I read that while f1.4 gives an advantage in lowlight situations and ofcource in portraits it also distorts the image (particulary in small apartures) Is f1.4 that bad for sceneries? I don't care that much for bokeh but I care for versitality. <br>

I would like to read your suggestions :)</p>

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<p>I think Kent has it right. I have used the 1.2 many times and oddly, my best candid portraits have come from it. The other two I would recommend would be the 1.4 or one of the old Series E lenses. It surprised me to find out how sharp and how light that series is. As for use on digital cameras it doesn't seem to matter in my experience. Good glass is good glass. Most of mine is older AI stuff, an 80-200/4 and a 300/4.5 are two of them. Manual focus but very easy to use and very sharp on an F2, F4s, and three generations of digital bodies.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

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"As I read that while f1.4 gives an advantage in

lowlight situations and ofcource in portraits it also

distorts the image (particulary in small apartures)"

 

None of Nikon's 50mm lenses is totally free of

geometric distortion. They all show some barrel-distortion, but unless you're using one for copying you won't notice it. As for the distortion changing with aperture; that's just nonsense.

 

I also doubt you'll see any difference, at like apertures, between the f/1.8 and f/1.4 lenses on film, especially fast film. The differences are too subtle. You'll see no difference in viewfinder brightness either because of Nikons viewfinder design.

 

The Ai and Ai-S versions of f/1.4 50mm lens are optically identical and will perform the same on an FM2. I'm not sure if Nikon made an Ai version with an aperture of f/1.8, but if they did it would use the same optical formula. There's an f/2 Ai version that's optically superior, but quite difficult to find because of that.

 

The only 50mm or 55mm lens that'll offer you a different "look" is the f/1.2 version, which has strong residual spherical aberration wide open. It's also a lot more expensive on the used market.

 

Basically you should choose the lens on whether you need the extra 2/3rds of a stop or not. Both are pretty good lenses (for film). The f/1.2 is very soft wide open, which is part of its appeal.

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<p>Sometimes it's just the copy. I bought 3 lenses (used) 50/1.8 E, 50/2 and 50/1.4. Despite the fact that Bjorn says that the 50/2 would trump the others....as it turned out, that the 50/1.4 AIS became a winner. I shot all of them at F2 and other Fstops - they were all good -</p>

<p>Prior to that, I had 50/1.8D and although it was quite sharp, again the F1.4 AIS still surpassed it in sharpness.</p>

<p>That's me, others may have a slightly different take.</p>

<p>Les</p><div>00eJb3-567333984.jpg.a6c7ddfdd88fe28009752c75485217c4.jpg</div>

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<p>I currently keep the 1.4AiS and 1.8E (later chrome version).<br>

I tend to use more the "E" version with digital just because the "almost pancake" design... very nice to use with its compact size. But I`d say the 1.4AiS is a better lens, I tend to think the 1.8E give a bit softer or flatter images, not bad at all but clearly not better. The 1.4AiS is to me the "reference Nikkor", good enough at f1.4 that get very sharp from f2.8 on.<br>

Some "connoiseurs" like uncoated fancy lenses for b&w work, in fact there are lenses in multicoated and single coated versions; we could take the 1.8E as a "single coated" specialist.<br>

My sharpest 50 has been the 50/1.8AFD, even a bit sharper -at its sweetest aperture- than the 50/1.4AFS, but with an ugly construction and ugly bokeh, as mentioned above. Anyway, I`d never recommend it; plasticy construction, too much wobbling (on mine, too), ugly manual focus ring, and from what I read, with sample issues.<br>

If I were buying again (MF lens), for versatility I`d get the 50/1.4AiS again; maybe as a second choice I`d try the mentioned 50/1.8AiS or the 50/2Ai, although I have never used them. They are at a middle point between the 1.4AiS and the "E" versions in size. As mentioned, I tend to take the "E" on my D700 just because makes the bulk much smaller, but with film Nikons I rarely use other than the 50/1.4AiS.<br>

Faster lenses use to be better in general terms, but the aperture difference between f1.4 and f1.8 is not so big, less than one stop. Two stops makes a difference, like shooting with an f1.4 instead of using e.g., a very nice and "true" pancake lens like the 45/2.8P.</p>

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<p>BTW, Ai designs have a longer focus throw with their DoF marks spreaded wider over the silver ring (actually aluminum). Nice for some, others prefer the shorter one on AiS designs.<br /> If I recall it correctly paint use to be bright black paint on the Ai, while AiS use to have a more matte finish. Original FM2 cameras belong to the AiS era (not an issue).</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Technically, the best lens optically in this case would likely be the 55mm Zeiss Otus ZF.2 - which unlike the Sigma 50mm Art or Nikkor 58mm does have an aperture ring (so it's not "G") and will work fully on an FM2. It's just a bit big and pricey, though. (Less expensive Zeiss options are available - the new Milvus being the best performing.) Just bringing that up for completeness. I picked up a 50mm f/1.8 e-series relatively recently just because it's tiny and cheap (unlike the 45mm), but I don't really trust any pre-AF-S 50mm Nikkor at wider apertures, at least off-centre. (I got the AF-S because the AF-D was so soft I couldn't check whether my D800's autofocus module was in spec.) At f/5.6 and below they're tack sharp, of course.<br />

<br />

I guess the noct-nikkor lenses are also worth a mention for completeness - although they're optimised for specific aberrations rather than general sharpness. Some people seem to like the Voigtlander options, too, although some accounts suggest they're not all that sharp wide open - I've no personal experience. Have fun considering options. Apologies if I haven't spotted someone linking this already, but the <a href="http://mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/50mmnikkor/index.htm">Photography in Malaysia</a> site has a long discussion (although not review!) of the older Nikon 50mm options.<br />

<br />

There are two differences that I can think of between lenses "designed for digital" and film-era lenses (other than the natural progression of technology when it comes to coatings and absolute design): wide angle lenses that are extremely non-telecentric behave badly on digital (although that's not much of an issue for a DSLR), but more importantly there have been cases where some lenses cause light reflecting off the sensor to reflect off the rear element and appear in the image - at least some early sensors were quite reflective (more so than film), although I don't know if this is generally still a problem. Sigma's "DG" lens range allegedly added coatings to the rear element to mitigate such reflections. Technically lens designs could be modified to cope with the sensor stack thickness (whereas film captures light throughout its depth), and there's a difference in behaviour in that digital sensors retain contrast up to a hard extinction resolution after which they record nothing (but aliasing), whereas film shows a gradual drop-off in contrast as resolution increases; one could design a lens to trade off contrast at different resolutions accordingly, but I don't know to what extent this factors in to designs beyond trying to ensure that there's enough resolution to keep up with a modern digital sensor. Generally I'd not worry too much about this, though - I'd expect a good lens on digital still to be a good lens on film (unless it only covers the DX area, or the corners are poor like the 70-200 mk1 or the 50mm Sigma HSM pre-Art).</p>

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<p>I still have and think highly of the 1.4 AI that I bought new with an FM in the late 70's. I also have several AI 1.8 versions, but I prefer the images generated with the 1.4. As others have mentioned, the 1.2 versions are very nice, also, but typically sell for a good bit more money. The f/2 versions can be a bargain, perform very well, with I think better rendition than the 1.8. </p>
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<p>I have a number of 50mm Nikkor lenses - f2, f1.8, f1.4 and f1.2, some of them in several versions.</p>

<p>My advice is to buy one of the AI lenses. Actually the 50mm f1.4 AI would be the best option for a combined low-light, travel, portrait lens IMHO.</p>

 

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Is there really any point in spending a huge

amount of money on a lens to use on 35mm film?

<p>

I don't think it's any coincidence that there was a

big push to improve lens design after digital

cameras neared maturity. Up until then the common Planar 6 or 7 element spherical designs were considered plenty good enough.

<p>

An Otus would be total overkill fitted to an FM2, unless you only used 25 ISO film with its limitations. Even then......

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<p>The 50mm F1.8 Ai and Ai-s long nose and the 50mm F18. AF-D are all the same optics. They have the least distortion of all the 50mm lenses made by nikon including the latest G lenses. Soft wide open at 1.8. Between F4 and 5.6 you have the highest resolution across the frame and a neutral bokeh. The 50mm F1.8 AF-D has the highest score of all the nikon lenses MTF tested on photodo.com and is in the top 10 of all the 50mm lenses tested on photodo.<br>

https://www.magezinepublishing.com/equipment/images/equipment/AF-50mm-f18D-19/large/NIAF5018.gif </p>

 

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<p>I own the 50 f1.8 AFD and a 50 F1.8 E series lens and as far as I can tell they have the same quality. The AFD is lighter/plastic and the E series is smaller heavier/glass. They both have the same number of blades. Some think sharpest is best and some think that character wide open is the best and some think a very fast lens is best. Some people think free is the best and each person just decides all that for themselves. I had an AIS lens for a while and liked it but it was a long time ago and I would have to compare it again to determine if it would be my favorite or seemed the same.. I might buy one however. I use the 50mm about 95% of the time these days. </p>
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<p>Don't worry about it. The generally accepted wisdom is that 50mm lenses are among the best, simply because they are fairly easy to design. As a beginner you will make plenty of mistakes that will make the differences in lens quality unimportant -- I know I did.</p>

<p>Almost 50 years ago when I was "the yearbook photographer" for my high school I took one photograph of a theatrical performance that was much better than most of my images. It ended up in the book as a page and a half spread. I took it with a borrowed Nikon F and an 85mm lens. I credited the lens quality, but now I'm pretty sure it was just the lens speed. With the TLR that I was issued the exposure under the very consistent stage lighting was f/4 at 1/60. With the 85mm I probably used f/2.8 at 1/125 or f/2 at 1/250. That would have been fast enough to get rid of the blur from camera motion. I didn't need a better lens; I needed better technique.</p>

 

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"The 50mm F1.8 AF-D has the highest score of all

the nikon lenses MTF tested on photodo.com and

is in the top 10 of all the 50mm lenses tested on

photodo."

 

That's completely at odds with most people's real-life experience with the plastic AF 50mm f/1.8. One sample, which may have been "cherry picked", means nothing. There are scores of users who'll tell you their AF version is noticeably inferior to an Ai or Ai-S bodied lens.

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<p>Out of the 50mm lenses I used, the best at f/2 is the AiS 50mm f/1.2, and the 50mm f/2 is close. The AF-D 50mm f1,8 is far from great wide open, and the times I used the AF-D 50mm f/1.4 it did not blow me away; it should be optically identical to the AiS 50mm f/1.4. Below f/2, they all have some sort of issue. I quite like the glow-in-the-dark-effect the f/1.2 gives at the widest apertures, but itś not suitable for any kind of photo (on film, the effect is less outspoken than on digital, but still noticeable, in my view).<br>

In terms of size, on a FM2 the 50mm f/1.2 looks a bit large, but it handles very well. The 50mm f/2 looks more balanced, and is a lot cheaper.</p>

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<p>If you want a utility lens for the sharpest results, either a 50mm lens at f/1.4, or even better and cheaper, usually, an f/1.8 will serve. Even though I have an f/1.2 lens which I do use most of the time, I use it knowing that at anything wider than f/1.8 it has its drawbacks in a number of dimensions.<br /> f/1.2 lenses, as I and others have often said, are wonderful tools for their reasons for being -- low light photography and shallow depth of field. For day-in and day- out shooting, they are adequate for normal light situations when stopped down. Even then, I kept my old f/2 Nikkor for critical shooting.<br /> The f/1.4 lenses are a good compromise though. <br /> Here is a lens that I still use today, but for closeups, mostly. I admit I nowadays use it most often either on a film Nikon F or F2 or else with an adapter on my Canon 5Dii.</p>

<p> </p><div>00eJiy-567352684.thumb.jpg.3803b63ccbe13a68edaee374775bb35c.jpg</div>

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<blockquote>

<p><strong>"Which one is the best 50 mm AI (or AIS)?"</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I cannot comment on the Nikon 50mm AIS because I have never used it.</p>

<p>I have used the 50mm f/1.4 AI and was very satisfied with its performance. However, I replaced it with a Nikon 50mm f/1.4 AF-D.</p>

<p>I also own and use the manual focus Nikon 50mm f/1.8 Series E as a backup to my auto focus 50.</p>

<p> Nikon F4 & N70/F7000eJnb-567366484.JPG.d177b3055dc5c50b9ea29a5835008ce0.JPG</div>

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