180mm f/2.8 ED - well worth the praise!

[User_502260]

<p>There was a mention of "axial CA" concerning the pre-AI 180/2.8. Was this discovered with film or with a digital camera? I have four Nikkors in this range - 20cm f/4, 200/4 Q, 200/4 QC and 200/4 AI. The oldest lens does not have very close focusing and you have to be careful in flare situations with it. The Q has closer focusing and better coating. The QC has very good coating. The AI is more compact and has slightly better coating than the QC. The QC is my favorite. It's sharp, has nice balance and has a factory AI conversion ring. I found it right after I had John White convert my Q lens. Apart from the speed, how do the QC and AI 200/4 Nikkors compare to the various manual focus 180/2.8 Nikkors? Nikon didn't make any 200mm manual focus lenses in between the f/4 and the f/2. How do the two versions of Canon's 200/2.8 New FD compare to the manual focus 180/2.8 Nikkors? I read that the pre-ED 180/2.8 Nikkor also had an ED element but that Nikon didn't mark it that way. Is that true? I have also read that the 180/2.8 IF lenses do not work as well with teleconverters. Is this true? I have two 200/3 Vivitar Series 1 lenses. One is in Konica AR mount and the other in M42 mount. The 200/3 focuses to 4 feet so if I need that feature I can adapt it to a Canon FD/FL camera. Unfortunately I can't adapt either 200/3 to Nikon mount. This is one reason I'm thinking about a manual focus 180/2.8 Nikkor. </p>