50mm f1.8 old? new?

[leon paul]

can anyone advise me on the merits of the different types of 50mm

f1.8 lens? I see a lot of people like the long body older type, why

is this diffrent to the newer plastic focusing ring type? I thought

all the optics were the same.I have an older type(long body,metal)

but it has never been brilliant even after many tests with slide

etc.and tripod,but i,m just about to purchase a newer version(plastic

focus ring)Maybe my old one was a bit "duff"!

[terry_rory]

I have just bought a 50mm f1.8 AF-D, (mint, boxed) for £60 UK. They are £115 new (full RRP).

 

Unfortunately I have not had any chance to use it yet but the reviews are all positive and for £60 (probably more likely to be $60 in the US for a mint one) I am unlikely to lose out on the deal. If it is a waste of space I simply sell it again for £60 and get a good used older version even cheaper.

 

Virtually all the feedback I have read says it is incredibly good value for money with excellent colour rendition and very sharp, sharper than the much more expensive f1.4 version. It is small and light and plasticky and made in China but it is the results that will count, not where it is made or its tactile qualities. I have a Contax Carl Zeiss Planar f1.4 AE on an old Contax 139Q if I want something better. The 50mm f1.8 AF-D is simply a cheap, convenient, good (hopefully) lens the pop on the F80 when I want to travel light with a compact lens.

 

At least all the f1.8 lenses are cheap enough to experiment with before finding the one you are happiest with.

 

Good luck.

[martin_hupfer]

it's realy a great lense, not bad at all conditions, only at f1,8 a littel "unscharp" and dimm at the endesides of the image

[leon paul]

I think your right Trevor,there not a lot of money,especially used.I am paying £45 for a mint 50mm f1.8 ais and i think there only about £100 brand new.Cant go wrong really.Was just concerned about build quality but i suppose if the optics are good then thats that!

[diby_bhat]

The only functional difference( unless you meean the AI version) between the old AF 50 mm 1.8 and the new lense is that the new one has 'D' type feature which will be a great use for flash photography.Both should optically perform the same according to lot of opinions posted here. It is possible that the old lense you have is not a good sample. I personally never used the old one but own the new one. Yes it is true that it is plastic made, and actually manufactured in China. But it produce very sharp images. Many people think that it is even sharper than its f1.4D counterpart which is 3 times expensive and made in Japan. And just to mention, no lense produce the best capable image while you keep it wide open. You always have to stop down a bit to get the best out of it.

[frederick_lau1]

Leon,

 

Roland Vink's website (http://home.aut.ac.nz/staff/rvink/nikon3.html) listed 9 different versions of this lens (including 2 series E).The first verison of Nikkor 50 f/1.8 was Nikon's improvement on their famous 50 f/2.

 

Nikon's official web magazine artile series 1001 Nights (tales about milestone or legendary Nikkors) Tale 2 (http://www.nikon.co.jp/main/eng/society/nikkor/n02_e.htm)

told the story. The authors of this series are retired designers of Nikon lenses. So they are more trustworthy than many Nikkor "authorities".

 

This is from the article :

"The spherical aberration (of 50 f/2) is somewhat large when compared with a shorter lens barrel design model called "AI Nikkor 50mm F1.8S"(1980~) in Japan, which was a further improvement on the AI Nikkor 50mm f/1.8(1978~) and therefore the contrast (of 50 f/2) is somewhat reduced at full aperture."

 

This hinted that the 50/1.8S is the best MF version.

 

The "AI Nikkor 50mm F1.8S" (named 50/1.8S in Roland Vink's site) looks similar to the numerous 'pancake' (named 50/1.8N in Roland Vink's site) with these differences :

The 50/1.8S was sold in Japan ONLY for a very short period of time. It has Nikkor's traditional RUBBER focussing ring (not plastic, as in 50/1.8N). Also the minimum focus is 0.45m, not 0.6m (where all other 'pancake' versions have).

 

I have only seen this lens twice.

 

Japan's Nikomat Club author has done test on 3 versions of this lens (http://nikomat.homeip.net/lens/5018/index.html) and the 50/1.8S sample came out the best of the 3, in terms of flare & ghost control and mechanical construction.

 

I have used the MF long barrel version for years and I do not have any issues with its quality.

 

Personally, I found Nikkor 50 f/1.8 to be an excellent lens. Of course there are areas that you can say it can be better. But I think you do not find many lenses that can out-perfrom it in many (or even all) aspects.

 

When you say "it has never been brilliant". There are a lot of parameters/variables involved in the testing procedure -- and abvoe all, your subjective expectation, given that you believe this is a brilliant lens.

 

Having said that, I do admit that there may be variance in samples.

[mskovacs]

Can somebody comment on the eveness of illumination with the pancake models? I've heard they have a bright spot. A posted example would be very illustrative.

[david_h._hartman]

<em>"Can somebody comment on the eveness of illumination

with the pancake models? I've heard they have a bright spot."

--Mike Kovacs<br>

</em><br>

If the optical formula, coating and internal flare control are

the same as the AF 50/1.8 it could be a large, faint, ghost

pattern rather than unevenness of illumination. It seems to me

that the optical design of the pancake 50/1.8(s) are too similar

to the 50/1.8 AI and AIS (early) to have markedly different

evenness of illumination characteristics. This is just a good

guess as Ive never owned one of the pancake 50/1.8(s).

[leon paul]

Thanks to everyone for their good advise.I will wait and see what this newish 50 performs like.I,m really judging it on past photos taken with a variety of lens, canon 50mm,olympus 50mm etc,but it does not compare.I am thinking of investing in a 45 f2.8 P they,v come down quite a bit.Anyone have ideas on this lens? the reveiws look good

[brian_caldwell]

"Can somebody comment on the eveness of illumination with the pancake models? I've heard they have a bright spot. A posted example would be very illustrative."

 

I originally bought a "pancake" 50/1.8 AIS (the plastic one that focuses to 0.6meters) for doing stitched mosaics. However, I discovered a faint central bright spot that matched the shape of the iris diaphragm when shooting at small apertures. This bright spot occured even in test shots of plain white walls with no bright light sources anywhere near the frame.

 

I had an online discussion with Bjorn Rorslett about this, who did *not* have this problem with his 50/1.8, which happened to be the older long-barrel AIS version that focused down to 0.45meters. I later purchased one of the older models, and sure enough it was free of the central ghost problem. The optics of these two lenses are clearly different, and I will never use the newer versions of the 50/1.8 except for oddball things like reverse-coupled macro work.

 

Here's a sample comparison test image:

 

http://caldwellphotographic.com/50oldnew.jpg

 

I believe the problem with the newer lenses is that a pair of reflections at the rearmost element forms an image of the aperture stop at the image plane. This means that light from a broad portion of the center of the frame will contribute to the bright spot. The problem will get worse if you shoot IR, where the coating efficiency decreases. Here's a lens layout showing the stop-imaging behavior that I'm talking about:

 

http://caldwellphotographic.com/50spottrace.jpg

[leon paul]

Just had results back from quality processors on my older 50mm lens and they appear much sharper/better thann before.Maybe after all this time my high street developers were,nt up to scratch?

Also Is it really true that Nikon produced their 50mm f1.8(new version) with a bright spot?? i would have thought nikon designers and the latest computers would have spotted this(no pun intended).

[ilkka_nissila]

These people aren't talking about AF lenses.

[leon paul]

neither am i

[ilkka_nissila]

Leon, the current manual focus 50/1.8 was designed before computers came into the picture of lens design.

[leon paul]

Trouble is,now i,v got 2 x 50mm 1.8 lenses.one old one newish.only need one so not sure which one to keep? old one a bit dusty between lenses but results look good but its a bit worn.focusing on the newer one(N) model smoother.

[brian_caldwell]

Ilkka Nissila , mar 25, 2004; 01:17 p.m.

These people aren't talking about AF lenses.

 

Ilkka Nissila , mar 26, 2004; 02:05 p.m.

Leon, the current manual focus 50/1.8 was designed before computers came into the picture of lens design.

 

Ilkka:

I believe that the current 50/1.8 AF design is probably identical to the plastic-barreled manual version. It does suffer from the central hotspot, and so in this respect is inferior to the much earlier AI/AIS design.

 

Rest assured that *all* of these lenses were computer optimized. Computer optimization of lens designs has been the norm since the early 1960's, and all of the designs being discussed in this thread date from the late 1970's to the 1980's.

[ilkka_nissila]

Brian, the AF 50/1.8 focuses down to 0.45 m so I don't see how it could be identical to the current manual focus version. Does the hot spot show up when using film?

[leon paul]

Thanks Brian,you,ve cleared up a confusing subject!Maybe i,ll look at the 45mm P f2.8