roland_vink

A 180/2.8 lens requires an entrance pupil of 64mm at infinity. Fitting this lens into a 67mm filter size allows just 1.5mm for a retaining ring around the front element, with no allowance for an oversize front element to reduce vignetting. By comparison, the Nikkor 180/2.8 has a larger 72mm filter size, and zooms usually require a larger front element than equivalent primes, so the 70-180 is really pushing the limit of what is possible in a barrel of this size. Reviews show this lens has strong vignetting at 180mm, this is not surprising and would account for the impression it is not really 2.8. It might have been better if Nikon/Tamron had made this an f/3.5 zoom instead, or reduced the zoom range to 70-170mm, but maybe that wouldn't be as popular.

The F-mount 105 VR focuses to 314mm at 1:1 magnification. The lens itself is 116mm (measured from lens mount), and the flange distance is 46.5mm, leaving 151.5mm free working distance between the front of the lens barrel and the focus plane. The Z 105 MC focuses to 290mm at 1:1. The lens is longer than the 105 VR at 140mm and the Z-mount flange distance is 16mm, leaving 134mm between the lens and focus plane, so the free working distance is 17.5mm shorter. A longer working distance is useful for insects and other small animals which would be scared away by a big lens getting too close. For plants and other small objects, the free working distance is less important as long as there is sufficient working distance to allow adequate lighting on the subject - if the working distance is too short the lens may cast a shadow over the subject. There is also the risk of bumping the subject when setting up the camera. As long as the working distance is adequate, I often find the total focus distance is more important. A longer focus distance makes it easier to set up the camera (and tripod) in a convenient spot, especially if the subject is in a hard to reach position. If the focus distance is short it may not be possible to set up a tripod close enough, for example, if the subject is very low down or high up a bank or tree. There is also less chance of disturbing the subject, for example, a dew-covered flower in a bush, but in the process of setting up the tripod you have to push against nearer branches which cause the flower to shake - the dew drops fall off or the flower is shaking, and by the time it stops moving a breeze has picked up so it is impossible to get the shot! If the lens had a longer focus distance you could have set the tripod further away without touching the bush and taken the picture. This is a long way from the original topic of this thread! 😀

My focal length estimates at 1:1 are just that: estimates. I am assuming the lenses behave like a perfect "thin lens" where the focus distance at 1:1 is 4x the focal length. For example, the 105 MC has a focus distance of 0.29m at 1:1, a thin lens with the same parameters would have a focal length of 72.5mm. Modern macro lenses have complex optics which may mean the focus distance is shorter or greater than an equivalent thin lens. I remember seeing an animation showing how the focal length of the AFS 105 micro changes with focal distance. At far distances the focal length hardly changes before rapidly shrinking at close range. At close range this makes framing difficult since small adjustments to the focus distance have a large effect on the framing and magnification (focus breathing). I suspect the 105 MC has more even reduction in focal length through the entire focus range, which would reduce the amount of focus breathing. This could explain the perceived difference in field of view compared to earlier models. The AFD 200 micro was always a very expensive lens which made it unaffordable for many photographers and resulted in relatively low sales. Sigma and Tamron had macro lenses with long focal length of 150mm and 180mm, which shows there is a market for this type of lens. I think an updated lens from Nikon, with improved focus system and VR could be popular. Ideally it would be a 100-200 f/4 zoom or similar, with decent tripod mount. It should come with a dedicated closeup lens for magnifications beyond 1:1 (or even a built-in close up lens that can be switched in like the big TC telephotos). An efficient focus limiter would ensure the focus speed is adequate.

A 300mm macro lens would not focus by extension, it would have internal focus like most 180mm and 200mm macro lenses with significant loss of focal length at close range. The Nikon AF 200/4 micro focuses down to 0.5m for 1:1 magnification where the focal length is near 135mm. If we scale that up to 300mm we can expect a close focus distance of about 0.75m with a focal length reduced to 200mm or so. Note that almost all 100/105mm macro lenses also have significant reduction in focal length at close range. The F mount 105mm micro lenses focus to 0.312m with a focal length around 80mm. The Z 105 MC has a shorter focus distance of 0.29m at 1:1, which suggests a focal length less than 75mm. The new Panasonic Lumix 100mm macro has very short minimum focus distance of just 204mm - less than the AFD 60/2.8 micro - suggesting a focal length near 50mm at 1:1. My old AIS 105/4 is an exception, it focuses purely by extension, extending 52.5mm by itself, and requiring the PN-11 extension tube to give the full 105mm extension for 1:1 magnification. The focus distance is 0.42mm, not far short of the 0.5m from the 200mm micro. All this is to say that 200mm or 300mm macro lenses would have a much longer working distance than a 100mm macro lens, even with focal length shortening at close range. Among the long prime lenses, the 300/4 lenses tend to allow relatively high magnifications - the AFS 300/4 gets to 1:3.7, while the 300/4 PF gets to 1:4.1. Adding a closeup diopter to the front will give even higher magnifications, with the loss of some working distance.

It would be unusual for Nikon to discontinue a lens so soon after it was introduced. But it is also strange that Nikon used the older optical design for their lens and then to allow Tamron to introduce the new version in direct competition with their Nikon branded model.

Also, the AI-S 55/2.8 micro and 105/2.8 micro. The latter works quite well as a portrait lens so Nikon probably felt there was no need to keep the 105/2.5 going also.

My AI-S 35/1.4 shows no sight of the white speckles internally. The focus action is a little dry and on the firm side even though the lens is relatively new, it does not have the buttery smoothness of most other AI and AI-S lenses. Only the Nikkor-N and Nikkor-N.C versions have the thorium glass.: "changes were also made to the optical system at the time when the lens barrel design was changed to the NEW-Nikkor. Though the basic lens construction remained unchanged, the glass material and the lens curvature were changed by Teruyoshi TSUNASHIMA, to improve the performance at open aperture" (https://imaging.nikon.com/imaging/information/story/0027/) Regarding the Nikkor-N version of this lens, it was the first Nikkor to be multicoated on all lens surfaces, even though it does not have the ".C" designation. Nikon didn't add this to indicate multicoating until a little later. The early Nikkor-N 28/2 lenses are the same.

I remember when this lens first came out, a lot of reviewers praised the Sigma for its sharpness. However, of the sample images that I saw (which I admit is not many), the background bokeh was terrible with double-line blurs - if there were fine branches or grass in the background it rendered like a mass of crawling worms instead of a smooth blur. The AF-S 35/1.4 Nikkor renders backgrounds much more smoothly, so while it is not as sharp it seems to produce more pleasing images. Sharpness is not everything, although it is one of the easiest things to measure and quantify, and gets talked about a lot in reviews. Nikon often emphasizes other more subjective qualities in their lenses, so they don't always measure so well on test charts, but they produce very good images in real world situation. The AF-S 35/1.5 and AF-S 58/1.4 are good examples of this.

I just realized a 600mm lens with f/6.3 aperture requires an entrance pupil (at infinity) of 600/6.3 = 95.2mm - that is larger than the filter size! Judging from the photos of the 600 PF and 180-600, there is a retaining ring around the front element inside the filter threads, so the overall diameter can't be more than about 91-92mm. I think they cheated a bit on the focal length or aperture - either the focal length is either closer to 580mm, or the max aperture is closer to f/6.5, or some combination of both 🙄

f4.5 is 1/3 stop slower than f/4. I guess this became a popular aperture because it looks "round" and not too slow. f/5 is 2/3 stop slower than f/4. I remember Olympus made a 200/5 lens, there might be others but it is not a common speed for lenses. The true halfway point between F/4 and F/5.6 is F/4.8 (or more accurately, f/4.76). Note that f/5.6 should really be f/5.66, which if rounded correctly would be f/5.7, but f/5.6 looks nicer ... rounder 🙂

The 500 PF has closer focus relative to the focal length compared to the other compact Z telephotos, giving higher magnification at the close limit. This should be useful for photographing small creatures. I also like that the max aperture is a "whole stop" value (and adding a 1.4x TC will give a very nice 700/8). I know it shouldn't really make a difference but I like "round" numbers 🙂. Lastly, the 500PF is compatible with F mount and Z mount via the FTZ adaptor, so overall is a more versatile lens. If I were to buy telephoto, this would be my first choice.

I haven't had any new serial numbers for these lenses recently, so my figures are likely to be out of date. That means they probably made more than my site indicates. I have seen nothing (so far) to indicate there are big gaps in the serial numbers.

The Z9 and Z8 cameras are 45MP, so the need for even higher resolution images is comparatively less than a 24MP camera like the Zf. So it looks like Nikon decided to introduce this technology into a camera which would benefit most from it. If the need for pixel shift is to reduce noise, then instead of taking 4 images and combining them, why not just take one image with 4x longer shutter speed (and two stops lower ISO), wouldn't this give you a similar reduction in noise? If you are already shooting at or near base ISO, the noise will be very low already, so the only purpose for pixel shift is for higher resolution. But if high resolution is what you need, you would probably be using the Z7, Z8, Z9 or medium format instead of a 24MP camera...

At this stage it is not known if the new version is optically superior for general shooting. The built-in VR might offer a little more stability, but the camera IBIS appears to be pretty effective for this focal length. Also, VR does not mean the lens is sharper (provided shutter speed is fast enough), so it is yet to be seen whether the new lens is substantially better. As for the close focus distance, Tamron states "shortened the MOD (Minimum Object Distance) at the wide end to 0.3m compared to the first-generation 0.85m". That seems to be a mistake because the this is almost identical to the first version, which focuses to 0.27m at 70mm and 0.85m at 180mm. Some reviews suggest the closeup performance at 70mm is not great. Tamron hasn't provided any details about the optical schema; it may not be a complete optical redesign, but rather adding VR and new AF motors to the existing design. Nikon did a similar thing with their AF-S 300/2.8 - the optics of the non-VR and VR versions are very similar, almost as if the lens was optically designed for VR from the start but it took a few more years for Nikon to perfect the VR unit and bring it to market.

Tamron just announced a new version of their 70-180/2.8 zoom for Sony E-mount. The new lens features a new optical design with VR and a shorter focus distance. The Nikon 70-180 now becomes the second lens, after the 28-75/2.8, based on an "older" Tamron design.

There are only two unannounced lenses left on the roadmap - a 35mm and 135mm lens, most likely 35/1.2 and 135/1.8. That might be everything announced for the rest of the year, unless Nikon surprises us with something new. The lineup is missing some specialist lenses - fisheye, tilt/shift, wider primes, and also missing an affordable xx-300mm zoom (although the 70-180 goes some way to filling that gap) The roadmap was useful in the beginning when the lens lineup was small. It gave photographers confidence that Nikon was going to add more lenses and fill out their lineup. Now Nikon has a reasonably complete set of Z lenses, they may abandon the roadmap and release lenses at a slower rate.

I would be very surprised if the 70-180 is not a Nikon version of the Tamron lens. On the roadmap it is shown on the same line as the NIkon/Tamron 17-28 and 28-75 lenses which suggests the same connection. If Nikon did resurrect their old 70-180 macro, I am sure it would have a new optical design which takes advantage of the new Z-mount, it would be an S-line lens, and it would be listed in the macro section and not with the zooms.

More likely molded glass, especially for the rear element. Plastic would be too soft and easily damaged for an exposed lens like this. Nikon used to make lenses with aspheric plastic molded onto a regular glass element, many of the early AF aspheric lenses like AF 28-70/3.5-4.5 used this type of glass. However, radically aspheric surfaces are not possible with this technique. The middle aspheric element of the 24/1.7 thin and has a complex shape, so I would say it is glass also. I think the cost of glass molded lenses has come down and more complex shapes are possible, so I don't think Nikon uses the hybrid plastic/glass aspheric lenses any more (but this is just a guess). It's a shame Nikon didn't stick with 52mm as their standard small filter size, but it looks like they wanted this lens to be as compact as possible. The f/1.7 aperture is unusual - half a stop faster than f/2. As far as I know this is the only Nikkor with this speed. Many other Nikon lenses use f/1.8 - 1/3 stop faster than f/2.

If the Sigma 150-600 is too big, then other zooms with similar zoom range like the Tamron 150-600 and Nikon 200-500 are also likely to be too big. More compact lenses beyond 300mm are the AF-S 80-400. Another option is the AF-S 300/4 with or without a teleconverter. If 300mm is enough, the AF-P 70-300/4.5-5.6 is your best bet - much more compact and affordable than the other options.

Take a look at these articles on lens repair: https://richardhaw.com/2016/02/15/repair-nikkor-50mm-f1-8-ai-s/ Nikon AI-S 50/1.8 (Japanese pancake version) https://richardhaw.com/2018/12/04/repair-nikon-50mm-f-1-8-series-e/ Nikon Series-E 50/1.8 (new version) The lens you have is the AI-S pancake version for international markets. It is optically identical to the two models above and the mechanics probably share a lot of commonality with these lenses. Good luck with your efforts!

Diamond have high dispersion so would give very strong chromatic aberrations - the opposite of ED glass - it's what gives diamond jewelry their fire.

The 100/2.8E is a very good little lens. It's the smallest F-mount telephoto lens that Nikon made - even smaller than the AI 85/2, and it is very light weight. But it is not equal to the AI 105/2.5. The 105/2.5 lenses made since 1971 hass a Xenotar type optical design while the 100E uses an Ernostar structure. Both types perform very well at far distances but the more symmetrical Xenotar offers significant improvements at close range. The 105/2.5 lenses since 1973 are multicoated on all surfaces, the 100E has simpler coatings and may just have single-layer coatings (they look very similar to the Nikkor-Q 135/3.5 from the 1960s). When shooting into strong light, the 105/2.5 has better contrast and colors, and is more resistant to flare. The 105/2.5 is 1/3 stop faster than the 100E, it's not much faster but in some situations it could be the difference between getting the shot. The 105/2.5 has smoother background rendition than the 100E. That is also aided by the slightly curved aperture blades of this lens up to the AI version which gives our of focus blurs a nicely rounded appearance. Strangely, the AI-S version got straight aperture blades like the 100E but even here the AI-S lens has slightly nicer bokeh. Also, the faster aperture combined with the slightly longer focal length gives the 105/2.5 a larger entrance pupil of 42mm, compared to about 35mm for the 100E. That gives the 105/2.5 greater ability to blur the background and to highlight subjects with selective focus. The 105/2.5 is built to professional standards while the 100E has more of a consumer build. None of this is to say the 100E is a bad lens. It's a very good lens built with different objectives in mind. Where a compact and lightweight lens is needed for travel or hiking, the 100E is an excellent lens. But optically the AI 105/2.5 is superior.

Nikon have made one lens similar to the one you suggest, the super-telephoto AI-P 1200-1700/5.6-8. An interesting features of this lens is that it maintains a constant entrance pupil through the zoom range (1200mm/5.6 = 1700mm/8 = 213mm). Instead of regarding it as a zoom, it could be considered to be a 1200/5.6 prime with a built-in variable 1.0 ~ 1.4x TC. After all, putting a 1.4x TC on a 1200mm/5.6 lens yields a 1700mm/8 lens. I have sometimes wondered why this concept hasn't been introduced to more super telephotos. Each "zoom-TC" would be properly optimized for the master lens. Even with with a small 1.4x zoom ratio, it would offer greater flexibility than the drop-in TC approach, allowing the photographer to frame a scene more precisely. They could, for example, zoom to 1.2x instead of being restricted to 1.0x or 1.4x. I imagine it could be simpler mechanically, it is surely easier to keep elements aligned in a zoom-type design than having a set of elements which drop in from the side - it must require a very high level of precision to keep the drop-in TC perfectly columnated when in place. Also, the designer wouldn't have to leave a space in the master lens for optical design for the TC to fit in, the zoom-TC would be more integrated into the optical design as a whole. But, I would expect the lens designers at Nikon do know more about this than me 🙂

I don't think I have ever taken a macro shot with the sun in the frame. But it is theoretically possible, for example, a closeup of the underside of a flower silhouetted against the sky. However, I use my 55 micro for more than just macro. The aperture is fast enough (just) that I use it as a general purpose standard lens which happens to focus very close. It's light, compact, and affordable with good optical qualities. I don't often use it as a dedicated macro lens because the working distance is so short, I use my 105mm micros for that. As a general purpose lens there have been many occasions when I do shoot into the sun, and the AIS 55 micro flares badly, even the ones with SIC coatings. The 65mm Apo-Lanthar has 60mm extra working distance which makes it much more practical as a macro lens. Plus the extra stop is useful for low light and shallow DoF effects, which widens its shooting envelope considerably. I'm sure it is better color-corrected and sharper at wider apertures, and review suggest it handles flare reasonably well and has relatively good bokeh. It would be an excellent general purpose long-standard/short portrait lens which can double as a macro lens. Compared to the AIS 55 micro the only downsides are it is much bigger, heavier more expensive.

The venerable 55/2.8 micro is a fine lens although it is not without flaws - the background bokeh can be harsh and it flares wen shooting into the sun. The 65mm Apo-Lanthar appears to be an improvement in both areas (based on reviews I have read - I have not used this lens). At 1:2, the Apo-Lanthar has 6cm more working distance than the 55mm micro (0.31m vs 0.25m). The increased working distance would be very useful, sometimes the working distance of the 55 micro is too short for shy and hard-to-reach subjects. It's not often I would use f/2 for macro images although sometimes it's useful for creative effects. The faster aperture aperture does make the Apo-Lanthar more versatile as a general purpose lens. I like "long standard" and"short portrait" focal lengths for general photography, portraiture, landscapes etc, most manufacturers skip from 50mm to 85mm but I find 60-75mm lenses very useful. And finally, being a highly corrected lens, it should be sharper at wide apertures and more color-corrected than the 55mm micro. But of course, if you can work comfortably within the shooting envelope of the 55 micro, then there is no reason upgrade. The cover glass thickness over the sensor is different between Sony and Nikon Z cameras. That would account for differences in the MTF. Even if Cosina has tweaked the optics to optimize for the Nikon Z, I would still expect there to be some difference.