chulster

Inspired by your post, I did some tests to see how consistently I could focus with no aid. Focusing thus on a static subject without hurry isn't a challenge, since you can iterate over several exposures. I decided to try focusing ten times on the same subject in rapid succession, thoroughly defocusing between shots, with no interstitial chimping, and allowing only a few seconds per shot. To eliminate any help from the focus confirmation LEDs, I moved the focus point well to the side and moved my eye down so that I couldn't see the LEDs. I had the camera on a tripod to eliminate body movement as a variable. I did a couple of runs, which averaged out to about 45 seconds per 10-shot run. With a 105mm f/2.5 wide open on my D810 at a subject distance of about five feet, I found that my focus from shot-to-shot varied by as much as a few millimeters. Accuracy was tolerable in every shot, but I only nailed it in about half of them. By the way, I find the D300 easier to focus without aid than the D810 because its focusing screen tends to sparkle when the focus is spot-on, if there is sufficient detail in the subject. I guess you could call it a kind of focus peaking! But the usefulness of this phenomenon will depend on how well the focusing screen is calibrated. Mine is calibrated very well, but I had to remove one of the spacers to get it that way.

I kinda wish I had bid on the lens. But I lack the skill to clean a major fungus infestation in an AF zoom. I suspect if I had sent the lens away to be cleaned, it might have gotten "lost" when the repairman realized what he had.

Oh wow. Lucky buyer!

I maintain that AFFT has no effect with unchipped MF lenses. I have proven this to myself with a simple experiment: Put the camera on a tripod and point it at a good, immobile AF target. Adjust the focus ring so that the center dot is blinking alternately with the right-side triangle, indicating slight back-focus. (Try to get the dot and the triangle blinking with some consistency.) Now set Default AFFT to -20. (As you know, negative values are used to correct back-focus.) Look through the viewfinder again. Has the blinking rate changed between the center dot and the right-side triangle? In my test, the blinking rate did not change, indicating to me that the AFFT setting had no effect.

I think it must be a film back, using the rear LCD to expose the film! But why only for the D780?

Interesting; I didn't know that. By contrast, some Nikon digital cameras will disable their meters when a chipless lens is mounted—which, it should go without saying, also disables any form of autoexposure. But even the ones that have pretty good support for chipless lenses will not allow the use of AF Fine Tuning with them.

I'm puzzled by this. Are all of your manual-focus lenses chipped? In my experience, unchipped lenses are not affected by AFFT. Even the "Default" AFFT setting has no effect on my unchipped MF lenses. On the other hand, with my chipped MF lens, I can use a "Saved value" AFFT setting just as with an AF lens.

I received my D300 today. It's got a mere 1,856 actuations! The camera was very dusty out of the box, but cleaned up nicely. The dynamic range is pretty crap compared to the D810, but that's my only complaint so far. The resolution is fine for most of what I do. I like the dedicated dial for metering mode. I do wish I could toggle Auto ISO without diving into the menus. And I have to get used to using the lever to unlatch the memory card door. One undeniable benefit of the low-resolution sensor is that shutter shock is a non-issue. No using MUp and EFCS with this little guy—which is good, because what EFCS? I was pleasantly surprised to find that the D300 worked just fine with my one lens that has electronic aperture control. So the only incompatibility is with AF-P focusing. I can live with that!

Speaking of older DSLRs... Just yesterday i made an impulse purchase of a D300—my first DX camera. It was cheap and i've long wanted a smaller, lighter body to spell my D810 from time to time. It will be a few days before i receive it. A few hours after clicking Buy, i was already semi-regretting it, having realized that the D300 cannot focus my one DX lens, the AF-P 18-55mm (which i have for use as a video lens on my D810). Oh well—most of my other lenses are manual-focus, so no big deal. Now, I know the D300's 12-MP sensor is a step down from the D810 sensor—even on a pixels-per-millimeter basis. And that the base ISO is a disappointing 200 vs the 64 i'm used to. There are also several features of the D810 that the D300 lacks entirely, such as EFCS and highlight-weighted metering. Yes, video too...but i don't care about that. What other things will i miss from the D810 in the D300? Are there disappointments waiting for me that can't be gleaned from reading spec sheets?

Non sequitur, but is anybody in this forum not a retired rich white person? (I assume ShunCheung is two of those things. I am none of them.)

Ben, I have no doubt whatsoever that the 24-70mm (either version, or indeed any current version from any maker) delivers a more balanced and technically better image at 28mm f/2 than the 28/2 prime. It would be fun to see comparison photos all the same! I'm also sure you're right about the 24-70mm being better than the 24/2.8. I just have never wanted to spend so much on a single lens, and the weight and size give me pause too. I think if I were a serious photographer, I would indeed buy a 24-70mm and then stop thinking about lenses. But I have to admit I'm less a photographer than someone who just enjoys using old lenses, particularly the good ones. I love being surprised when an old, cheap lens delivers surprisingly good image quality. I'm going to try and snag a 25-50mm f/4. Every opinion I've read on it has been fairly glowing.

@orsetto Thanks for the testing and detailed write-up! Ah...so my copy of the 28/2 was not that unusual! That amount of field curvature was more than I could tolerate...but it makes a lot of sense that the lens would have behaved differently on film. I think this assessment of the N.C 24/2.8 (which agrees with what a couple of other thread participants wrote) is spot on. I'm glad I didn't rashly return this lens (as I did the 28/2). I no longer think I need an alternative.

Says "Sold Out "— did OP buy the last one? If not, i have a makeshift tripod collar for that lens that i'd be happy to send to [uSER=1011186]@mark4583|1[/uSER]. It's not great but it's better than nothing.

My current 50mm f/1.4 lens is the Nikkor S.C from circa 1974. I assumed it had the same optical formula as the AF (D) 50/1.4, but according to the internet this is incorrect. This make sense to me, because I like the images from the S.C better than those I used to get from the AF lens. Here's an example of the gentle bokeh of the S.C at f/2. (Unfortunately it is the nose of the subject that is in sharpest focus, not the eyes; but oh well.) Here's another one just for fun. This was taken at f/2.8 with about 50mm of extension added. It could have been sharper if it were not handheld.

You mean 50mm. In the AF (D) variety of these lenses, i found that, regardless of any optical advantages of either lens, the f/1.8 was more reliable or easier to use. This is because the f/1.4 has significant focus shift. Without AF fine tuning, my f/1.4 lens focused accurately at f/2.8, but front-focused wide open. If i tuned focus for accuracy at f/1.4, it would then back-focus at f/2.8. However, i don't know if the focus error is large enough to matter on film. In their manual-focus variants, i find the f/1.4 to be a superior lens because it is sharper than the f/1.8 lens and has nicer (indeed, very nice) bokeh. When focusing manually, i can adjust focus on the fly to be accurate at any aperture.

It's a terrible, terrible addiction, for which the only cures are bankruptcy and death.

Excellent movie.

Alas, I have cold feet. It's a very good price, but still twice as much as a used Samyang 85mm with comparable image quality. The Nikkor has autofocus, of course, but I don't much care about AF. The deal is open to anyone; here's the link: FS: Nikon F mount - 85mm f/1.4 AF-D (bargain)

Yes, I must conclude that I was too hard on the lens (which is the same version as yours) in my initial post. Especially after comparing its images to those from my unrepresentative copy of the 28/2. The image degradation of my N.C 24/2.8 toward the edges is genteel by comparison.

Here's a visualization of the field curvature of my 28/2. This is a picture of my bedroom ceiling, taken while standing on my bed. The ceiling has that cottage-cheese texture often used in American apartments. The image was run through the Find Edges filter in Photoshop and then had Auto Contrast applied to make the edges stand out even more. The degree of curvature revealed by this test will depend sensitively on the angle between the lens axis and the ceiling. In the absence of a conventional angle that everyone accepts, the test is rather meaningless. But at least you can get some feel for how much field curvature this particular lens has. This example is pretty stark.

Yes. I can certainly appreciate the "keeping it real" conclusion that we mustn't expect too much of old glass that costs a tenth the price of new lenses. I'm sure that's true. I think, though, that I've been spoiled not so much by new lenses (of which I've had precious few, due to their cost) as by outstanding examples of old ones. I like the 35/2, the 50/2, the 50/1.4... i'm warming up to the 24/2.8 and 85/1.8... and others. None is perfect by any stretch, but — for example, my copy of the 50/2 has outstanding peripheral acuity, as good as that of the 50/1.8G, even if overall sharpness doesn't measure up...and i'm fine with that. I just think this copy of the 28/2 seems leagues "worse" than any other vintage Nikkor I've tried, and I wanted to know if it was normal. Thanks.

Have done. It does, but i didn't keep that shot.

After much deliberation, I decided to keep the Nikkor-N.C 24mm f/2.8 and also buy a 28mm f/2 Ai-S, a lens I had long wanted. Alas, I think I've picked a bad copy of the 28/2. It's disappointingly soft wide open and has much more field curvature than I've seen in any other lens—even an AF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6G that cost me $25. I'm going to return it unless someone can convince me that the lens is performing normally. Here are two pairs of test shots I want to share. I hope you will view them at full size. Although exported at full width from my D810, they are cropped to thin strips to save on file size. The first pair were taken at infinity focus at f/2 and f/4. The f/2 shot is mushy all over the frame, and sharpness declines continuously from the center to the edge. The f/4 shot is much sharper in the center...but if you look at the edges, they're hardly improved over the f/2 shot. f/2 f/4 To prove to myself that the sharpness gradient was due to field curvature and not something more sinister, I took the second pair of photos, below. Both are f/2.8. The first photo in this pair was taken parallel to the bookshelf. Note the blurry edges. The second photo was taken at a rather large angle with respect to the bookshelf, so that the right edge is much closer than the left. Notice how sharpness is much more consistent going from the center to the right edge compared to the straight-on image. What do you think? Is it a bad copy of the 28/2? Or is this how they all are?

I always assumed there was a reason it still commands close to $1,000 on the used market. ;)

Oh, that's pretty. I miss my F3, long since sold off for no good reason. I used the same 50mm f/1.4 lens on it most of the time. I never had the motor drive, though. Have fun!