Old school Nikkors

[belgiumreporter]

Over the years i've gathered a lot of lenses. Now spring is in the air and the weather's inproving i thought i'd make a selection of some "old school" manual Nikkor primes. I would like to try them out on the F3 and see how i would perform using them, after getting used (spoiled?)for so long using AF lenses.

Can't put a time frame on this project but i'm gonna try to get it started this week. i'll be using the 20mm3.5, 24mm2.8,28mm"PC" 3.5,35mm2,55mm1.1,2,85mm1.1,8,105mm2.5,135mm2,200mm4,300mm4.5ED and 500mm8 cat. One of the problems will be to find the right subjects for the intended use of these lenses.
Here's the hardware:

[belgiumreporter]

OK i've put an 1990 Agfa pan 100 professional in the F3.

After i finished shooting it was developed in a stand developement rodinal 1+100! for one hour (the rodinal is 30years over time as well).

This gave me a worst case scenario but still i was able to save some shots.

Here's the first one : Nikon F3 nikkor 20mm f3.5 about 1/250th.

The 20mm has allways been one of my favourites very sharp corner to corner, contrasty and very little distortion.

It can be used for a number of subjects from reporting to architecture and landscapes.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor 85 f1.8 : Covid19 statue. The 85mm is good for isolating the subject as it has a more "narrow" field of view than a standard 50.

The shallow dept of field wide open, helps to get the subject "loose" from the background.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor f2.5 105mm. Bronze portrait. The 105mm was constructed to give the most natural perspective for a "head shot"

One of the most famous photographs made with this lens is Steve Mc Curry's "Afghan girl with green eyes"

[belgiumreporter]

PC Nikkor 28mm 3.5 The old brewery. The 28mm was shifted to correct the vertical parallel lines. These days this is mostly done in photoshop but that way a lot of pixels are lost.

This is why these (tilt) shift lenses are still popular.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor 300mm IF ED f4. Pigeon. The IF ED 300mm was the last (and best) in the long line of manual focus 300mm's.

Not an easy lens to work with, a lot of light is needed when hand holding it to prevent camera shake. Tack sharp if all the odds are in favour.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor 55mm f1.2. Gretsch Electromatic. The 55mm 1.2 isn't the sharpest lens wide open, but it's very usefull in low light. The 55mm gives a very natural perspective and allowes for some of the background in the frame. At f1.2 the background just "melts" away.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor 200mm f4. Return from school and inverted tulips. The 200mm gives that extra reach over the more common 135mm.Still in everyday use the 200mm can be just a little to much so it isn't an allrounder.

The 200mm still is optically top quality and can hold it's own against any "modern" 200mm. One of the cheapest top quality lenses on the second hand market albeit one of limited use.

[belgiumreporter]

Nikkor 500mm f8 mirror. Cat tails. The 500mm "cat" is despite it's focal lenght very portable. The "donuts" in the unsharp highlights gives it a very specific look, some love it others not so much.

[belgiumreporter]

The Agfapan experiment so far has been some kind of a disaster, when evaluting the negatives, the combination of the 30year over time film and the 1+100 stand developement rated the film down to about 25 ISO.

I've still got one roll pro 100 left and gonna try it rated at 25 ISO and see what comes out of the camera. I still need to use the 24-35and 135 lenses so maybe this test could be turned in to something usefull.

Here's a comparison, left the "film" version and right the same shot same lens same aperure and shutter but digital on a D3 body at 200ASA.


should you think it isn't so bad, look at these 100% cut outs. I don't see why anyone would want to repeat this experiment, unless maybe you're one of those "yes, but this is art!" types.


Next i'm gonna try to inprove on that film image as i know it can be a whole lot better...

[belgiumreporter]

Here's the film/ developer combination i've used, the test with the rest of the "old" nikkors will go on, this time i'll be using the adviced dilution for the Rodinal and make some test shots at 25 and 50 ISO.

[belgiumreporter]

To make a long story short, i've put the shots i've made with the 24mmf2.8, 35mmf2,135mmf2 in this one batch, additional a few i did with the 25-50f4 and 28-85 f3.5-4.5 zoom.

The Agfapan this time was rated at 25ASA and developed for 5minutes in Rodinal 1:25. The old Agfapan is in bad shape,completely veiled due to 30 years of bad stockage. Next step is to run some "younger" ilford pan F through either a Contax or Canon and see what happens...





Here's a few candidates to have film run through them in the near future : Any favourites?

[julio1fer]

Here's a few candidates to have film run through them in the near future : Any favourites?

The one you like best, that is an impressive line-up. I would use that Canon!

[belgiumreporter]

May 15, 2021 19:47:06 GMT -5 julio1fer said:

The one you like best, that is an impressive line-up. I would use that Canon! 

I was thinking the same, so the Canon it is! the medium formats wiil have to wait their turn   PS. i'll publish the results in a new topic as the Canon can't be counted as an old Nikkor ! 

[maisie]

All photos are beautiful. Thank you for this thread.