Your end comments are the sort of real talk I think most people need to hear. And it's honestly the sort of thing I need to hear. I've been going down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to get myself motivated to shoot more again and have started down this vintage in modern road. And I know that when I started out I always shot with what came with the camera I bought. It just so happened my canon ae-1 came with the 35mm f2 concave. But my k1000 came with a 50mm, and my rebel xt came with a kit lens. And at that time I had no interest or ability to think outside of what I had. Now I see myself wringing my hands about what to get or what to use when going out. And I long for the days of less options when I would grab one of my maybe 2 cameras and shoot what I could in blissful ignorance of what it could be. But very aware of what I could get away with.
Thank you! The best thing I can say about lenses is to shoot with a small number of them, most people really only need one to three prime lenses (fewer for people who use zooms) and getting to know a few lenses well and knowing how they perform is manyfold more beneficial for anyone's photography than owning stacks of gear that gets used once every few years.
Good counsel👍🏽 I like my 24 a little better but I’ve used both for years and they’re a bit different. My camera? Nikon F and Nikon D800. I’ve used the standard F cameras since the late 60’s. Many different types of film. A favorite is the now discontinued Agfachrome transparency film. Another is Tri-X. I’ve shot thousands of rolls of Tri-X and understand how it responds. With the Agfachrome, I just like the color saturation best of all color films. It worked great using Cibachrome as a final print medium. Regarding the lenses, I long ago established a blind trust relationship with Nikon glass and I’ve never been disappointed.
I have the 28mm f2.8 which has the reputation of being the best 28mm lens in the Nikon line-up. My experience is that it produces very sharp images at close range due to close-range correction system. For landscapes I think the f3.5 would be a better choice .
Similar to other Nikon wide angles, the optical performance reputation of the 28mm options put the 2.0 as best, the 2.8 less so, and the 3.5 (early versions) at the bottom. However, all three are so good, that few users will notice a difference between them. The 2.0, as the 35mm 1.4 and 105mm 2.5, falls in the "uber" class of Nikkors, and at new retail was priced accordingly. The original 28mm 3.5 from 1960 (the "H") was nothing special. It was revised a time or two without major change, mainly suffering vignetting from its small exit pupil (rear lens element). Around 1972, the 28mm 3.5 got a significant modification in the form of a much larger rear element and multi-coating, which eliminated the vignetting and improved overall performance. I bought mine in Japan in late 1976 and had Nikon convert it to AI in early 1978. I shot landscapes on a tripod with that lens, which enlarged to 16x20 prints were regularly mistaken for medium format work. (Shooting Kodak Tech Pan, another story for another time.)
Just picked a mint copy of this lens for 50 dallors and 30 shipping, I also have a 28 2.8 ais, I love the 28 2.8 but from what I have seen from the 28 3.5 which I bought for infrared performance is an amazing little lens in my eyes. So far as I have only owned this lens for 12 hours , it has a pleasent natural rendering and sharp and soft at the same time it looks glorious so far , it has no coma when shooting stars wide open, as well as beautiful sun stars on Nikon z7ll, on my infrared converted camera it has no hot spots and produces fantastic IR but I need much more testing in this arena. The 28 2.8 on the other hand has beautiful rendering decent sun stars but not as good as the 28 3.5 it has horrible corners for stars though a bit of a stop down and crop fixes it and the 28 2.8 has been disappointing for infrared, and it cost me 3x more just some quick observations and Ihave a good feeling about this little lens from the 70s
I'll add my two cents pertaining to the Nikkor-H Non-AI version that I have. -The aperture ring is unusually thinner compared to most other non-AI lenses, meaning that AFAIK you can mount it on Nikon DSLR cameras with an AI aperture ring and not damage the camera. YMMV! I have modified mine to couple to the feeler as well. -It doesn't read anything on my Geiger counter, however it has a warm/yellowish colorcast and I will at some point bake it under a UV light and see if that goes away. Don't snort the glass powder if you break it just in case! -Nikon tried to keep their standard 52mm filter thread size but that makes the lens barely not cut off the image corners. If you add a medium thickness UV (or other) filter on the front you will probably get black corners (on the very edge though, easily cropable) -Great lens in my experience, can be had pretty cheap on eBay.
@@DavidHancock I totally agree. 28mm f/3.5 AI/AIS version is a very underrated lens. it perform way better than E series version. with very beauitful colour rendering.
f the lens on my enlarger cost $100 new and is say fairly decent but not flawless in quality and all my printing is analogue could you argue that spending twice the money on that CRC 2.8 is pointless from a purely practical point of view?
Most enlarger lenses are pretty good, the exceptions being super budget lenses. For the majority of users, the differences between, for example, a Rodagon, Nikkor, and Schneider will be virtually unnoticeable.
I believe it (not having used the 24.) 24mm lenses tend to be a bit better than 28mm lenses, which I think comes down to the engineering effort put into those due to the higher price.
