Comments on: Rethinking Nikon’s 50mm f1.4

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:34:10 +0000

RB,
My 50 1.4 still has an indexing prong on it, I had it CLA’d by Nikon 5 years ago and my dealer wanted to buy it from me because of it’s condition and early s/n, my favorite though was/is my 35mm f/2.0, a beautiful lens.
I came across some Kodachromes shot in the studio with strobe of one of my daughters (20+years ago) Nikon F 105 f/2.5 (prong) Speedotrons. Nice.
How did you scan yours? 3 1/2 years ago I bought a Microtek i900 flatbed with the glassless film holders and Silverfast Ai Studio &HDR software because at the time it was the best “Medium quality” solution that would do 35mm to 8 x 10.
My Idea was to scan my archive with that, and for a few special chromes, pay for drum scans.
I lost patience instantly and it’s been sitting there since. I can’t figure out if the scanner is a piece of crap or I have successfully identified another of my incompetencies.
Fearing it was the latter, I’ve let it sit.
But I do have some stuff (Nikon & Hasselblad) from Dublin, Paris & China that I’d really like to digitize.
Do you think its worth trying the Microtek?

By: RB

RB — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:37:07 +0000

Jason – thanks for the kudos – I think but you will notice that I do have links to where I buy stuff online with good experiences and good prices. I do get something out of that helping me to offset the cost of the site. Not that it’s all that backbreaking of costs (excluding time).

In case you were curious about the tweaks the were contrast +.05 and definition +.05 that to my eye matches what you see when looking at the slide on a light box. The color and WB are extremely close (if you are viewing in safari and have a calibrated display) to the way it was shot and the way the slide looks now 25 years later, gotta love Kodachrome colors are amazingly stable in dark storage.

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:13:35 +0000

RB,

You realize that you’ve committed the unpardonable internet photography website sin.

You’ve written an equipment review and did not include MTF charts, sharpness tests, or even a recommendation. I don’t recall seeing a Nikon advertisement on this site either. Instead you focused on what mattered to you, why that was important, and why you bought one.

You’re welcome to keep up this kind of writing for as long as you’re willing. I’ll sure read it and recommend it to others.

As far as the 50mm 1.4D goes, I bought one as my first lens (outside the kit) when I bought my first DSLR, a D70. I bought it for use in low light for indoor pictures. It works quite well for this purpose and on DX makes a passable portrait lens.

I don’t really use it much since I work mostly with wide-angle, but it’s always in my bag and I’ve used the very shallow DOF to pleasing effect on corporate logos and that sort of thing.

I guess it’s one of those things for me that even though I don’t use it much (I have a D700 now), I wouldn’t want to be without it either and usually its the only thing that will work when it’s needed. I don’t use it enough to have a handling issue or justify the price of the new 1.4G, but I do find it annoying when I interfere with the focus when I accidentally grab or bump the focus ring during autofocus.

I’ll have to defer comment on the PKM to Michael as I have no experience, but I did enjoy the picture.

By: RB

RB — Fri, 01 May 2009 16:25:03 +0000

Special note to Micheal and Jason,

I hope you can see why this was tangentially related to your discussion. Based on all the nostalgia I dug up an image that I shot on PKM (K25) with a Nikon F2 and a Nikkor 50mm AIS f1.4. I did tweak it a hair in Aperture but no white balance and no color adjustments at all. Can you see the funky blue color that is typical of the way PKM renders the sky? Anyone else remember that. Do you like the included real scanned slide mount?