Old lenses !

Spy_Black

"The 55/2.8 macro was also a favorite, but the sticking aperture blades got to mine. I will probably disassemble it some day to try a repair on a rainy day sometime. Unfortunately we're in drought..."

Unless you know how to take a lens apart, I would just bring it to a shop. It doesn't cost that much. I have an 85mm f/2 Ais I borrowed from someone with the aperture blades completely oiled up. Cost me $85 bucks to fix, and the lens works like a charm, one of my favs.

NSXTypeR

Another hidden gem is the Series E 50mm F1.8 (second version). The lens is a pancake type, so really compact, and it's optics aren't too shabby either. I'd say that is sharper than the 50mm F1.8D, but will react poorly to backlit scenes. The best part is you can grab them for anything from $25-75 depending on the condition.

That's a pretty cool lens. My cousin has a Canon 6D, I recommended the 40mm 2.8 to him and he likes it a lot. I don't understand why Nikon doesn't come out with more pancake lenses, it helps the budget minded people too as they tend not to be super fast glass.

PB_PM

@NSXTypeR That is a good question. I wish Nikon would come out with some new pancake lenses as well, but they don't seem high on the list of priorities. I suspect that it would be much easier to do with a "E" type lens rather than a G type, since the mechanical aperture lever would likely take up space required for the focusing motor. As far as I know there are no current production pancake lenses in Nikon's lineup.

The only three pancake lenses Nikon has made, that I know of, are the 45mm F2.8P (production stopped in 2006), Series E 50mm F1.8 and the 50mm F1.8 AIS pancake (there are two AIS versions, one of which is not pancake).

sevencrossing

No one has mentioned mirror lenes yet

Spy_Black

...probably because they've never been that great. ;-)

Ironheart

I was going to say, other than being slow, low-contrast, and incredibly sensitive to vibration, they were great lenses.

Msmoto

To all who have asked about exposure with my old lenses... my apologies. Most likely f/8 was the setting...but these are a few years old, and of course the Exif data is not recorded for these pre computer lenses.

Oh, I guess this means I need to go out and do some more testing when I return, recording the data...bad Panda, as they say on Flickr...LOL

kanuck

I think with older lenses it's important to understand that they typically aren't too great wide open, but can still be useful as such under certain lighting conditions. The parking lot stop I posted above is one example. But once you're down about 2-3 stops, most of these lenses will typically give you excellent image quality, and I mean excellent. Sometimes of course you don't have that luxury, but at least with my D600 I can shoot at ISO 800 and still have very clean images, so I can afford to stop down a bit if I desire to do so.

Let's face it, you can pick up a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 AF-S for $220 and it will probably blow away the earlier 50 f/1.8s and f/2s wide open, but all these lenses have their own look, so I personally think it's fun to work with all of them, old and new.

That is what you normally hear on most reviews of old glass on digital bodies. I never shoot wide open anyways unless it's a Leica lens on my M9p. I like to shoot landscapes so the problem that I can't tolerate are soft corners, poor dynamic range, soft focus, and poor AF/MF ability especially in Live-view. Just give me a solid F4-F16, good true focus and clarity to match this F-stop range and I am happy.