A superb optic, but it can use some help.

I wrote at length about the Nikon Nikkor 500mm f/8 Reflex-N lens here, illustrating the results it can produce with several images.

Since then, I have made two enhancements which substantially improve results from this tricky to use optical masterpiece.

Read about this lens on the web and you will generally find it’s damned with faint praise. I believe this is the result of faulty technique more than anything. It’s very hard to hold so long a lens steady, leading to motion blur taking the edge off definition. A monopod is a huge help here. And it’s no easier focusing the lens which has a very shallow depth of field at its fixed f/8 aperture, which hardly makes for a bright finder image. Indeed, the depth of field is identical to a mythical 50mm f0.8 lens! Meaning that focus is a binary concept – there’s no ‘close’ and getting away with it. There’s no stopping down. The f/8 aperture is your sole choice. While use of a fast shutter speed and high ISO largely took care of motion blur, helped by the excellent high ISO performance of the Nikon D700, poor focus technique was the major cause of my high rejection rate on the first outing with the lens.

CPU installed in the Nikkor Reflex lens, glued to the rear protective filter.
Manfrotto QR plate below, for quick on and off with a monopod.

The first enhancement was to install a CPU in the lens. $30 from Singapore. The rear of the lens accepts a clear Nikon filter which protrudes just enough to provide a base for glueing on a CPU, a technique I discussed here. Epoxy is de rigeur as there’s little base for the CPU to adhere to. As luck would have it, the external dimension of the filter is the perfect size for proper mating of the CPU with the contacts in the camera’s body. Thank you, Mr. Tsunashima! The CPU, as delivered in stock form, has Focus Block switched On. This means that with the ‘C’, ‘S’, ‘M’ switch on the front of the D700 switched to ‘S’, the shutter set to ‘S’ on the top left dial and Custom Function ‘a2′ set to ‘AF-S priority selection’ not to ‘Release’, (phew!) a picture can only be taken when the focus confirmation light is on. Stated differently, you compose the picture, use the joy stick pad on the rear of the camera to place the focus rectangle over the part of the image you want sharp and then, holding down the shutter release button, rotate the focus collar until …. the shutter goes off! As long as your camera’s focus confirmation light coincides with optimum focus, your focus will be right. Alternatively, if the subject is moving, the shutter will be released when the subject enters sharp focus. If the focus confirmation light is inaccurate, it can be fine tuned using the programmability of the CPU, which I also discuss in the linked article on CPU installation. Magic!

If you want to disable the Focus Block feature, simple switch the ‘C’, ‘S’, ‘M’ switch to ‘C’ and the shutter can be released regardless of focus. I explain how to fine tune the CPU for absolutely critical focus here. As regards focus confirmation, Nikon states it works down to f/5.6 but I find it’s fine on my D700 at the stated f/8 aperture. On the other hand, the light in my older D2x absolutely refuse to work with the lens, so you may want to check it on your body of choice before committing to purchase.

If you check the Lens Correction boxes when creating your import preset in Lightroom,
the profile will be automatically applied when importing images using that preset.

The second enhancement is to use a tailored lens profile when importing images to Lightroom. The other significant advantage of the CPU is that when importing images into Lightroom 3 or 4, the lens profile I created for this optic can be automatically applied, and will remove the ‘hotspotting’ the lens suffers from (a bright central halo) as well as minor pincushion distortion. You can download my lens profile for the 500mm f/8-N Nikkor Reflex lens here. It has been very carefully created and makes an already good lens great. That link also shows how to ensure that the profile is automatically recognized and applied on import, using the related import preset.

At 1/1,000th, ISO 400.

To give you some sense of the shallowness of the depth of field, in this snap the stem of the lemon is critically sharp but the front of the fruit is already out of focus when pixel peeping a 40″ print. The ‘focus until the shutter goes off’ technique was used here. You can see a couple of doughnut out-of-focus highlights up and to the right of center, typical of mirror reflex lenses. For obsessives these are a bane. For artists, an opportunity.

So next time you read about how mediocre the 500mm Reflex Nikkor is, blame the writer, not the lens.

Everything that’s wrong with today.

Adding those mechanical era Nikon lenses for pennies to my arsenal makes me reflect how much computer technology has breathed new life into optics almost 50 years old. A CPU is easily added conferring proper EXIF data on every file. A tailored lens correction profile can be made in minutes and will recognize the lens in Lightroom using the newly found EXIF data. Searches on focal length are now made possible – it’s a common search field for me when I ‘lose’ an image despite fairly decent keywording. I often find that I can easily recall which focal length was used to make an image in the catalog. Superb new processing technologies, such as the enhanced Clarity slider in LR4, add microcontrast where there was none. Sharpening technologies make the mushy pop, and you can even add lens blur easily in Photoshop. All of these technologies make something very old, in photographic terms, new again and lenses long ago forgotten are resurrected to once more work their magic.

That appeals mightily to the engineer’s soul in me.

No one would deny that the latest Nikon AF D and G series lenses are masterpieces of the optical designer’s art. Or maybe one should say masterpieces of the computer programmer’s code. We have optics like the 14-24mm ultrawide zoom whose performance, by all accounts, improves on its prime competitors from the same maker. And while not cheap, try buying the constituent primes for less. But the problem with these new lenses is that their settings are awful. Plastic this, resin that. The controls grind rather than rotate, nylon gears abound and the whole thing feels like the kit lens off lower end budget models. And while the materials used appear not to lessen performance – indeed, lightning fast autofocus is a modern miracle which only ever helps matters – I believe that a well made lens can improve a photographer’s output in much the way a Porsche makes everyone a better driver. Eventually.

And nowhere can you find a more succinct summary of what ails modern designs than in the humble lens cap.

1965 and 2012 Nikon rear caps.

With three real oldies in my collection, all from around 1970, I thought it only appropriate to track down period rear caps. Those three lenses – the 50mm f/2 Nikkor-H, the 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor-P and the early four element 200mm f/4 Nikkor-Q – have an aggregate age approaching 130 years. The last, incidentally, though a simple four element Sonnar design, is probably the standout of the three, which is saying something given the prowess and renown of the first two designs. It’s only fair to grace them with period caps. And just look at those caps – the 1965 model is bakelite and has large, deep and long ridges which makes one-handed removal easy, because it is correctly shaped. The 2012 variant makes no such concessions to function and proves that if you can get everything wrong in something so simple, modern designers will find a way. The milling is pathetic, pure decoration without function. Then, to make absolutely sure that the thing is as slippery as a snake, the milled surface is inclined, making it almost impossible to remove the cap with one hand. Finally, well, there’s no other way to say it, it looks like the crap it is.

Here are those three Nikkors with which I am gradually getting acquainted, each superb in its own right and optically equal to the latest resin mounted horrors. Sure you have to turn the focus collar and, yes, I have installed CPUs in all three, as you can see, but the sheer pleasure these confer on this photographer’s snapping makes for better pictures. And $200 gets you the lot.

50, 105 and 200mm Nikkors from the last great era of lens making.
All have been Ai converted and have CPUs installed.

Bringing an old lens back to life. CPU installed on the 105mm Nikkor.

Transamerica from Columbus Avenue – 50 years old this year! 105mm Nikkor-P – a spring chicken at 42.

Sometimes old can be better.