Category Archives: Nikon bodies

About Nikon DSLRs

Nikkor-HC Auto 50mm f/2 lens

Nikon lenses

An ancient lens made even better.

I wrote about the excellent standard 50mm Nikkor lens for film SLRs years ago here. That lens first saw the light of day on the Nikon F in 1964 and Nikon made hundreds of thousands of them, a fair reflection of this optic’s outstanding performance, small size and toughness.

The last version made in the classic scalloped, metal focus collar style came to market in late 1972 and was optically identical with the happy addition of multicoating for better performance when bright light sources were in the image.

I had given away my 50mm f/2 H to a friend when the 50mm f/1.4 came along, that lens’s greater bulk balancing far better on the large DSLR bodies.

The f/2 continued to be made in later mounts with rubberized focus collars through 1979, though the optical formula remained unchanged.

When I recently added a film era Nikon FE to my little hardware collection I found I was hankering for the original 50mm f/2 as its small size would perfectly complement the compact FE body, and managed to snap up a mint HC, factory converted to Ai no less, for all of $70. Yes, I could have bought a beater for half that but why would you want to save $35 and suffer mental anguish every time you looked at the scarred black anodized finish which is as ugly as it gets? Here it is, mounted on the FE, the satin black front ring denoting multicoating, replacing the silver one on single coated lenses:

The factory Ai ring adds a second row of aperture digits which is read by the small mirrored assembly in the base of the camera’s prism and reflected into the viewfinder. Nice – you can see shutter speed and aperture through the eyepiece.

Nikon has a remarkably honest assessment of this optic’s performance on its site here and their statement about performance accords exactly with my experience:

The very minor vignetting at full aperture along with mild barrel distortion are both easily corrected using my lens correction profile in PS or LR and, if you install a CPU in the lens then that profile can be invoked automatically when you load your images into LR. CPU installation is very easy as no machining is required and the ‘Dandelion’ CPU can be found from commie vendors on eBay – just search for ‘Dandelion chip’, all of $20. My link in this paragraph includes my installation (Part I) and programming instructions (Part II) and you will not find any better. I have installed around thirty of these and they continue working fine after many years.

Here’s how the lens’s data appear – automatically – in Lightroom, for images made with a digital camera:

I find lens EXIF data extremely useful in the image catalog for, when searching for some long forgotten image, I tend to remember the lens used more than anything else. In the example above the image was snapped on the D2x with its 1.5x crop factor.

Here’s the data on the lens correction profile – while the image was snapped on the D2x, the profile was created on the D700 and that’s what I put in the file name for the profile:

The 50mm f/2 Nikkor is recommended without reservation and can be found in any condition you like for very little. You get Leica Summicron performance for 5% of the outlay and if you drop it, heck, buy another. Plus, it’s better made than the Leica lens.


The f/1.4 is larger and heavier. The epoxy is still drying on the f/2’s CPU!


An old friend. Nikon D2x, 50mm Nikkor H at f/2.

And while I’m at it, if you want a truly unbreakable DSLR in APS-C format for well under $500, you can do a lot worse than the Nikon D2x, which is backward compatible with almost every Nikkor ever made. At 12mp it’s no pixel monster but that’s fine for up to 40″ x 60″ prints and, of course, you make those all the time, right?

Field tests:

You can judge the extent to which the lens vignettes from the sky in these two images:



At f/2, straight out of camera.


At f/2, using my lens correction profile.


Center and edge definition – note the EXIF data from Lightroom in these screenshots, conferred by the newly installed CPU:




Center definition at f/2, 48″ x 72″ print. Note the gentle rendering out-of-focus areas.


Center definition at f/4, 48″ x 72″ print.


Extreme edge definition at f/4.


Like I said, Leica Summicron optics at a fraction of the price. Comparing performance in the extreme corners with that of the 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor of like vintage, the f/2 optic shows no noticeable flare compared with the f/1.4 (probably thanks to the multi-coating in the f/2) and is one stop sharper, meaning that the f/2 is as good at f/2 as the f/1.4 is at f/2.8. That said, either lens will make fine large prints at full aperture, sharp enough to please all but the meanest pixel peepers.

The cardinal returns

Nikon lenses, Photographs

This time I was ready.

The bird is very shy, and wary of the rapacious quail and doves which dominate the feeder. If doves are the ornithological world’s idea of timidity then I fancy I would rather keep the company of vultures. An early attempt appears here.

The cardinal is impossible to miss. One’s peripheral vision immediately catches the flash of bright red, like an electric shock to the system.

This time I was better prepared, the 500mm Reflex Nikkor attached to the Panny GX7 set at ISO800 which delivered 1/320 second. This at the lens’s fixed f/8 aperture. While hand-held, that’s poor technique as a 1,000mm FFE optic really needs a solid support. I got lucky, aided by the critical focus option in the Panny which permits enlargement of a selected area for proper focus. Of the twenty snaps the first (go figure!) was the only one usable. I would guess that depth of field at 30 feet distant is no more than a couple of inches. The image is from the full frame. I passed the file through PS to remove the out-of-focus ‘donuts’ typical with catadioptric lenses, and often quite distracting. More on that technique appears in the link in this paragraph.

In lieu of the use of Mirror Lock Up which I advocate with a conventional DSLR to cut vibration, I use the GX7’s silent and vibration-free electronic shutter. A Panasonic MFT body is superior in every way to a conventional mirrored DSLR with this lens if you need 1,000mm FFE. You get a vibrationless electronic shutter, a very light rig which can be easily carried slung over the shoulder all day, Panny’s superior magnified focus aid and, best of all, a bright finder image as the electronics automatically adjust for the small f/8 aperture. And to get 1,000mm FFE with the full frame DSLR you have to cut out a large part of the image in processing, rendering your DSLR’s sensor effective pixel count the same as the lower spec of the MFT’s sensor.

Here are the ‘after’ and ‘before’ images:

The Reflex is a special lens, small, light with delightfully smooth focus action, but easy to use it is not. Add a small, nervous subject and you have your work cut out for you.

To learn more of the design history of Nikkor’s reflex optics under Teruyoshi Tsunashima click here.


GX7 with the adapted 500mm Reflex Nikkor. Arca-style QR plate fitted.

Nikon D850

Nikon bodies

No, you do not need one.

The Nikon D850 may well be the most capable camera yet made. A jack of all trades it comes with extraordinary sensor definition, access to a vast array of the best in lenses …. and you do not need it.

While the stress which this body will place on your lens and computer gear is immense, what with a 46mp sensor and 7fps continuous frame rate which will dictate more money for the very best lenses, the fastest CPUs and SSDs and just about everything else in the chain, the bottom line is that for – I’m guessing here – 99.9% of users the camera is total overkill. That’s because those 99.9% display their images on iPhones and tablets and small computer screens. The technology in that sensor is wasted.

If you want to read a comprehensive review the folks at DP Review do their usually excellent job. Click here.

Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics last week for his decades long work in the field of behavioral economics. Scoffed at by classical economists for years, for they argue that man is a perfectly logical decision maker in matters economic, we all intuitively know that his views are right. We are irrational beings who do not make coldly objective decisions. A YouTube video, a 62 second clip of a discussion between Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman, goes a long way to debunking those classicists’ belief that money is a purely fungible commodity.

Were it not for the realities of behavioral economics, cameras like the Nikon D850 would never have been made as the professional audience which can justify the technologies therein is too small to turn a profit. It’s amateurs who need the bragging rights of 46mp and 7fps, and it’s behavioral economics which make this body a profit center for Nikon. Those amateurs have only irrational reasons for owning this body. Heck, maybe Professor Thaler will buy one with his prize money?

Two bargain classics

Canon 5D, Nikon bodies, Photographs

From the Big Two.

Now that digital bodies seem to arrive almost quarterly from the big manufacturers – and seemingly weekly from the tedious ‘instant obsolescence’ Sony which still gets very little right – it’s interesting to look back on the early days of full frame DSLRs. I was lucky to own both of the models mentioned below and would unhesitatingly buy used ones today.

My first serious DSLR was the Canon 5D and lightly used bodies now sell for under $500. Though the modest sized 12.8mp sensor is small by modern standards it’s hard to beat the color rendering and unless you need video or truly enormous prints (of course you don’t – face it, you put your stuff out on the web) the 5D cannot be beaten when it comes to price:performance today.


The outstanding original Canon 5D.


Barn. Templeton, CA. Canon 5D, 24-105mm f/4 Canon L.

Nearly every Canon lens is excellent and of the fixed focus ones the 35mm, 50mm and outstanding 85mm f/1.8 are recommended and very inexpensive new or used.

Nikon was slow to the FF game and its first affordable body was the D700. It came with a 12.1mp Sony sensor which was exceptional in most regards but especially when it came to low noise at higher ISOs. Those large pixels helped with that and, as with the 5D, low noise prints up to 18″ x 24″ were par for the course. $800 gets you a good one but insist on a Nikon USA model (distinguishable by the small ‘USA’ sticker on the inside of the body when the battery is pulled) because that’s the only kind Nikon USA will service in the USA. Alternatively, if you have a good aftermarket Nikon service shop available, provenance is of no consequence. There is a truly vast array of Nikon lenses from 1960 on available, MF, AF, fixed focus, zoom, you name it, any price point. The superb 50mm MF f/2 Nikkor-H can be found in mint condition all day long for $60 or less and you can take it from there.


The immensely capable Nikon D700.


Baby carrier. Nikon D700, 180mm f/2.8 AFD Nikkor.

The D700 is usually reckoned to have a shutter life of 150,000 – and replacements are cheap – with lightly exercised bodies a dime a dozen. Again, as with the 5D there’s no video, and the build quality is excellent.

No one needs more than 12mp in a DSLR as no one prints any more (well, I do and 12mp is just fine; heck the iPhone6 is good for 18″ x 24″) and both these cameras’ sensors boast excellent dynamic range, low noise and outstanding color rendering.

Some architecture

Nikon lenses, Photographs

A great way to end the year.

Few things beat a crisp, sunny day in San Francisco, and the city’s propensity for preserving its old buildings means more subject matter for an itchy trigger finger.

These were all snapped today on three classic ‘metal era’ MF Nikkors from my copious inventory on the D3x – the 35mm f/2, the 85mm f/1.8 and an all time favorite, the 200mm f/4, an outstanding optic for picking out gorgeous period details.

The absence of autofocus for this type of subject matter is anything but a hindrance. If anything, the more contemplative approach required is a benefit.

Processed in LR6, some verticals straighened in PS CS5, some juice added here and there in Snapseed.