Plastic fantastic and the Real Thing.

The AF on the left, the Real Thing on the right. 5.6 oz with AF against 7.2 oz without.

There really is no earthly reason why lenses encased in plastic or resins should be any worse than their metal enshrouded predecessors. On impact plastic is more likely to ‘give’ than dent, and the attendant benefits of light weight and durability are non trivial. Plastic bodies get glossy with wear, whether on a camera or lens, but retain their black finish, unlike plated or anodized metal. And nearly all of today’s Nikons use tough and light crinkle finish resins in the G series optics which are optically the best there is at any price. I own one of these, the Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX lens, a 50mm FFE for the APS-C Nikon D2x, and it is excellent optically and durable mechanically. It shows barrel wear in an understated manner. And look at any old, maltreated metal era Nikon with a scalloped focusing ring where the black anodizing has worn off and you have something really ugly on your hands.

It does not get much uglier than this.

But show me an unsullied original of that metal era wonder and I will show you mechanical beauty from an era when lens design and execution reached new peaks, peaks largely emanating from Nippon Kogaku, Tokyo.

The 50mm AF (pre-D) Nikon shown above is a product of the 1990s and I can only think times must have been especially hard at the factory in Tokyo. The design of the plastic barrel is simply awful, devoid of ergonomics or artifice, and Nikon has abandoned its gorgeous engraving of numbers on the lens to screen printed paint, which eventually simply rubs off. This design awfulness extends to many lenses in the AF/AFD era, all using the competent if somewhat Rube Goldberg ‘screwdriver’ design to confer autofocus via a coupling in the bayonet mount. Many late film era and better grade digital bodies from Nikon provide this capability. (The later AFD lens variants are optically identical but add a distance reporting CPU for better operation with selected Nikon flashguns).

No, there really is no excusing the sheer awfulness of the looks of the AF/AFD 50mm Nikkor. Just one look – better still a feel – of the metal era 50mm f/2 Nikon HC lens (HC means six elements, multicoated; the earlier single coated version was simply ‘H’) tells you how a lens should be made, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. How do they compare optically?

Well, sad to relate the newer lens is optically worse in every regard at every aperture, center or corner. It shows high chromatic aberration fully open (color fringing) where the old lens shows none, it hotspots the center of the image below f/4 and the micro-contrast which the older lens delivers in abundance is simply missing in the AF lens.

But by all means buy the AF if AF is what you need. The very high standards of the metal era optic may not be equalled but we are talking state-of-the-art here, even by today’s standards. If the Leica Summicron is the reference for all 50mm lenses, then the 50mm f/2 Nikon HC more than gives it a run for the money. The AF/AFD will deliver decent results and at under $70 for a mint example is hardly a material economic drain. But, goodness, it feels awful to use. And using an ugly tool has never improved my images.

The 50’s era Summicron. Beauty and performance.

While there is nothing to choose between the optical performance of the 50mm Nikkor and Summicron of the era – though the Summicron will run you ten times as much as the Nikon on the used market – the Leitz lens comes with one nice plus. The finish is chrome plating and incredibly tough. I have never seen one worn through to the underlying brass. By contrast, the thin anodizing on the Nikon wears easily, leading to the ugly result shown above.

Not much changes.

Long term readers may recall that I swapped my 20mm f/3.5 MF AiS Nikkor of 1982 vintage for the much earlier 1973 20mm f/3.5 UD non-Ai Nikkor which I both Ai’d and chipped.

The optical trade-offs were clear. The older lens is superior in the center down to f/8 while the AiS optic delivers better edges fully open and remains better at small apertures. This works for me as the ergonomics and sheer delight in the handling of the 20mm UD remain unparalleled. This is how lenses should be made. After 5 years with the UD Nikkor I am as happy as can be.

Nikon D3x, 20mm UD Nikkor, ISO200.

A much later 20mm f/2.8 AFD Nikkor recently joined my stable and a quick check of performance discloses that Nikon had made little progress in center definition by 1989 when this lens was made. Against the f/3.5 UD, the UD is sharper in the center down to f/8, after which the two are comparable. The AF optic is better at the edges through f/8 (though not as good as the Ai-S predecessor!) and remains slightly better through the smallest aperture. Be sure to keep your fingers away from the focus collar in AF mode as it spins around merrily in finding focus.

AFD lens on the left – competent but ugly.

I’m not publishing test snaps here as they would look much like the earlier ones comparing the UD with the AiS, the only difference being that in Scottsdale my backyard features a lovely desert garden rather than the ugly utility pole from the Bay Area.

The UD weighs in at a solid 14oz, courtesy of its all metal construction, with the plastic-fantastic AF/AFD at a mere 10oz, barely more than the AiS with AF thrown in. Impressive, if not beautiful.

AF is really not necessary in a lens this wide where depth of field covers for focusing errors, but at $230 delivered with Nikon filter, hood and caps, who is complaining?

If you want the last word in central definition and handling, go for the UD. If compactness and solid overall performance is your thing, the AiS is indicated. And for those wanting AF with little weight penalty, the AF/AFD is the right choice, if you can live with all that plastic. The early AF was improved with a revised CPU in 1994 which provides distance metering for Nikon flashes, being renamed ‘AFD’. If you want to save some cash and do not use flash, the AF predecessor has identical optics and mechanics. All of these in mint condition can be found for around $200 but UD variants are hard to find in pristine shape as the scalloped metal focus collar does not take well to hard use and looks ugly once the black anodizing starts coming off. The UD, the oldest optic here, is also the best at controlling flare spots. Not all change is progress ….

There’s also the 20mm f/2.8 AiS MF Nikkor, first sold in 1994 and still available new for almost $700 which I profiled here. For the money asked I really cannot recommend it new or used ($400-$500) as its corner performance is really not much to boast about.

All of these lenses are easily chipped – a simple glue-on operation. The f/3.5 AiS and f/2.8 AiS come Ai’d from the factory. Adding an Ai fork to the UD is not nuclear physics, and I illustrate that in the first link above.

All these 20mm Nikons exhibit the complex ‘mustache’ or wave distortion and for the UD, f/3.5 AiS and f/2.8 AiS you can download my lens correction profile here which fixes that and removes vignetting and most chromatic aberration. The profile for the AF/AFD comes bundled from Adobe with Lightroom and works well.

Old and recent.

Nikon has been making 80-200 zooms for the F mount camera bodies since 1969. Indeed, my mint example of the 80-200 f/4.5 Ai manual focus, single ring (meaning trombone zooming) lens is oft credited with putting this focal length on the map, for its performance is outstanding.

I like separate aperture rings on my lenses, because I grew up supporting the lens with my left hand and holding the camera body in the right. Once the latest G Zooms with silent internal focus motors came along, this opportunity was lost for such optics have no aperture ring. Apertures are changed with a thumbwheel on the camera’s body. Not for me.

With long zooms autofocus is nice to have and the penultimate version of the 80-200 Nikon Zoom, which has an f/2.8 maximum aperture, has its own aperture ring and uses the ‘screwdriver’ type focus mechanism found on the non-amateur grade bodies. A small drive in the bayonet mount (a Bowden cable, for techies) engages a like receptacle in the lens to confer AF. As with the f/4.5 MF version, focusing is internal and the length of the lens remains unchanged as it is zoomed. In the AF lens two rings are used – one for focus, the other for zooming. I’m happy with either engineering approach, though it has to be said that the trombone zooms tend to get sloppy with age, although optical quality remains unaffected.

Having recently acquired the AF version I though it would be interesting to compare the two.

The AF lens is larger and heavier – 46 vs. 27 ounces. It is also twice as fast.

Here you can see the mechanical AF coupling in the newer lens:

Male end on camera bayonet, female on the lens.

The AF speed is decent, not blistering. Fine for my purposes but if live action is your thing you may want to spend (a lot) more on a current G series 70-200mm Zoom which also adds Vibration Reduction and will run you $2-3,000 new, depending on the VR version. Alternatively, if you like aperture rings, seek out the AF-S version of the 80-200mm for more than the AF-D, which uses an internal silent motor and is hard to find on the used market. This was the last version of the 80-200 Nikon made, which is why I referred to the screwdriver versions as ‘penultimate’ above. However, the only version of the AF 80-200 which remains available new is the f/2.8 ED IF screwdriver version illustrated here, and it retails for a hefty $1,100. Mine, made in November 2015 cost me $476 in absolutely mint condition with original hood, UV filter and caps. A tremendous bargain for an optic built to incredibly high standards with an all metal, tough, crinkle finish barrel and wonderfully smooth controls. The two switches on the lens control AF or MF, as well as the focus limit when you want to reduce AF ‘hunting’ and know that you will be focusing within a narrow range of distances.

Why does Nikon continue marketing this lens? It has the slower screwdriver focus than the AF-S which replaced it, yet that replacement is discontinued. I would like to tell myself that too many photographers insisted Nikon keep this one in the line but suspect that the reality is that they simply made too many and are selling off new old stock.

Whatever the reasons, poor performance is not amongst them for the lens is an optical stunner.

My MF f/4.5 lens invokes my related lens correction profile as I have fitted the lens with a CPU, so LR knows which profile to use. You can download it from that link and I recently re-generated it, making for even better results. The profile for the much newer AF lens comes bundled with LR and is also automatically invoked in you turn lens corrections ‘on’ in the Develop module. Both profiles correct for mild vignetting at the two largest apertures and for modest barrel distortion.

I illustrate 40x enlargements (Nikon D700) at the common apertures of the f/2.8 AF. The f/4.5 MF (labeled ’80mm’, on the right), and the new lens is better – meaning better resolution and contrast – in each case, though the differences are small by f/8, which is another way of saying that the MF lens, which can be had for very little, is very good indeed.

Adobe lens correction profile in LR for the f/2.8 ED IF lens.

How much better is the AF lens in the center? 1-2 stops better and ultimately it resolves finer detail than the MF lens at any aperture. The older MF lens is also a tad warmer when it comes to color rendering, and of lower contrast, clearly visible above.

The story with corner and edge performance is similar and I have not included test images here for the sake of brevity. The issue with the older lens is that it has far greater curvature of field, so objects behind the point of focus in the corner are rendered very sharp, but that’s of little use in practice.

The AF lens goes 1.5 stops faster fully open, so here are images at f/2.8 at 80 and 200mm:

AF lens at f/2.8 at 80mm and 200mm.

Bearing in mind that these are 40x enlargements, the results are perfectly usable at full aperture, though it’s clear the lens is resolving less detail than at f/4 and smaller.

And if you think 46 ounces is heavy, check out these data:

• 80-200 f/2.8 AF ED IF with screwdriver focus motor and aperture ring – 46 ounces – the lens profiled here, and still available. Rotating, non-removable tripod foot.
• 80-200 f/2.8 AF-S ED IF with internal focus motor and aperture ring – 56 ounces – discontinued. Rotating, removable tripod foot.
• 70-200 F/2.8 G ED IF VR with internal focus motor, no aperture ring and Vibration Reduction – 52 ounces – discontinued.
• 70-200 F/2.8 G ED IF VR II with internal focus motor, no aperture ring and improved Vibration Reduction – 54 ounces – current, $2,300.
• 70-200 F/2.8 E FL ED VR with internal focus motor, no aperture ring, VR, improved optics sandlots of buttons – 50 ounces – current, $2,800.
• 70-200 f/4 G ED IF VR with internal focus motor, no aperture ring and Vibration Reduction – 30 ounces, one stop slower – current, $1,400.

Looking at the results above and at the prices it’s clear that a good, used 80-200 f/2.8 AF ED IF Zoom Nikkor with screwdriver focus motor and aperture ring is an outstanding lens optically and a bargain financially. It lacks VR but its weight will conquer all but the worst cases of the DTs.

And if that’s outside your budget and MF works for you, the older f/4.5 MF lens is highly recommended for both your pocket book and less back pain! Just be sure to get the last version, distinguished by the rectangular rear baffle.