Category Archives: Photography

AF and AFD Nikkors

Nikon lenses

A curious bunch.

Before Nikon migrated to AF lenses with built in linear focus motors – the AFS series – they marketed the AF and AFD ranges which used a screwdriver linkage in the lens for focusing, the actual focus motor being in the body of better film and digital Nikon SLRs.


The Nikon screw drive motor coupling on the body and in the lens mount.
The film era F100 works well with these and just as well with the latest AFS optics.

While a seemingly Rube Goldberg solution it has proved to be solid and reliable with millions of lenses made. The line started around 1986 and one or two are made to this day.

What is odd about the AF and AFD lenses (the later AFD versions added an enhanced metering chip for better results with flash; otherwise all else was identical) is just how much construction quality varied across the line. I have a half-dozen:


My small AF/AFD collection – 20/2.8, 50/1.8, 85/1.8 and 80-200/2.8 ED IF rear row;
35-70/2.8 and 24-120 f/3.5-5.6 front row.

The mechanical stand-outs here are the 80-200 and 35-70. The former is a two ring zoom, the latter a push-pull design which wears less well, the action becoming sloppy with age. Both are fabulously made and optically as good as it gets. The 80-200 is still sold new at over $1,000, my mint sample running me just $476. The limited range 35-70 is long discontinued (1987-2005) and is often found for under $200. Both are wonderful bargains.

The mechanical quality story with the others is quite a bit different. All these optics have proper aperture rings, a feature sadly deleted from the latest AFS line where apertures are set using one of the command dials on the body of the camera. The 50/1.8 is a piece of garbage. Cheap materials, rattling internals, awful controls. And dirt cheap at $70 used, mint. The 20mm ($230) and 85mm ($270) are mechanically so-so, but focus fast with the 85mm especially pleasant to use in the portrait studio where acquiring focus on the subject’s eyes is a piece of cake with AF especially fast.

And the 24-120mm is a jack-of-all-trades and master of none. It comes with fairly pronounced barrel distortion, rather wobbly construction, an unspectacular f/5.6 at the long end yet it’s invariably found on my D700 or F100 when I want to lug only one optic along. The 24mm comes in especially handy for architectural images and the barrel distortion is easily removed in LR. At well under $100 for a mint one, it’s hard to pass by.

Where Nikon did not compromise is in the optical quality of these lenses. All are at least as good as their MF predecessors with the 80-200 considerably better (and bulkier) than what came before. It’s a weapon, not a lens. The 85mm, with its chintzy external plastic, can almost match the classic 85/1.8 MF at full aperture, equalling it at f/4 and below. And even that piece of garbage, the 50/1.8 is almost as good as the classic 50/2 MF – it’s 1.5 stops less sharp at f/2 compared to the old MF optic, but usable wide open even in the extreme corners. Finally the 20/2.8, which scarcely needs AF owing to large depth of field, is almost as good as the classic 20/3.5 UD MF …. made 21 years earlier.

If MF is not for you, or you are just feeling lazy, none of these economically priced AF/AFD Nikkors will let you down. Just make sure your body comes with the screwdriver coupling or AF will be lost. Sadly, none of these will AF on the new FF Z6/Z7 mirrorless bodies, which lack the screwdrive motor in either the body or the related adapter.

For an index of my Nikkor pieces click here.

The 2018 iPhones

iPhone

Victimhood.


The ‘cheap’ iPhone Xr starting at $750 + tax.

Despite a new battery my iPhone6 is becoming very sluggish. Apple makes sure this happens with its older devices by loading them up with ever slower code in its unending pursuit of planned obsolescence. My original iPad Air is suffering the same symptoms.

So announcement of a new series of iPhones sort of catches my attention. While I want a new iPhone like a hole in the head, the operating realities of my current one leave me no choice but to upgrade. And as 50 of my 64GB remain unused, it’s not like it’s a memory issue.

The sad truth is that the technological edge of two manufacturers – Apple and Samsung – has landed consumers with an inescapable oligopoly. Your choice is the Sammy with the insecure, rat infested Android OS or Apple’s ‘my way or the highway’ iOS. And as I would rather keep my credit card out of Ivan’s hands when he next goes on a free shopping spree, I am pretty much tied into iOS.

Now I am not obsessed with the need for an edge-to-edge screen and am most certainly averse to shelling out a minimum of $800 for a new iPhone, you know the one without a headphone socket and that ridiculous face recognition technology replacing the excellent thumbprint sensor on my iPhone6, which has yet to let me down. But, sadly, $750 + tax is the lowest point of entry to the new iPhone universe, with costlier models (one is appropriately named the ‘Xs’ which will be immediately read incorrectly by the 99.999% of the populace without an education in Latin) adding unnecessary OLED displays in lieu of LCD ones and adding more costly storage when none is needed in the age of the cloud. That’s monopoly pricing power for you, albeit you must respect Apple’s pun in the name.

But a friend points out that, given my modest needs, an iPhone7 will do just fine and he pointed me to the web site ‘Swappa’ (doubtless run by chaps in Sicily) as an alternative to the slime pit that is eBay (full disclosure: my last two iPhones were sold on the slime pit to Russkies!):


Clicka da image to goa to de Swappa.

Here you can sella your olda iPhona and buya a later, if discontinued, replacement for a whola lotta lessa dan de latest iPhone from da gender challenged boy in Cupertino.

So I’m thinking I mighta giva da Swappa a chanca befora shelling out $800 on the latest and greatest. My friend upgraded from an iPhone 6 to a 7 and noted a large speed increase, so that upgrade path seems rather appealing. After sale of his iPhone6 his net outlay was very low indeed. Sadly, however, the iPhone7 deletes the headphone socket, meaning yet another adapter is required.

CPU speed? Check this Geekbench chart. The iPhone7 offers the best bang for the buck over the iPhone6 on CPU speed with a speed gain of 147%. Thereafter, later models are pretty much hitting the law of diminishing returns.

The ‘new iPhones’ are nothing but a bait and switch from a disingenuous Apple. There are zero compelling new features for the outrageous 25% price increase. How long will it take consumers to realize that they are being conned? AAPL’s unit sales of iPhones were up just 1% last year with all of the large revenue gains resulting from the high price increases on the iPhone X. How much longer can Apple get away with this ‘no product upgrade’ strategy for a 25% increase in price?

Update:

I bought a mint, boxed 128GB iPhone7 from an established Swappa seller for $429, shipped. I get 81% of the speed of the iPhone X for 54% of the cost and will happily resell my iPhone6 on the Swappa site once all is said and done. It will be a cold day in hell before I lay out $1000 or more on a cell phone. (The iPhone7 is still being sold new by Apple. The price I paid is $180 less than they are asking and, if needed, I can have the battery replaced for just $29 through 12/31/18 – Apple’s ‘guilt price’ after they were caught cheating on battery lives. Replacement sky-rockets come 2019, with Apple hoping no one notices).

The iPhone7 is indeed much faster than the iPhone6. No more grinding waits while it processes ever more bloated code. And the haptic feedback is well implemented and a ‘nice to have’ feature as is ForceTouch which Apple just discontinued on its latest iPhones, ever in search of greater margins. (You push down on an icon for more options – for example accessing bookmarks in Safari). The iPhone7 is a recommended upgrade for owners of the iPhone6 and earlier models.


No comment.

I got 4 years’ hard use from the iPhone6. Not bad.

A bigger Panny?

Micro Four-Thirds

Let’s hope.

The Panasonic GX7 has been my ‘go to’ snapper for the past five years. It’s hard to imagine a small body and outstanding lens line-up being improved for street snapping. Mine started life with the 14-45mm kit zoom from the ground breaking Panasonic G1, an outstanding lens if a tad roughly executed. That gave way to the Olympus 17mm MFT optic which was eventually replaced by the slightly bulkier Panasonic 12-35mm pro zoom which brought a fixed f/2.8 maximum aperture and greatly improved mechanical quality over the original kit zoom. Mounted on the GX7 it makes for the perfect combination, adequate for 95% of what I snap.

In recent weeks the market has seen the announcement of two very credible Nikon full frame offerings and a distinctly underwhelming Canon body (tired old sensor, no full frame 4K recording and – wait for it – no IBIS) which we need not dwell upon here. The Nikon Z6 and Z7 promise to integrate well with old Nikon lenses, except for the first AF/AF D series where AF is lost. But for this heavy user of old ‘metal era’ MF Nikkors, some of the finest lenses ever made, it’s a very tempting proposition, adding IBIS and preserving EXIF data recording with chipped lenses.

But there’s another exciting rumor making the rounds and that is the possibility that Panasonic may introduce a full frame mirrorless body.

Little is known of this rumored body but the potential is thrilling. Whatever lens mount Panny elects – maybe Leica M given their technical association with Leica these many years – you can bet that the flange-to-sensor distance will be very slim as there’s no space needed for a flapping mirror. This makes adapting of other makers’ lenses a simple matter. And Panny, being smart, would likely market an adapter for its superb MFT lenses working in MFT format mode, extending their utility value. After all, the magic of MFT is not in the small bodies but in the small lenses that they sport. No FF lens will ever overcome the rule of physics – they will always be larger to cover the full frame. If Panny does not market it you can leave it to the aftermarket to quickly come up with a Nikon F lens adapter. And Panny has class leading video in its Gx series MFT bodies so the opportunity to take on the full frame pro market is very appealing.

Let’s hope this rumor comes true as no one knows more about making mirrorless SLRs than Panasonic. Either way, the modern snapper has never had a better choice of hardware.

The new Noct

Nikon lenses

Exciting.

The original Noct Nikkor, a 58mm f/1.2, was first sold in February, 1977.


The original Noct Nikkor.

The original design has Ai aperture coupling which was revised to Ai-S in November 1981. The ‘S’ designation designates a linear aperture coupling cam compared with the non-linear original but optically and operationally there was no difference. If you could fit a CPU to the Noct then the Ai-S design would allow control of the aperture with either the aperture ring on the lens or the command dial on the body while still maintaining proper exposure metering. The snag, as the above images disclose, is that there is absolutely no room to install a CPU. Some brave/foolish souls have machined a recess in an arc of the rear element to permit CPU installation but that seems like a drastic solution to a not so real problem, as this is the only Nikkor in F mount to which a CPU cannot be fitted.

The Noct was reckoned by all and sundry – not just Nikon – to be the best standard f/1.2 lens around, and Nikon proudly profiled it in a factory piece which you can read here. The optic’s distinguishing characteristic was low coma at full aperture, as the illustrations in that linked article confirm. A mere 2,461 Ai versions and a further 8,950 Ai-S versions were sold, making the lens an instant choice of the pond scum known as ‘collectors’, which means that used examples sell for $3-7,000. The lens was discontinued in November 1998.

With the introduction of the new Z series mirrorless bodies yesterday Nikon also announced that a new Noct would be marketed in 2019, but this time it would come with a maximum aperture of f/0.95, while retaining the 58mm focal length. Price is unknown but reckon on $5-6,000. Interestingly Nikon will not include AF in the new optic, but the ability in the Z6 and Z7 mirrorless bodies to magnify the focus area in the finder/on the LCD screen means that critical focus wide open should be simple to determine. The lens is a whopper, its bulk dictating the inclusion of a tripod socket:


The new Noct.

The wider diameter of the bayonet mount’s throat on the Z6/7 makes the faster aperture possible.

I can think of a couple of similarly fast lenses in the past – the f/0.95 Canon for their rangefinder cameras (good luck focusing that), reputed to be poor, the f/1.1 Zunow in a Nikon mount, reputed to be awful, the original 50mm f/1.2 Leitz Noctilux with hand ground aspherical elements, suitably priced and excellent optically and the current 50mm f/1.0 Noctilux, like its predecessor available in M rangefinder mount also and superb, as it should be at the asking price of $11,000. The original f/1.0 design of the Noctilux is now F/0.95. How on earth you are meant to focus this optic given the limitations of the Leica M’s optical rangefinder beats me, but $11k gets you bragging rights.

The new Noct promises to be cheaper and better than all comparable predecessors. Exciting times at Nikon. This may be a ‘glamor’ optic with little practical use, but it’s good to see Nikon allowing its designers to stretch for the ultimate.

Nikon FF mirrorless bodies

Nikon bodies

Promising.


The 24mp Nikon Z6 FF mirrorless body.

After much teasing and speculation, Nikon today announced two new FF mirrorless bodies, the 45mp Z7 and the 24mp Z6.

The motivation for these releases is likely the increasing popularity of the Sony FF mirrorless bodies but let’s get one big misconception out of the way first. There is no reason to buy an FF mirrorless body if you want to materially reduce the bulk and weight of your gear. While a mirrorless body should be an ounce or two lighter than its mirrored counterpart, for the mirror and associated mechanism are deleted, the size of the lenses will be unchanged. That means when compared to MFT lenses, FF lenses are positively gigantic. On a related note this is why mirrorless APS-C bodies make so little sense if bulk and weight reduction are motives. The lenses are still very large.

No, the primary reason to buy a mirrorless body is silent operation as they generally come with an electronic shutter option, as well as potentially very high framing rates using that shutter, for no high inertia flapping mirror has to be raised and lowered multiple times a second.

Nikon has one other legacy advantage which Canon does not offer and is irrelevant with Sony bodies. Canon made multiple changes to its lens mount over the past three decades, from RM to FL to FD to the current EF version, each largely incompatible with its successor. Legacy Canon lenses are stuck with legacy Canon bodies, fine as both may be. As for Sony, there’s no population of legacy lenses with this more recent entrant to FF.

Thus, with tens of millions of legacy Nikon F lenses out there a significant issue with the new Z6 and Z7 bodies is backwards compatibility. Will my legacy Nikkor work?

This issue is not lost on Nikon which has announced the FTZ adapter for legacy lenses at a reasonable $250, or $150 if bought with one of the new bodies.


The Nikon FTZ adapter for legacy lenses. No AF with AF/AF-D Nikkors.

Many readers of this journal have converted their ancient non-Ai Nikkors to Ai as I indicate here. Then, to add icing to the cake they have added a CPU, finishing the whole thing off with one of my many custom lens profiles. Now that pre-Ai Nikkor offers aperture priority auto exposure with full recording of EXIF data. Make that Nikkor a late MF Ai-S model and you get linear aperture ring response meaning that you can pass aperture control back to one of the command dials on the Nikon body and still retain linear exposure automation. Will the new Nikon FTZ adapter maintain this level of data flow and automation? Looking at the specs the answer is a resounding ‘Yes’. The adapter includes pass through electrical contacts for recording of the maximum aperture of the lens and of EXIF data, and appears to retain lens aperture stop down on exposure. And the new mirrorless bodies add focus peaking as a manual focus aid.

With the first generation of AF Nikkors, the AF/AF-D optics, the situation is not as happy, for the autofocus feature is lost. Thus AF/AF-D optics appear to revert to the same operational specifications as their pre-AI, Ai and Ai-S predecessors. Sad, but for Nikon to have retained AF with the AF/AF-D optics would have meant retaining the manual ‘screwdriver’ focus motor in the body, adding bulk and weight. Maybe one day the screwdriver motor will be added to the adapter? Certainly this would make all AF/AF-D Nikkor owners very happy and would help retain the smaller body dimensions of the new mirrorless bodies.

AF Nikkors which have the focus motor inside the lens, like the AF S optics, appear to retain autofocus with the adapter.

More as we learn about theses exciting developments from Japan’s premier camera and lens maker. As a minimum the prospect of enjoying IBIS with legacy MF lenses has one salivating.