Category Archives: Photography

Nikon 43-86mm f/3.5 zoom lens – Part I

Nikon lenses

Not totally awful.

The early history of zoom lenses on 35mm film cameras is long and not distinguished.

It starts in 1959 with the 36-82mm f/2.8 Zoomar which mounted on the contemporary Voigtländer Bessamatic SLR. The Bessamatic used a leaf shutter inside the lens mount, a fact which made it difficult to make really wide lenses for it, but kudos to the company for retaining American Zoomar to design a zoom lens, and one with a fixed, large aperture at that.


Bessamatic with 36-82mm f/2.8 Zoomar mounted. No strap lugs on the body ….

This monster lens was an ugly duckling with styling nothing like the nicely finished factory lens range (35mm all the way through 350mm) and performance was so-so, but you could claim to be the only one on the block with this ugly duckling. Plus, the optic came with this comical depth-of-field calculator so that you could be sure of getting it right despite the multiple aberrations:


Included with every Zoomar, this DOF calculator. Reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove’s circular slide rule.

Nikon was a far better lens designer than American Zoomar, so when they first marketed their 43-86mm f/3.5 Nikkor Zoom in February, 1963 it was elegantly executed and matched, as a whole, the rest of the burgeoning Nikkor lens range:


Mark I of the 43-86mm Nikkor.


Nikon’s elegant solution to the depth-of-field riddle.

And the elegant solution to depth-of-field determination with those lovely curving, colored lines, was a first. A tad different from the Zoomar’s calculator!

Arguably one of the most beautifully executed of all Nikkors its performance was, by general agreement, the worst of any lens Nikon ever sold! Despite that, over 150,000 made it out the door at Kogaku, Tokyo. The lens was compactly sized and beautifully made, not to mention revolutionary, building on Voigtländer’s pioneering lead with something far more useable. This design comprised 9 elements in 7 groups and as Nikon’s site attests, the manufacturer was rightly proud of its achievement. The irony of the lens’s poor optical performance is that 99+% of images are now displayed on small computer or cellphone screens, for which purpose it’s perfectly adequate.

Nikon had another go at the design, releasing Mark II in November 1975, now with 11 elements in 8 groups, the description of the lens was moved from inside the filter ring to around the outside barrel, making identification easy. This was a much better optical formula and the beauty of the marketplace is that the curse of the earlier design similarly affected the market price of used Mark II lenses, meaning all are dirt cheap. Mine ran me $69 shipped, in ‘as new’ condition. Many of these have been really beaten up and I simply cannot see saving $30 on a beater when your pride and joy in a mint example can be had for little more. It probably makes sense to use a lens hood for protection as well as flare control, given how prominent the front element is, and the standard Nikon 50mm collapsible rubber hood HR-2 can be found new for under $20. Amazon lists an ‘Amazon Basics’ 52mm UV filter for further protection for under $6. I bought both.

An even greater number of the Mark II variant was manufactured with the last versions – mine – coming Ai equipped from the factory. The cut-outs in the aperture ring’s coupling claw for old Nikon Photomic metered prisms and cameras like the Nikkormats are there to throw as much light as possible on the smaller duplicate rear aperture scale which is read through the finder via a reflecting mirror in later bodies like the FM and FE. Nikon called this ADR or Aperture Direct Readout, a clunky solution to seeing the aperture in the viewfinder. It works …. in good light. As usual I will be discarding the claw after installing a CPU, which will allow the recording of EXIF data on digital bodies.


My ‘as new’ condition 43-86mm Zoom Nikkor on the Nikon FE film body.

Mounted on the small FE body the fine ergonomics of the body are nicely complemented by this compact and beautifully made zoom lens. The construction quality of the lens is exceptional as regards fit and finish, no wobbles, no rattles and the optic feels like one solid piece of glass and metal. Those are real, paint filled engravings you see, not screen printed garbage. Gorgeous.

I discuss lens correction profiles and CPU installation in Part II, along with test images.

Fixing viewing in the Nikon FE

Nikon bodies

A few bucks and some sweat equity.

In my introduction to the Nikon FE I focused on the factory’s attention to ergonomics in this elegantly designed camera.

Mine came with a -2.00 diopter Nikon non-standard eyepiece which left much to be desired (meaning I couldn’t see a bloody thing) so I removed the correcting lens, a 19mm screw-in attachment, and had at it while awaiting a plain glass replacement. Nikon is asking $25 for the part which makes highway robbery seem a bargain in comparison, but I traced down a $5 clone on eBay and plonked down my cash. On installation it was immediately obvious that the external diameter is too large, preventing the camera’s back from opening:


Duh! eBay strikes again!

So it’s off to the bench grinder and after marking the right position a small flat is machined on the circumference. The thread is a single start one so, should you ever remove the eyepiece, replacement in the correct orientation is assured.


Showing the machined flat on the replacement eyepiece.
Stock size Nikon part on the right.

In practice the larger circumference of the aftermarket part is to be welcomed, providing a bigger contact patch for this snapper’s eyeglasses.

Here it is installed, a spot of black paint applied to the machined flat:


Installed, and correctly aligned.

Now for the other shortcoming of the stock FE body. In my earlier posting, I made mention of the fact that the Nikon FM and FE, and their derivatives (FM2, FE2, FM3, etc.) found great favor with professionals who did not need the bulk and weight of the big F series bodies nor all their flexibility. Nikon did not chintz on the feature set and every one of the cameras in the series – with the exception of the original FM which came a year before the FE – had interchangeable focusing screens. Nikon marketed three types – the stock Type K with a split image center and microprism collar defining the center-weighted metering area, the Type B matte which deleted the split-image aid but retained a microprism center and the Type E, like the Type B but with horizontal and vertical alignment lines added.

The stock Type K screen in the Nikon FE is underwhelming, being both grainy and not very bright. Also, the split-image focus aid partially blacks out with lenses of 200mm or longer focal length, rendering it useless.

However, Nikon did not rest on its laurels. The late 1970s was a fertile period for screen design with easily the best and brightest being the full area microprism one found in the 1968 Leicaflex SL, which remains a standard to aspire to to this day. (The earlier Leicaflex with the integrated, external CdS meter, only had a center focusing spot so it was brighter still, but the utility value was missing). When the 1983 FM2 and FE2 came along the bodies were fitted with an improved screen, the Type K2, E2, etc. Still a bit grainier than you might like but gaining 1/2 stop in brightness. There was more to come for in 2001, with the introduction of the FM3A, the brightness remained but the graininess was gone. This Type 3 (K3, E3, etc.) was the best and the brightest ever made for the FM2/FE series and, amazingly, can still be found new at Amazon for under $30. Continuous improvement, or kaizen, at its best. I bought one.

Do not be tempted to buy a beater on eBay. The new kit comes with the proper tweezers which make exchange simple with no fingerprints on your pristine screen. One end of the tweezers has a rectangular slot to grasp the protruding tab on the screen, as well as a small plastic extension to pop the locking catch in the camera’s body.


This is the right part.

The beater you buy on eBay will likely be filthy (just try and clean those fine fresnel etchings ….) and will probably be missing the tweezers. You really do not want to do the exchange without these. For those interested, the tab on the Type 1 screen has a plain leading edge, that on the Type 2 is notched whereas the Type 3 is engraved with the designation K3, E3 or B3. But however you try to rationalize it, paying $15 for a beater with no tweezers against $30 for the new part makes no sense.


The Type K3 screen kit.


Tweezers. Far more than meets the eye.


Screen frame released with the tweezer tool.


Once engaged, the tweezers grasp the tab using a small rectangular frame at their tip.

It’s a magnificent testimony to Nikon’s attention to detail that they lavished so much attention on something as seemingly simple as a pair of tweezers. Note the grip serrations on the tweezers which match those of the focusing collar design of later Nikkors!

So how well does it work? I opted for the K3 as I find the split image center works well for me with lenses all the way up to the 500mm Nikon Reflex and it is much, much better than the stock Type 1 screen, one half of whose split image focusing aid blacks out at 200mm or longer. The microprism collar in the Type K3 works well up to 200mm, starts to struggle at 300mm and is useless with the 500mm Reflex. Measuring the light in the finder eyepiece, the Type K3 screen is one-half stop brighter than the stock Type K screen, and one half stop brighter than the finder in the Nikon D3x, so the state of the art in optical finders appears to have peaked with the Type 3 screen.

‘Subjectively’ is a term used mostly by zonkers, strangers to the objectivity of the technological process, listening to antique stereo gear and paying $1000 for a 3 foot connecting cable, made by Japanese virgins in kimonos; not a one of these jerk offs could pass a blind A/B test. Must get into that business …. But, subjectively, the gain in screen brightness is far greater than the 1/2 stop measured gain suggests. So much so that you really will not want to revert to the stock screen once upgraded. And the gain in the utility of the split image center is reason enough to upgrade. As for themicro prism collar in the Type 3 screen, it seems little changed from that in the Type 1, and works better than the split image aid with very wide lenses.

The 1/2 stop gain in measured brightness means that the exposure compensation dial has to be set to +1/2 stop. More light is falling on the meter’s sensor so you will be under-exposing without this adjustment. Given that you really do not want to use the exposure compensation daily for anything else – because you will forget you have set it in the absence of any finder indication – this is hardly an imposition. After setting the dial thus, I obtained the exact same exposure readings with the FE as on the D3x and on a known external exposure meter.


Correct setting with the Type 3 screen installed.

The FE with the K3 focusing screen retrofitted is now in the 21st century for viewing and focusing.

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 comp0act 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.