Perks of shooting with Ai and Ais lenses

I started buying Ai and Ais lenses a while back knowing I would one day take a stab at film photography again(I did some film photography in college, but only briefly and I was fairly terrible at it...). It wasn't until last year that a friend gave me his old Nikon FE that I really started to appreciate my collection of vintage primes. Just thought I would share a few shots from my latest roll of Kodak B&W ISO 400 which I shot in and around Chinatown in Singapore(where I live). These are all with the Nikkor 50mm F1.2 ais:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonsiegel/6940206423/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonsiegel/6794081268/in/photostream

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonsiegel/6791516158/in/photostream

I'm having a lot of fun with this camera, I normally shoot with a D700, so this FE is quite a challenge. I must say that being able to use the same lenses between my DSLR and these old film bodies is a real pleasure, really makes these ai, ais and afd lenses feel like an even better investment. I noticed some people discussing whether they should sell their AFD 85mm F1.4 for the new G version, I have the AFD and will never sell it since I wouldn't be able to experiment with the G on a film body.

G lenses do work on some of the film cameras F4, F5, F6,F100.

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Geoff
Gold Coast, Australia

For me the manual focus on AI and AIS lenses is so much better then the new lenses. I don't understand why they stopped putting this type of quality in their top of the line lenses. I would love if my 17-35 had the focus feel of my 105mm 2.5 AI

myshkin said:

For me the manual focus on AI and AIS lenses is so much better then the new lenses. I don't understand why they stopped putting this type of quality in their top of the line lenses. I would love if my 17-35 had the focus feel of my 105mm 2.5 AI

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I think the reason new lenses don't feel like the old Ai/Ai-S lenses is autofocus speed. The coarser thread and shorter throw allow the autofocus to work faster, at the expense of the "feel" while manually focusing. Since most photographers DO use autofocus, Nikon has optimized the designs for autofocus at the expense of manual focus.

I recently picked up a used 80-200/2.8 AF-D one-touch. Optically it is the same as the current two-ring design, but the one complaint you find about the one-touch is that the AF is "slow". I find that if I switch the lens over to manual focus, it feels almost as good as my Ai-S lenses...

Paul Wossidlo
http://www.PaulRichardWossidlo.com

ExposureMeter said:

G lenses do work on some of the film cameras F4, F5, F6,F100.

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but not the FE (I have one and still use it in winter with AI lenses)

Take a look at this huge thread:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/929565

and see what people are doing with these "old & garbage" MF Nikkor lenses with digital or film bodies.
I lot of fun and many excellent images.

Oh heck I'll bite...

Here are a couple of shots from my weekend bikeride...200/4 AIS on a Canon 30D
(100% crop...)

myshkin said:

For me the manual focus on AI and AIS lenses is so much better then the new lenses. I don't understand why they stopped putting this type of quality in their top of the line lenses. I would love if my 17-35 had the focus feel of my 105mm 2.5 AI

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Because if you had a motor that would autofocus a 105 f/2.5 it would twist the camera out of your hands when you focused. That lens focuses by moving the whole capsule, which has a lot of thick glass in it. It's really impractical to make that autofocus.

These days, lenses all focus by moving a couple of elements. Much lighter, much faster, much crummier feel.
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Leonard Migliore

For me the advantage was being able to actually buy a 800/5.6 lens even if it was MF. Seems to work just fine:













Hand held (not recommended)



Eat keeps you from being eaten:



--
Long live the HMS Beagle
Critiques always welcome!

This makes sense, but its a shame they had to sacrifice so much

Jamesdak & Kitacanon, great images, proving these old AI-S lenses can produce more than usable images even today, despite some people think the only way to get pictures is by AF-S lenses...

Some samples with the "old & garbage" MF Nikkors:

macros with close up or tubes in the 50mm ai-s f/1.8 (earlier version, long nose) , and the 800mm f/5.6 EDIF and 600mm f/5.6 EDIF telephotos with or without TCs:
(click 2 time in the images to see higher resolution versions)

jamesdak said:

For me the advantage was being able to actually buy a 800/5.6 lens even if it was MF. Seems to work just fine:

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I solved that problem by buying a 127mm f/7.5 apochromatic telescope with an 0.8x reducer and attaching my camera to it. The result is a 765mm F/6 effective lens. It works out well. Astronomical telescopes are usually very good, since stars are pinpoints, and show off optical abberations very well (which ruins astrophotography pictures).

The only thing I don't get (vs an 800mm F/5.6 MF lens) is aperture control. However, at 800mm, I rarely need to stop down simply because I'm not going to get much more DoF, and the telescope is diffraction-limited wide open. The other problem with it is the 15lb weight

Here are a few pics taken with that telescope:

I've been to Chinatown in Singapore several times. You have done a wonderful job showing that the best way to capture the feel of a place is through the people. Of course I have the luxury of having been there, but I can say that I feel like I am there again when I looked at your pictures.

In addition, you have shown that great photos have more to do with the image itself than whether you have the latest and greatest gear.

Please post more.