For another topic (but maybe you could sneak an answer in as part of any further reply - no pressure!) do you still by any chance have 28/1.4E, 105/1.4E and possibly 58/1.4G - these are the ones that seem to have no clear successor but were at least in the case of the E-lenses progenitors of Z in some ways?
Interesting set of lenses... I never liked the 58G; it had strengths (for sure) but it's failings were too much for my work and the things I value. If I shot events and lower resolution bodies, it would have been amazing, I'm sure, but I don't, and shoot high rez, so it wasn't a fit. I also think it was vastly over-priced for what it did, but I understand - for some tasks, it was amazing, but just not my tasks.
I regrettably sold the 105/1.4E, but honestly, I am not sure how much I'd still use it. GREAT lens, for sure. We'll talk about it a bit more later in this post. For studio work I prefer the 105/2.8MC, even though it's not a portrait tuned lens, mostly because in the studio bokeh is a non issue but the better control of CA is an issue. I prefer the 85/1.2S and the Plena to it. But if Nikon were to do, say, a 105 "Plena" type lens, I'd be interested, but nowhere as interested as someone (Voigtlander, are you listening, Nikon??) a truly high end 24mm option. Come on Nikon, give me a 24/1.2S or Voigtlander, a 24/2 Apo Lanthar --> take my money! LOL
The 28/1.4E was a lens not designed by Nikon; it (the design) was farmed out to Konica-Minolta, which is ironic because it was clearly Nikons best wide angle in the F mount era. 28mm is not my thing - I'm clearly a 20/24/35 progression person in the wides, but I have shot with it, and it has nice rendering that does represent some of Nikons thinking, even though K-M did the design work, so that means the Nikon tie-in-go-between had some say. Note that K-M has designed several of the base Z mount lenses (85/1.8S being one of them, BTW)
Now if we're going to discuss those three lenses as being progenitors of Nikons current thinking for their best lenses, yes, there may be some interesting conversation to be had.
So, before I continue, this represents my *current* thinking on the matter. As I learn more, or discover more, my views may change. I'm not going to be the old timer who is so rigid they can't question their own beliefs when new 'data' is introduced. This will get arcane, so I'm sure many will be bored with what follows
The concept of a lens imaging dimensional objects has been considered by many, not just Nikon, for a while. As I've mentioned in other posts, there is mention of Nikons Haruo Sato considering this while in university, and of course, ex Pentax designer, the famed Jun Hirakawa, definitely considered it, and both of them basically thought that if you were to make a lens that was perfect in terms of MTF (in more forms than we see in charts), you might lose some ability to realistically image three dimensional objects. Hirakawa specifically noted that controlling astigmatism is hugely important in this goal, and that if it meant leaving field curvature less than perfect to achieve that, so be it. Considering a perfect lens would be flat field in both sagittal and tangential orientations, meaning it's both having no field curvature AND no astigmatism, that would be the goal, but as it's not always possible to design a perfect lens, there was one approach that led to better rendering but might not "test" quite as well. I'm sure there are other designers throughout history who considered this. I'm not a lens designer, so this is at the functional limit of my knowledge in this regard.
So with the 35/1.4G, Nikon designed a wide that had great bokeh, great OOF transition, and had a good sense of imaging a three dimensional object well. Please note that I ask you (and any remaining readers lol) to resist the idea of binary poles here - we are talking subtle things, not OMG things. Lenses often seem to be designed with the navigation of trade offs in context of the resolution of cameras of the era. Film lenses had different design goals than one, say, for a 45mp body. So the "Problem" of the 35/1.4G was that while it was a brilliant lens on a D700 - at the time the D700 was my body, the 35/1.4G was, by far, my favorite lens, when the D800 series came out, the lens was notably incapable of properly dealing with the higher spatial frequency resolution the new bodies were capable of. As such, many of us, myself included, switched to the Sigma 35/1.4 Art, which could. An aside here: I was fully anti-third-party when the Sigma came out, but a trusted colleague strongly pushed it on to me, and I dropped biases and preconceived notions and tested it. It utterly wiped the floor with the 35/1.4G and to say I was shocked would be an understatement. It was about then (2012) that I started undertaking some personal "education" and a lot of testing to understand the "why is this so", which continues to this day.
So in some ways, in the semi-modern era, one could say it (the concept of rendering dimensional objects as opposed to being perfect in all areas of MTF and design software performance) started with the 35/1.4G. Haruo Sato did that one.
Sato then did the 58/1.4G, and in the navigation of trade offs inevitable in making a lens, I feel he went further/stronger/more in a direction that unfortunately meant if you weren't using the lens in a specific narrow set of use cases, you were using the lens where it wasn't really performing well. So I feel the magnitude of the trade was too much: the lens was universally dinged for lack of fine spatial resolution in close distances, and while still quite good at distance, overall there became a war, an ongoing-to-this-day forum battle about it.
The 105/1.4E came along afterwords. Sato started this lens, but the final design was handed off to someone else. I remember writings from Sato (interviews) where he stated for this one, they made sure it had better resolution than the 58/1.4G, implying that "they" (people beyond Sato, I think) knew the 58G had some issues. Here is where I'm purely conjecturing: Sato never designed, to my knowledge, another lens after the 58, and I often wonder if the "issues" might be the reason why. Again, this is pure guessing. I might be horribly and absolutely wrong, and I in no way diminish Satos great contributions as a Nikon designer - he is one of the great ones, along with (current designer) Hiroki Harada, who is still active (think 35/1.2S, 50/1.2S to consider Haradas capabilities)
Anyway, all those lenses, in ascending order as they got more modern, made *sure* that rendering people was never sacrificed, even at the expense of another lens "testing better". I shot the 105E and the Sigma 105/1.4 art (Sigmas best F mount tele, not the 135, sorry guys) and while the Sigma may have been a touch sharper, it was no contest - the rendering of the 105E was better - and understand during this time period I was a HUGE Sigma Art fan-person and somewhat "hard" on Nikon, so I was a long way from a Nikon lens super fan at that time. Which should speak volumes about the 105E. The 105E was the last Nikon branded F mount lens I owned before I sold it. I only have the Sigma 40 art and three Zeiss lenses left in F mount these days.
Point being - during this ascending order phase across years, each successive lens got sharper, while still honoring rendering.
And leads us to current Z. The best of the Z: 35/1.2S, 50/1.2S, 85/1.2S, Plena, even the 105/2.8MC as a macro lens, even the 24-70/2.8S (v one) all have excellent rendering AND excellent technical performance and resolution - it's almost like "they" needed the better mount parameters of the Z mount to achieve their goals. At the same time, I think they still design with visualization of rendering trumping "perfect" MTF performance - lenses like some of the Viltrox might measure better, but never are as good in real life. There is art and science in lens design, and I do think Nikon, many years later, has finally gotten to a point where they maintain a look that honors the older lenses you mention, while staying firmly in the group of lenses that perform well technically.
Sorry if this has bored you.
