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Shot with Nikon 45mm 2.8 Ai-S P lens ??

Wondering if anyone here has shot with the little pancake 45mm Nikon lens on digital or even film. Does it render in any special way?
What do you think of it?
Thanks,
Robert
 

JohnBrew

Active member
When Ming Thein did a comparison between the D800 and Leica Monochrom he used this lens on the Nikon. You can easily find it with a search.
 

cmcmillan

New member
I have one of these lenses. I haven't used it as much on digital because of the manual focus. I liked shooting it on film a lot because of the out of focus rendition due to the Tessar optical design. I did test it a bit with Digital on my D200/D300 quite a while ago. I loved it as a walk around on my FE body before I got a 35mm prime. Just a smidge wider than 50mm.

I do think I used it in the fall for some timelapse work on my D700. That was mostly at infinity focus and stopped down a bunch under some NDs too. I was shooting three cameras, so I'm not 100% certain if I did use that lens or not.

Sometimes I forget about it since I also have the Voightlander 40mm f2.0 lens. I'll often throw the 40 or 45mm in the bag along with one of my 50mm lenses just for something different.

I do enjoy the 45mm when I'm shooting hyperfocal or when trying to do any street stuff.

If the weather is sunnier later this week or over the weekend, I'll see about shooting some outdoor comparison shots of the Nikon 45mm, the Nikon 50mm and the Voightlander 40mm for good measure.

It would make a nice walk around lens on a Df or on a D700/600/800 body due to it's small size. It's about as small as the older 50mm 1.8 AiS Nikons. Maybe a little deeper once the tiny screw in hood is attached.

Chris
 

cmcmillan

New member




:lecture: that's what Dr. Rockwell did, just sayin' ... :angel:

I didn't notice that. Now, I'm not sure if I want to do that or not. :D

Maybe I'll just shoot the 45mm on its own, wide open and stopped down a bit. That should be enough to give an idea of it's character.

Maybe if my dogs are asleep, they would be suitable indoor subjects. My cats aren't still enough most of the time to even try to shoot them. It's just been so very grey and overcast most days in my area lately.

Chris
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Caveat -- I've never shot any of the little pancakes on my Nikons but did extensively in large format days, so that said some generalizations. Tessars generally have good to very good optical performance on centers and then taper off smoothly toward corners, with the size of the sharp central circle getting larger as you stop down -- common spherical aberration falloff. Spherical aberrations will produce "swirlies" in OOF areas containing linear patterns. Wide open the sharp center is usually pretty small, like maybe 1/3rd the frame; by f8 - f11 it should pretty even performance across the frame. The Voigtlander version uses an asphere element, so probably performs better/renders an initially larger sharp central area, but again that's conjecture on my part, not empirical.

As an aside, I believe the Nikon P (for pancake) is the same design as the earlier GN (for Guide Number) designed to be used with manual flashes of the day -- have not looked, but the GN is probably less expensive used than the P for the same look, though it has a funky aperture ring with guide numbers stamped in it.

PS: I got to spend some time viewing Bob's images this week with the new 58/1.4G. I have newfound respect for this lens' performance compared to other posted images I had seen, perhaps sample variation. Anyway, somewhat ironically it exhibits similar behavior to a Tessar the way it falls off, though in this case far more subtle. Blister sharp ⅔ center with smooth and subtle falloff toward edges, with amount of softness attenuated gradually outward as you stop down.
 

JoelM

Well-known member
I have the Contax 45mm Tessar pancake lens for my RTS III. It's a nice little lens, very sharp in the center with a tiny tapering at the edges, but hardly noticeable. I might try it on the A7r and see how it does with that.

Joel
 

Jolly

Member
I have both the 45 AIP and the Voigtlander Ultron 40mm/2.0.
I find the Ultron a little better at 2.8 and 4.0 and with the advantage of being 2.0.

The 45mm is lighter and it almost disappears on the camera body.

Both are nice lenses.
 
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