The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

The Nikon 50mm 1.2 AIS

ryc

Member
I was looking at some shots I did with my 50mm 1.2 back in the days and realized it's one of the reasons I kept my F6 after switching to Sony. Having said that, I put up a little blurb about it on my site to share my thoughts about it.

Nikon 50mm 1.2 AIS

 

ray*j*gun

New member
Plus 1 its my fav film Nikor and I just started using it on my new D610.... looks like it was designed for DSLR's
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Graham,

You know that saying about never sell a lens you love because you'll regret it? Well, it's definitely true! :ROTFL: :scry::scry::scry:

Truth is while I definitely miss the look that lens produced, I don't miss manual focus. But then again, that lens wasn't very tough to focus...
 

bensonga

Well-known member
I finally gave into temptation (again).

D700 with the 50/1.2....at f1.2.

Gary

Espresso con panna


Baby shoes
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Steen -- Yes, very creamy...and delicious! ;)

Keeping the espresso theme going here. A Nespresso Pixie arrived in my mailbox the day before my Nikkor 50/1.2 did.

Results shown here in a demitasse acquired on my first trip to Paris in 2012. I am thoroughly enjoying both the espresso and the lens. :)

The 50/1.2 seems to work quite well on the D700. I'm assuming it would not perform as nicely on my D800e. I might have to think about getting a used Df to make the most of this unique 50 and my other AIS lenses.

Gary

D700, Nikkor 50/1.2 at f1.2
 
Last edited:

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

Gary, I bet you're going to absolutely love the 1.2/50mm out-of-focus rendering on your high-resolution D800E as well.
Smooth bokeh in high resolution is such a thrill, even at high ISO with grains and all.
It will make you an incurable pixel peeper .-)

In my opinion most lenses only get better with high resolution, it be old lenses or cheap lenses, as well as the high-end lenses of course.
Even bad lenses with all their aberrations and imperfections often become graphically more interesting in high resolution.
Of course an imperfect optic doesn't suddenly become perfect just because of high resolution, but usually it doesn't gets worse either, in my experience.

I don't have any portraits with the f/1.2 I have permission to upload, but I can show you this test target with D800E and the AI-S Nikkor 1.2/50mm wide open.
A graphical joy to zoom into, if you ask me. It makes me wish I had a wall monitor with ~ 7000 x 5000 resolution :D

Just my 0.02



©lick for native size (6.3 Mb)


© • Nikon D800E • AI-S Nikkor 1.2/50mm • 1/5000 sec. at f/1.2 ISO 100 • Capture NX 2.4.0
 

ray*j*gun

New member
I have begun to use the green dot as an aid to focusing my D610 with the 1,2 Nikor AIs and I have found that it works pretty well. I remember reading somewhere that the green dot didnt help on fast lenses but I have to differ at least on my camera.

I am pleased that I am not the only guy using my old lenses on this modern and Hi Res camera. Great forum BTW..... having a blast with this new 610 too.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
IME, the green dot works very well, and on the 800/e/810 at least, you can use the AF fine tune to tune it precisely.
 

Steen

Senior Subscriber Member

On occasions when there's time for it I use robsteve's two-steps-trick when manually focusing.
First I roughly focus by the focus ring and then I fine-tune by slightly swaying with my body while focusing on some micro detail and when I can see that I have nailed it I trip the shutter.

In that way I get less camera movement and camera shake than I do when trying to focus purely with the focus ring, and therefore it's easier to closely watch the sharpness of the target.
By swaying my body I also gain some smaller adjustment increments than I can obtain by the focus ring.
That works quite well for me especially when using difficult focal length MF optics, some optics are easier to manually focus than others.

I have used this method since Rob taught us this about ten years back in the famous Slippery Slope days on FM.
By the way, where are you Rob, I think it's been a while :)
 

ryc

Member
Graham,

You know that saying about never sell a lens you love because you'll regret it? Well, it's definitely true! :ROTFL: :scry::scry::scry:

Truth is while I definitely miss the look that lens produced, I don't miss manual focus. But then again, that lens wasn't very tough to focus...
Been there, done that, wont do it again.

But just for the record, even with my AF lens, I still manual focus every shot using the DMF mode of the A7S.
 

Ocean

Senior Subscriber Member
I struggled with D800 and Df for MF lenses but found the D810 and D4s have improved the focus accuracy a great deal. Now I total rely on the 'green dot' (although it's not a green dot in D810 anymore) for my MF lenses. Maybe I am lucky but I am very happy with that!
 

ray*j*gun

New member
I also have had very good experience with MF on my D610 using green dot focusing. I also have a D7000 and installed a Katzeye split screen and found that the green dot on that camera was always in sync with the visual image per the Katzeye. I know there is a lot of criticism of the Df because it doesn't have a split screen etc but if it works like my D610 I know I could live with it.
 
Top