General > General Technical Chat
Farewell to the DSLR camera
nightfire:
--- Quote from: bd139 on July 14, 2022, 10:49:29 am ---I think older lenses tended to have a hell of a lot more weird shenanigans going on. The corrections applied in body are usually for very minor distortion and vignetting and that's about it now because the lens engineering is better. People got used to being able to make corrections and see them as past of the post-processing workflow but now they are gone and that's where this noise comes from.
Your last point is spot on though. I know a lot of camera owners who can discuss the details but very few who can actually take a decent photo :-DD
--- End quote ---
Yes, the "character" attributed to old lenses are usually technical flaws that were (or had) to be incorporated into the design.
Nikon has made public some tales of the design of some legendary lenses, that shed some very good light on the way about 30-70 years ago technical things were constructed, that still can be used today- and with which efforts the engineers with the limited ressources of the past days were able to achieve some good results!
This said: Nikon has made some other leap with the Z lens setup- they are optically very good, and better in nearly every aspect against their predecessors of the F Mount.
If I were a professional, I would not hesitate to build a new setup with those lenses, as they make lots of things easier in difficult lighting situations.
But as a hobby photographer, the priorities are elsewhere, here the road is the target, to make the most of existing (or cheap to acquire) gear.
Neper:
I couldn't care less about Nikon as long as Pentax go on making them.
Zucca:
FUUU now I want a mirrorless and need to sell my DSLR.. I hate you all.
nightfire:
Sorry, forgot the link:
https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/
mawyatt:
--- Quote from: nightfire on July 14, 2022, 09:05:27 am ---The Nikon Kit lenses were always quite good, compared to some cheap stuff other manufacturers provided. But with the Z system, the game has been upped again a bit.
Basically, one could consider the old E-Series 50mm/1.8 as kit lens for Nikon cameras in the begin of the 1980ies- small lightweight lenses, intended for sale with the small entry-level models. Those were made with lots of plastic from the inside, which was frowned upon in japan, and had usually only single-coating on the glass surfaces, whereas the more expensive Nikkor branded lenses had multi-coating and massive metal insides.
So Nikon did the budget cuts at the right places without jeopardizing the optical quality too much.
I still have some 50mm/1.8 E series, which is small and lightweight, and gets regular use on a DSLR for portrait shooting, when I want to pack light, or capture some low contrast situation in sunlight due to the higher probability to flare- and create a look like in the 80ies pictures...
Optically, when handled right, those lenses are able to even make some very good pictures on todays DSLR.
--- End quote ---
That old 50/1.8 was quite good, think we still have one!! The old Nikon 24-70 F2.8 and original 70-200 F2.8 VR were also good but heavy, we used these often on the D800 and D500 when they were introduced.
Used the old 24-70 F2.8 and D800 over a decade ago for a few images that are in the Huntington Gardens Museum Book shown, with up front was a 2 page spread on the Desert Gardens taken with an old 24-70 F2.8 & D800. BTW this image had such high DR that it required TIFF instead of JPEG, this was discovered during processing for the book printing, JPEG caused banding in the background sky, however since we always used Lossless TIFF for serious work, we had the original TIFF file!! Beautiful museum and gardens in Pasadena Ca. definitely worth visiting.
In another use of older Nikon lens with the D800 and D500 we did many of the images used in the booklet and displays for the World Offshore Racing held here in Clearwater, FL every year in September. We also used these old/new combos with some success at the Sebring ALMS Races in Sebring, Fl.
These older lenses did work well, however the newer replacements are better optically and lighter with much improved Vibration Reduction, especially the new Z types. Although we're not getting rid of the older Nikon and Nikkors just yet, they kinda remind of the old analog scopes, still have a couple Tek 2465's that we're not getting rid of just yet either :-+
Best,
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