Nikkor 50mm/f1.4: "Return of the King"

No, it's not some sort of Tolkien Trilogy/Star Wars epic tale. It's an unexpected gift, from the sky, or more accurately.....my brother, who happens to have pretty much the same hobbies that I do. Anyway; "out of the blue" last week, he emailed me wanting to know if I'd like to have one of his manual focus 50mm/f1.4 Nikkors....apparently, he has several. Of course, I'd said yes! What else would I say? As it happens, this is one of the Holy Grail lenses from back in the old Nikon ran the world (or at least professional photography) days. Although, it's not the "made of unobtanium" 58mm/f1.2 Noc lenses, it is just half a stop slower, considered VERY sharp, of outstanding build quality (natch), and merely just expensive. Apparently, he had bought up the last of the Ai conversion kits from somewhere, found some of the "non-Ai" versions of this lens cheap, converted them, then had them "chipped" (as discussed in an earlier post) by an outfit in Oregon.

 

So, it shows up in the mail yesterday, whereupon, I immediately attach it to the D300 and start shooting away! Initially I had thought that with the current (not optimized for focusing) screen of my camera, I'd need to rely on the focus confirmation indicator in the viewfinder. After looking at my pictures, it turns out that my brain works better than the camera's automation. I had taken several pictures of my daughter in the office, making sure that I was watching the indicator, then went outside and took more of both children riding bikes or scooters in the street. Obviously, with moving subjects, I had to just focus on what I saw and ignore the indicator. Turns out that the pictures taking outside were generally focused correctly whereas the ones I shot inside were not. Not that the inside pictures weren't sharp, they just weren't sharp on the right thing! It was fooled! To say that I was a little surprised would be an understatement. Now that I have the results, I have my new "go-to" low-light lens as well.

This does create a bit of a conundrum though: should I do my 28mm project with the originally planned "E" Series lens, or go with a nicer Nikkor now that I've seen the results of what can be done with a "chipped" older manual focus lens? I do know one thing though: I'm about to sell my Nikkor 50mm/f1.8 "D" auto focus lens!