s/n 284618
I bought this lens in a private sale for $50. Looking back, it was really a good buy. The glass is clear, not scratched and everything works as it should, it looks newish however it has lens creep. The focus barrel moves freely. The focus and zoom is fine, it just won’t hold on its own when the lens is tilted. I never one hand hold my camera/lens so no big deal. I’ve taken a few pictures with it up on Wonderview Rd on Camelback Mountain with the EM and the magnification fell short. But at the time, I didn’t understand focal lengths, I thought I could just buy my subject closer, I had it all wrong and understand now.
It was embarrassing to have purchased this lens once I began to understand how a zoom worked so I placed it in a storage bin in the closet. A couple of months ago, I pulled it out, I might sell it but decided, no, I’m going to keep it and use it to understand why this type of lens was made. I’m understanding much much more about focal lengths and choices in lenses from using them. I’ll use it for what it was designed for, I’m starting to understand why.
Anyway, I put a Hoya Skylight Filter on it to protect the front element and I bought the HN-23 lens hood for it. Now that I’ve used it, I’ll take it out for a day of rock art hunting where I’ll be asking the lens to frame pictures at varying distances. I believe it might also work with some alpine stream meadow photography. Or even pictures of beach fly fishing during the day but not in the early light.
On any account, let’s see what I can do with it.
The below images are from an afternoon of purposeful use with this lens in mind. I like this lens, inexpensive but quite useful. I won’t hesitate to call on it as well as its bigger brother, the Nikkor 100-300 f5.6 AIS.
As I review each old lens in my kit, I am realizing how much I’m learning by doing. It’s a lot of fun to play with these decades old lenses. They work so well and are truly amazing pieces of glass, metal and pretty enamel paint. No doubt, I am super impressed.
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| Nikon FG with the Zoom 80-200 f4 Ai-S |
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