s/n 280972
I’ve heard it said that this is the poor man’s NOCT.
Yeah… I would love to have one but I’m not that kind of rich. The decision I would make for that would be better spent on a Hasselblad. Or maybe a NOCT and a Hasselblad, if I had that kind of resources.
I’m not a professional photographer nor do I aspire to be. I simply enjoy photography and learning about optics, cameras and film, I enjoy figuring it all out and am blogging about my journey here.
I have a lifetime of taking photographs and I thought it would be fun if I wrote about why I enjoy a 50mm lens. I now have a few and even though I already have an excellent 50mm Nikkor, the f1.4 AIS. This lens will perform 99% of what the f1.2 does but I still decided to use the poor man’s NOCT.
In 1977, my father gave me my first 35mm SLR, a Canon TX. The kit lens was the FD 50mm f1.8 S.C. My next camera was a smaller, lighter point and shoot, the Canon Sure Shot; it had a 38mm f2.8 and it was nothing to throw in a backpack or harness bag. It was so small and light, I could hang it on the tip of my hang glider without counterbalancing it. Photos came out great and it was reliable. But I wanted a camera that I could hang on a wing tip and not have to thread a bulb release through the wing and down a wire. I bought a Pentax 90WR, My first zoom lens at 38-90mm f3.5 to 7.8 It also had an infra red remote control so no bulb air line. It put a slight turn in the glider if I didn’t counterweight and I didn’t like favoring one side for thermaling, it got relegated to fly fishing duties in the Sea of Cortez.
I have a lifetime of taking photographs and I thought it would be fun if I wrote about why I enjoy a 50mm lens. I now have a few and even though I already have an excellent 50mm Nikkor, the f1.4 AIS. This lens will perform 99% of what the f1.2 does but I still decided to use the poor man’s NOCT.
In 1977, my father gave me my first 35mm SLR, a Canon TX. The kit lens was the FD 50mm f1.8 S.C. My next camera was a smaller, lighter point and shoot, the Canon Sure Shot; it had a 38mm f2.8 and it was nothing to throw in a backpack or harness bag. It was so small and light, I could hang it on the tip of my hang glider without counterbalancing it. Photos came out great and it was reliable. But I wanted a camera that I could hang on a wing tip and not have to thread a bulb release through the wing and down a wire. I bought a Pentax 90WR, My first zoom lens at 38-90mm f3.5 to 7.8 It also had an infra red remote control so no bulb air line. It put a slight turn in the glider if I didn’t counterweight and I didn’t like favoring one side for thermaling, it got relegated to fly fishing duties in the Sea of Cortez.
A friend of mine I fished with used a Nikon F3 and photographed our salt water fly fishing trips, my camera days were over until another friend, an anesthesiologist who also was a venture capitalist invested in a Sony Mavica for the web site we made. The Mavica lens, a f/1.8–2.9 4.2–42 mm lens gave a 35mm equivalent coverage of 40–400 mm due to the 10x optical zoom. I hated that camera but it was cool because no one had one and it skipped the whole film processing, scanning time. I took pictures that afternoon and that night I shared them online, not a big deal now but back in the late nineties? A pretty big deal, problem was, the image quality sucked. I preferred the F3 shot with Velvia 100 and scanned.
My wife shot film on her Pentax K-1000 and the SMC 50mm f2. So I would use that now and again and it always matched what I saw. Similar to the Canon Kit lens I started with, the 50mm focal length just didn’t disappoint and it seemed just right.
When I bought my FE2, I bought the body first, then I started asking friends, “What are some good lenses for the FE2?” Obviously I found out about the F-mount, then non-AI, AI and AIS. I knew I wanted a 50mm lens and I was told that a lot of photographers liked the Series E, almost a cult classic. I started looking for any 50mm F-mount lenses and just got lost in the, “no scratch, no haze, little fungus, little dust, will not affect photo…” and the money, decent lenses cost money. I found a Series E 50mm and bought it and started taking photographs.
The first batch turned out 3/4’s bad, a little more than my needle matching manual mode taken shots. It made me super sad. I know how to take photos and it wasn’t the focus. I took my camera in for a CLA at a reputable Nikon repair shop. Turns out, the aperture engagement ring on the camera was broken, disengaged inside.
Second roll, good, even a couple of keepers!
I found a wide angle 20mm f2.8 AIS and bought it and shot some street photography. Turns out nice but it just wasn’t the thing I wanted to shoot most of my images with. Back to the Series E. I found a 28mm f2.8 AI, my only AI lens, my first Nikkor and it was $25! Pictures looked great!
I saved. I searched what good lenses that NASA used and bought a 35mm f1.4 AIS.
Yes! Better and got the picture, you want good pics, you need to spend a little money…
Let’s land the plane. I had bought many great lenses, the 15mm f3.5 AIS, 300mm ED, I had a great quiver on AIS glass. I bought the D780 and the killer G 28-300, a lens that rules them all.
And I bought an FG, my EM that I bought for my wife broke again and she just didn’t take an interest in it so I upgraded her to the FG. It had the 50 1.4, whoa.
The pictures came out fantastic.
I read about the 50mm Nikkor AIS and the NOCT was the lens of choice but nope. So I bought this lens and now I’m loving my choices.
50mm is my choice and when I don’t know, I have Zooms and when I want specialty, I got that and when I want hundreds of photos of varying focal lengths, I have the DSLR that can mount all the lenses including this one.
It took me a while to get back to 50. I have a total of 5ea of 50mm focal lengths and two Series E 50’s. 50 is my favorite. It’s fun learning photography, reading about what others like. Studying, comparing and then after understanding from experience, and looking back, what others have said, comparing to your own experience.
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| Purchased from a Japanese seller on eBay |
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