A little while ago, I thought I would try my old 30 year old 50mm f1.8 nikkor on my Nikon D80. It certainly works well and the sharpness is truly amazing. The photograph below of Sinclair Bay would have been almost impossible, or certainly not be a ‘keeper’ if I had used my 18-200 vr zoom lens. Purely because of the lack of sharpness in the modern 18-200, a lot of the subtleties in the image would have been lost in a muddy smeared sort of way. The weather conditions were atrocious, very windy and the air laden with sea spray, but the softness created by the spray and lighting, contrasting against the sea and rough ambiance, made it an opportunity too good to miss.
Of course, using such an old lens, made before digital imaging was a twinkle in Mr. Nikons eye, left me with a completely manual camera. No auto focus, no metering, nothing, just shutter and aperture. It was a refreshing experience, I set the focus by using the depth of field scale on the lens, an set the exposure from experience. The first shot was over done, but with being able to see what I had taken immediately afterwards, it’s no great issue to adjust exposure and take a few more shots. I think I took 6 in all to get the one I wanted.
See what you think, very little done on the computer afterwards, so as near to a straight out of the camera shot as you will get.
