NikonGear'23
Gear Talk => Lens Talk => Topic started by: BruceSD on April 18, 2026, 08:29:30
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Over the decades, I've shot many digital camera systems. These days, I've mostly put away my newish/expensive/modern digital cameras, and I am primarily shooting with 15-20 year old digital cameras with CCD sensors.
I love the deep and rich colors these vintage DSLRs produce, and I am looking for advice on which Nikkor lenses make the richest colors when paired with vintage CCD sensor bodies (e.g. D200, D3000, D80, etc.). I prefer over-the-top colors over realistic colors, and sharpness is not very important to me.
Here's a link to a gallery that showcases images with the types of colors that appeal to me - https://www.flickr.com/photos/f2guru/galleries/72157723464120215/
So, which Nikkor lenses have you found that render rich "Eye Candy" colors?
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I am quite sure those saturated colors are from post processing. Out of the box they will look much more "realistic".
The later multi-coated Nikkors have more contrast/color than the older single coated.
I will vote for a multi coated prime.
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I'm hoping to hear of some specific Nikkor lenses that enhance and deepen colors. What lenses from your collection do you use when shooting subjects with vibrant colors?
Some of my current favorite lenses I use for enhanced colors are the Leica R 50mm f/2 Summicron, and the Voigtlander Color Heliar 75mm f/2.5 SL.
Certainly, image colors can be manipulated in post. I once read that a photographer could make his CMOS sensor images look like CCD images, but it took him over 20 steps in post to do it. I like great colors out of camera and don't care to spend time in post unless necessary.
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All the modern Nikkors shows nice saturated colors.
In the film days when I used Velvia I godt nice colors from my Nikkor-OC 35/2 and Nikkor-HC 85/1.8 and later also the AIS Nikkor 35/1.4.
The AIS Nikkor 50/1.8 and 50/2 was also very good with nice rich colors.
I think it is all about the quality of the lens coatings and have as few internal reflections as possible.
And to get the very "over" saturated colors you linked to some post processing is needed.
Maybe the Nikon body has a JPEG profile that enhance the colors (a Velva profile)?
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Thanks so much for your detailed response!
I happen to own a copy of the Nikkor 50/2 lens that you mentioned. I plan to try it out on some of my many CCD bodies.
I have previously owned the 85/1.8 H.C. lens, but sold it because I thought it's out of focus rendering was far too busy for my taste.
Unfortunately, I don't currently own the other Nikkor lenses you mentioned, but I will be watching out for copies of them on eBay and will buy them if the price is right.
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I personally like the results with the Nikkor AF-D 50mm f/1.4 and the Nikkor AIS 28mm f/2.8 but I haven't test all lenses on CCD camera's. Also the Nikkor AFS 17-35mm f/2.8 is a strong performer.
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I shoot a lot with a D200, and the colors are as you describe; sometimes the results with this type of camera are very pleasing. The photo in the link was taken with an old Russian lens, the JUPITER - 11, 4/135.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/202792064@N05/54766041608/in/dateposted-public/
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I personally like the results with the Nikkor AF-D 50mm f/1.4 and the Nikkor AIS 28mm f/2.8 but I haven't test all lenses on CCD camera's. Also the Nikkor AFS 17-35mm f/2.8 is a strong performer.
This is an example shot with Ais 28/2.8 John mentioned. The camera is D40 with a 6MP CCD, and the NEF raw file is converted to JPEG using the latest ACR and Nikon's own "Standard" picture control with no tweak of the sliders. Food for thought.
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Having said that, I was impressed by the pleasingly saturated color rendition of current Cosina/Zeiss Planar 50mm f1.4. The camera was a SIGMA fp with a CMOS sensor, but I felt the difference. It is an F-mount lens with Ais chip.
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Example with the D80 and AFS 17-35/2.8
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Everyone, thanks so much for your great suggestions! I can't wait to purchase and try out a number of the lenses that you have recommended.
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I thought I had responded but seem not to have pushed the button. I'm not terribly well versed in the subtleties of color, and don't usually worry too much about it, but I particularly like the way that the old 200/4Q lens gets colors, as well as just general nice looks, especially with greens. This may have something to do with the fact that I use it mostly for bug hunting in the grass and cattails, with a bunch of extension tubes, but in any case I like it. It's a nice lens actually to use, anyway, and it is quite comfortable with about as much extension as you can fit on it (I often use all 68 mm of my old Vivitar set), making it a somewhat odd long focal length macro. Since this lens can be crazily cheap at times, I think it well worth playing with anyway.
I'm traveling and have no access to any examples, but if you like chasing bugs this is a surprisingly enjoyable one to try.
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Every time light passes from air to glass and glass to air some light is reflected at the air-glass boundary, and goes back into the air or back into the glass. Then it ricochets around and some goes back out the way it came and some is absorbed by the non-reflective interior paint of the lens but some reaches the sensor/film as "flare" and lowers colour saturation and contrast.
The more air-glass boundaries you have the more light is reflected instead of transmitted, so the short answer to your question is that you want lenses with the fewest number of elements. If you look at Roland Vink's database http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/lenses.html you will see that the number of elements is lowest for manual focus lenses with focal lengths between 85 and 135 or so. The very highly-regarded 105/2.5 Ai-S, eg, has 5 elements in 4 groups and the 24/2.8 Ai-S has 9 elements in 9 groups, so flare will be about twice as bad in the 24mm and saturation and contrast will be less. Lens coatings make a big difference, and modern coatings are why modern lenses can have more elements and not have problems with flare, but, coatings being equal, fewer elements is what you need to look for.
The reason older cameras have more saturated colours is not the CCD sensor. All digital sensors are monochrome, and the coloured image is created by the Bayer array of coloured filters over the photosites which computer power turns into a coloured image. There is no difference between the camera doing it and you doing it, except that what you get from the camera is the way Nikon engineers thought looked nice and what you get from the computer is what you think looks nice. Older cameras had more saturated colours because people transitioning to digital expected pictures to look like the slide film they were using, especially Fuji Velvia, which was very saturated and contrasty, so that is what the engineers gave them by default.
People often say that slides had a vividness and impact that they don't see with digital images. The reason is the same as the reason for the vividness and impact of the stained glass windows in medieval cathedrals: they are lit from behind, and increased brightness increases perceived saturation. Your images will be more vivid if you increase your monitor brightness, so you can't judge how good your images are out of the camera if you haven't adjusted your monitor brightness carefully, and you have to be careful asking other people's opinion, because they won't see what you see if their screen brightness is different. You have to be very careful about prints, because a print is reflected light so it does not benefit from the magic of transmitted light and a printed image will look terrible if you prepare it on a too-bright screen.
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It is my belief that the main way to get high color saturation is to photograph objects and scenes that have high color saturation.
I agree with Les: If you are limiting the choices to vintage Nikkors, the ones that have fewer lens elements (plus multi-layer AR coating, which happened in the early-to-mid 1970's) might be the best direction to head towards. Example: It is my observation that the Nikkor 28/2.8 K/Ai (7 elements) has slightly more saturated (less washed-out) color than the 8 element 28/2.8 AiS that replaced it in the lineup.
The only lenses I've used that seem to deliver greater color saturation compared to vintage Nikon, modern Zeiss, and modern Nikon lenses are the recent Voigtlander Apo Lanthar lenses. I've got the 35/2 and 28/2 in that series. I think they give the impression of greater color saturation because they have greater contrast...the two qualities are related. However: No lenses can, by themselves, significantly flip pale or dull colors into bright saturated colors.
Remember film? You could buy a color film that provided "normal" contrast and normal color saturation, or you could get a film that was known to "punch up' color saturation and contrast, like Fuji Velvia.
Well, here we are in th digital age, and what we used to do by selecting the type of film, most of us now do with processing raw files.
But you want to accomplish it with JPEG files. OK.
Some Nikons have a way to jack up the saturation in the JPEGs that the camera produces.
My oldest Nikon is a D800E camera, which has adjustments for brightness, contrast, saturation and hue in the in the JPEG rendering engine that Nikon calls "Picture Controls". I don't know if the earlier Nikons have these adjustments. I would suggest increasing color saturation and contrast if those adjustments are available on your cameras.
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I strongly recommend shooting NEF (Raw) and use software that offers LCH (Master Lightness, Chroma, Hue and Color Lightness).
Use an "S" curve in the Master Lightness pallet by drawing down or pinning the shadow level and raise the mid-highlight. Play with this. This technique punches the mid tones at the expense of the shadow and highlight contrast. You can't escape this punching of the mid tones as it's built into the cameras as it was in film. The best (or worst) you can do in Nikon to rid yourself of this S curve thing is use a the Flat Picture Control and don't use LCH in post.
This punching of the mid tones has been a feature of photography since the beginning of time. It's a feature of negatives and printing paper and it's present in transparency films.
Ansel Adams is looking down and smiling whenever he sees a modern digital photographer using LCH in post processing. Russel Brown of Adobe said that Brightness and Contrast were included in Photoshop for amateurs where amateur meant unskilled.
I can understand people shooting NEF plus JPG to have an immediate JPG to upload to the Web but not throwing out all the flexibility of shooting JPG only. When you shoot JPG you can choose a Picture Control, Neutral, Standard, Vivid, etc. but once you press the shutter release it's baked into the JPG. With an NEF in post processing you can select all of the shots in a folder full of NEF and assign a picture control to all of them at once with just a few clicks. Then if you like you can pick out individual shots and tweak them as you like. With an NEF you can shoot color and then in post switch to Black & White. You can simulate any color filter, red, orange, yellow, green blue in Photoshop. With NEF you can shoot with a Flat Monochrome Picture Control to make Ansel Adams Retch then simulate a Wratten #29 deep red filter and then punch the image even more with LCH to simulate N+2 development.
I remember an interview with Ansel Adams in 1982. He knew what was coming. It was like he was standing at the top of Mount Nebo looking into the promised land.
Dave