micro-nikkor 105mm f/4 Ai-S!!!

[Erik Lund]

The AIS 105/2.8 micro does have floating elements, the basic structure is a double-gauss 75mm f/2 lens with close range correction applied between the front and rear groups, and a 1.4x teleconverter fixed at the rear, so there are three groups of lenses which should prove a higher level of correction at all distances. Surely the Nikon designers would have wanted their new f/2.8 macro to be superior to the older model over the entire focus range.   

This is interesting Roland where did you get this information from? I always thought the last four elements look like a tele-converter. So as the front elements move forward, they magnify the image and the focal length increases instead of decreasing as most CRC systems do. Regards Gerry

New is not always better regrading all points of performance, clearly this is the case here for 'usable working distance' in front of the lens and focal length shortening (focus) breathing which is the case here compared to the 105mm f/4
This trade off of for introducing floating elements for close up sharpness is obvious.
Sure they wanted the 105mm f/2.8 Ais to be 'better' than the privies versions and they succeeded in most aspects for all use cases  

Design choices; The 70-180mm Micro Nikkor is also a great example, so much research and development went into that design.

[Erik Lund]

I took a series of product images with the 105mm f/4 Micro Nikkor AI-S - Simple to use and reliable!
Last image with 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor AI-SElinchrom RX AS Ranger with two soft boxes

[richardHaw]

wow, so sharp!

this is probably the sharpest 105mm Micro-Nikkor I have used. the Z ones are as real as Pam Anderson's front, they have in-camera editing   this is ms. Dolly Parton...

[gabrielpix]

I noticed when you mentioned the Micro-Nikkor 50mm f2.8 on the previous page the link to Pierre Toscani's website. That site is, or was, an invaluable wealth of information, with illustrations not found anywhere else. Checked again today, like a number of times before, but all the information there seems gone.

Does anybody know what happened, or does anybody know Pierre T? Birna? Roland?

[Bruno Schroder]

I noticed when you mentioned the Micro-Nikkor 50mm f2.8 on the previous page the link to Pierre Toscani's website. That site is, or was, an invaluable wealth of information, with illustrations not found anywhere else. Checked again today, like a number of times before, but all the information there seems gone.

Does anybody know what happened, or does anybody know Pierre T? Birna? Roland?

He closed his site mid 2022. He explained it here (in French): https://www.chassimages.com/forum/index.php?topic=328066.0

Bref, j’ai toujours partagé gratuitement (et à mes frais) une grande partie (pas tout, il est vrai) de mon travail effectué pendant mon temps de loisir, mais il était temps de tourner la page pour me consacrer à autre chose. Aussi, j’ai résilié mon abonnement (très cher) aux logiciels Adobe qui me permettaient de gérer mon site et de réaliser mes illustrations fixes ou animées.

In short, he moved on to other things in his free time. He also stopped his subscriptions to the (very costly) Adobe softwares he used on his site.

Some pages are still accessible on web archive here: https://web.archive.org/web/20220218070332/http://www.pierretoscani.com/

[Erik Lund]

Similar info on lens design:
https://www.photonstophotos.net/GeneralTopics/Lenses/OpticalBench/OpticalBench.htm#Nikon/US005751485/Example09.txt,figureOpacity=0,MarginalO,OffAxis,Pupils,AxisZ,AxisR,AxisO