Vintage Nikkors

[MEPER]

When I see a nice vintage Nikkor for sale in good condition and with mint glass it is difficult not to grab it.....like these two I got.
Even that I have more samples of them I want to give them a nice home and they will probably always be worth some money.
Especially the Nikkor-H 85/1.8 I like very much. My father used it on his Nikkormat and I got it AI-converted when I got a FE2. A shame the old aperture ring was not returend by Nikon when doing the AI-conversion. Then it could be made original again. This was the H-C version. The newly acquired is just a H.

I think this link tells a bit of the lens quality and I also remember the lens was used in the movie "Blow-Up"......I forgot that. I got the DVD just for that purpose. It turned out to also be a nice movie.....
An original hood for the 85/1.8 was also included.
When I see a nice vintage Nikkor for sale in good condition and with mint glass it is difficult not to grab it.....like these two I got.
Even that I have more samples of them I want to give them a nice home and they will probably always be worth some money.
Especially the Nikkor-H 85/1.8 I like very much. My father used it on his Nikkormat and I got it AI-converted when I got a FE2. A shame the old aperture ring was not returend by Nikon when doing the AI-conversion. Then it could be made original again. It was the H-C version. The newly acquired is just a H.

I think this link tells a bit of the lens quality and I also remember the lens was used in the movie "Blow-Up"......I forgot that. I got the DVD just for that purpose. It turned out to also be a nice movie.....
An original hood for the 85/1.8 was also included.
http://pindelski.org/Photography/2013/02/22/nikkor-h-85mm-f1-8-lens/

I have observed that photo stores where I live don't have that many MF Nikkors for sale. Few years back a lot of F-mount (non-AI) was for sale and not very expensive. Now they are as good as AI/AIS as they mounts equally well on the mirrorless cameras via an adapter. Some may even prefer the full-metal versions. It is just difficult to find these where the metal focus-ring is in mint condition so I must accept that some black paint is missing by normal use (and not abuse).

Both quite classical Nikkors?

[Hugh_3170]

I would say so - and well done on your "find".

Many of us have copies of the various 105mm f/2.5 lens versions.  Maybe my favourite Nikkor.

Good copies of the 55mm Micro Nikkors can be obtained fairly inexpensively and they work well on modern DSLRs and Z cameras.

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Both quite classical Nikkors?

[Akira]

Nice pair of vintage mid-teles!

Personally, I prefer the 105/2.5s from this period owing to their seven rounded aperture blades to the 85/1.8s that always had six straight blades.

[MEPER]

Yes, the 105 has slightly rounded blades or in fact both have rounded aperture blades but on the 105 P-C the aperture hole looks a bit rounded (7-blade) compared to the 85 H (6-blade) and the 105/2.5 AIS (7-blade). Maybe the aperture blades on 105 P-C have more arc to it. I wonder if Nikon was aware of this small difference because all aperture blades have en arc to it?

[Erik Lund]

These guys downtown Copenhagen usually has a nice selection https://oneofmanycameras.com/
Non-AI usual being quite reasonable priced.

[MEPER]

Yes, they have some I can see......a shame the Nikkor S-C 55/1.2 is a bit in the "high end"...... :-)    a lens I have never owned / tried.....

[Akira]

Yes, the 105 has slightly rounded blades or in fact both have rounded aperture blades but on the 105 P-C the aperture hole looks a bit rounded (7-blade) compared to the 85 H (6-blade) and the 105/2.5 AIS (7-blade). Maybe the aperture blades on 105 P-C have more arc to it. I wonder if Nikon was aware of this small difference because all aperture blades have en arc to it?

If I understand correctly, all versions of 85/1.8 Nikkor had six straight aperture blades, unlike 105/2.5.  My wild guess is to realize the announced fps of the continuous shooting with the motor drive.

Incidentally, I briefly had a very early version of 105/2.5 with nine curved aperture blades whose bokeh rendition was so smooth and beautiful.

[Jack Dahlgren]

If I understand correctly, all versions of 85/1.8 Nikkor had six straight aperture blades, unlike 105/2.5.  My wild guess is to realize the announced fps of the continuous shooting with the motor drive.

Incidentally, I briefly had a very early version of 105/2.5 with nine curved aperture blades whose bokeh rendition was so smooth and beautiful.

I know some don't like it, but the 6 straight blades in the 85mm make out-of-focus highlights into hexagons which can be attractive in some circumstances.

[MEPER]

Both lenses have rounded blades. But still the 85/1.8 looks like a hexagon unless it is at f/2 or maybe f/2.8 where it looks slightly rounded.
The 105/2.5 have seven blades and each blade is maybe a bit more rounded so aperture looks more rounded.

Do you think this is something Nikon has thought about when designing the lens and tried various solutions?
It seems a bit "random" if they go for 6,7 or 9 aperture blades and also how rounded they are.

If it is very important there should have been some choices to select from or a 3rd party could have designed a speciel aperture for the lenses?
Richard Haw and others working a lot with lens repairs could probably quite easy install a new special aperture?    ....or making their own?

[MEPER]

Looked at another of my vintage Nikkors.....the GN.
It has 9 rounded blades and it forms a quite nice round aperture.
Why 9 and not 7 blades in this one?

For night shots there can be an argument for a special "star effect". Odd no. of blades doubles the "star lines" etc.
For this lens I look for an original lens hood with F-logo as it is one of the older GN's. But it seems people thinks the hood for the lens is made of gold......it can cost more than the lens itself.

[Roland Vink]

Both lenses have rounded blades. But still the 85/1.8 looks like a hexagon unless it is at f/2 or maybe f/2.8 where it looks slightly rounded.
The 105/2.5 have seven blades and each blade is maybe a bit more rounded so aperture looks more rounded.

Do you think this is something Nikon has thought about when designing the lens and tried various solutions?
It seems a bit "random" if they go for 6,7 or 9 aperture blades and also how rounded they are.

Nikon started making lenses for rangefinder cameras. Rangefinder lenses are always at the shooting aperture and are set manually. This means the diaphragm can be relatively robust with many aperture blades (up to 16) for a nicely rounded opening. SLR lenses need to move from full aperture to stopped down very quickly, so the aperture blades must be very light-weight and clean.

The first F-mount Nikkors had 9 aperture blades, a relatively high count like the rangefinder lenses. This was possibly too heavy or too much friction between all the blades making them slow and causing exposure errors at high shutter speeds. They soon reduced to 6 blades for snappier performance. Starting with the Nikkor-O 35/2 in 1965, Nikon started using 7 aperture blades on some lenses, mostly the higher-spec faster lenses. The 7-sided opening gives background blurs a nicer more organic appearance (IMO) and more spectacular 14-point diffraction stars. The Nikkor-H 85/1.8 from 1964 was too early to receive this new feature. Unfortunately it was never upgraded over its lifetime, even when with the transition to the New-Nikkor (K) version.

I am not sure why the 45 GN lens was given 9 aperture blades. Due to the GN feature it does stop down unusually far - to f/32 - so maybe the designers were trying to minimize the effects of diffraction by making the aperture as round as possible? It's worth noting that only the first 15000 45 GN units have 9 aperture blades, from around serial no 725xxx the lens has a 7-blade aperture instead.

By the early 1970s the number of aperture blades on Nikkor lenses was a bit random. Most had 6 aperture blades which had carried through from the 1960s. The Nikkor-H 28/3.5 had just 5 blades. Most new models were given 7 blades, and by the mid 1970s the big telephotos had 9 aperture blades. This pattern continues to the current day.

Rounded aperture blades did not really start to appear until the introduction of the 135DC and 105DC lenses (GN excepted). Even then it was a long time before this feature was introduced to other lenses . The curved, but not fully rounded aperture blades found on the later Nikkor-P 105/2.5 and Nikkor-Q 135/3.5 may have been a happy accident, as the AIS versions reverted to straight-edge aperture blades. If it was a design feature, why did it not appear on other lenses much sooner? This would have been a very simple and cheap way to make the lenses a bit better, but I think the concept of bokeh and the shape of background blurs was not given much attention until much later. Note that even "straight" aperture blades are usually have a slight S-bend as seen on the 85/1.8 above, they are not perfectly straight, but the curvature is insignificant and does not give the opening a nice rounded shape.

[Birna Rørslett]

In case of the 45GN, aperture and focusing are interconnected. You dial in the ISO and focus which directly sets the aperture. Maybe a high number of blades were thought to be required to make this linkage work with sufficient precision? Hard to say. The GN is probably the only Nikkor that focus the "wrong" way, again due to the linked aperture.

Decoupling the linkage is recommended if the GN is to be used frequently as in the stock layout, the wear of the focusing cam is considerable.

[MEPER]

It makes sense that when cameras with motordrive got faster and faster no. of aperture blades were reduced.

My GN Nikkor is decoupled. I have only tried once to couple the aperture to distance to check out how it works.
It was my intention to compare the GN Nikkor with 45/2.8 P but has not yet made that test. I can understand that the 45/2.8 P is not that well-made (some plastic inside).
45/2.8 P has 7 aperture blades but makes.....not a perfect....but quite rounded hole. The distance scale goes from 5m to infinity (short travel) while the GN Nikkor has 30m and from there quite a travel to infinity. The focus movement is very small from 30m to infinity. It almost feels like "slack" in the focus but it moves. From 5m to infinity there is almost 1/4 turn or so. The focus helicoid must be a bit special. It is probably because from 5m to infinity quite a lot happens with aperture when it is coupled. From 5m to infinity focus can be adjusted very accurate. Funny lens.....

[Akira]

I know some don't like it, but the 6 straight blades in the 85mm make out-of-focus highlights into hexagons which can be attractive in some circumstances.

Only if the hexagonal bokeh can be effective as some preferable compositional element, I think.

For night shots there can be an argument for a special "star effect". Odd no. of blades doubles the "star lines" etc.

That would depend on personal taste.  The six-ray star effect is not my cup of tea, unfortunately.  I would always prefer seven-blade aperture for the 14-ray star effect, even to eight- or ten-blade aperture.

[Birna Rørslett]

I have bothe the GN and the 45P. The newer lens has better contrast, however in terms of sharpness they are quite similar. The 45P might better towards the corners.

By the way, the GN uses a focusing cam, not the traditional helicoid. This is proably was makes its focusing feel hard and with play. The decoupled modification hels with the stiffness, but not with the sense of play and slack.