Nikkor 600mm f/5.6 ED (non-if) Version

[MEPER]

How does a long focal length lens render compared to a telefoto lens?
Does one of them have better "3D" effect than the other type?

[Birna Rørslett]

If time permits, I might be able to run parallel tests with 400 and 600mm lenses.

[Birna Rørslett]

I tried the 800mm f/8ED briefly today. The target is a farmstead situated approx. 1.6km away. As this was done in daytime, air turbulence by heat waves is a major factor in getting proper focus and also robbing the outcome of top sharpness.

With these caveats in mind, here are firstly the lens (using the tiny Z30 as a suitable yard stick), and thereafter,  the result from Z fc. By the way, using the finderless Z30 for such long lenses in bright sunshine is not optimal -- quite the opposite -- thus I ended up using the Z fc instead.

[MEPER]

Sharpness looks ok.
If size was not an issue are long focal length lenses superior compared to telelens designs?

If Nikon with current knowledge and glass options decided to make a 800mm long focal length lens?
It probably needs to be very good if people should decide to carry much more and also forced to use a large tripod.

[Birna Rørslett]

Highly unlikely Nikon would deviate from the current trend of making lighter weight telephoto lenses. For example the new 800/6.3 which is optically excellent and weighs just 2.3 kg. In their advertising, they show a girl holding the 800

[MEPER]

I could "live" with a 800/6.3. A good fit for my Z50 :-)
These very compact and high performance teles are probably also used by special forces to document what happens in the field for various reasons.
I remember the old 1200-1700mm zoom where such a "thing". Only large etats etc. could afford one.

[Roland Vink]

How does a long focal length lens render compared to a telefoto lens?
Does one of them have better "3D" effect than the other type?

Long focal length lenses have relatively symmetrical optics so don't suffer from distortion. Telephoto designs typically have some pincushion distortion although it is usually mild and easily corrected, and modern designs compensate for it quite well.

However, I'm not sure how distortion would affect the "3D" rendering of a lens. I expect that would be determined more by the optical design and use of special glasses to correct of spherical and colour aberrations. You could test this by shooting a long focal length lens and then adding a teleconverter (which effectively turns the lens in to a telephoto) and comparing the results.

[MEPER]

I am missing the really long lenses. Nikkor-Q 200/4 is probably a long focal lens design.
It could be fun to have one of each design to compare. The 200/3.5 ED is just a bit shorter and is an IF design same with AI 200/4 micro.

[knb]

It is called «the first true telephoto F-mount lens» by Nikon: https://imaging.nikon.com/imaging/information/story/0048/

I have the Nikkor-Q.C version. Impressing mechanical quality, maybe not equally impressed by the optics. Not all that bad though.

[MEPER]

Ok, Telephoto because rear lens "group" acts as a teleconverter......
I will have a look at the AI 200/4 micro to see if this is a Telephoto or could be a true "long" focal length lens.......maybe I don't have any of those :-)

[Birna Rørslett]

This article might help clarify the concepts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephoto_lens

[Hugh_3170]

This is an interesting read from the 1001 nights;  my apologies to those that have already seen it: https://imaging.nikon.com/imaging/information/story/0050/

I did not realise how large the image circle of these lenses are;  the 1001 nights link above refers to the lenses also being used on Bronica focussing units at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

[Birna Rørslett]

Concurrent use for the F and Bronica cameras was a major design goal for the Nikkor lens heads. The user only would purchase different focusing adapters.

[MEPER]

Then I am quite confident that I have no long focal length lenses.
Even the Nikkor Q 200/4 is shorter then 200 mm. I was sure it was about 20 cm but it is a bit shorter and is also declared as a telephoto lens by Nikon.

[Roland Vink]

The Nikkor-Q 200mm is less "telephoto" than the Nikkor*ED 600mm discussed here, and probably the best option which is easily available. That could be put up against the AI or AIS 200/4, which is definitely a telephoto design.

If you want to try other non-telephoto lens you might have to look at older Nikkor-Q 135mm lenses. Even with these lenses, efforts were made to make them shorter than a symmetrical gauss, tessar or cooke triplet design would have been, so they are already tending towards telephoto type with positive (convex) groups at the front and negative (concave) groups towards the middle or rear. Also, at 135mm, they are really "medium focus" rather than "long focus"