San Francisco Fillmore District by night

[Tristin]

Nikkor 105mm 1.8 Ai-s @f/11

Excellent lens for night time cityscapes.  Maintains excellent contrast with lots of light sources shining into it and produces very dramatic starbursts.  Sharp all over as well.

[Jakov Minić]

Yes, the image looks clean as a whistle
(I would brighten the sky a bit)

[Bjørn Rørslett]

I think there was a night image with the same lens at f/11 posted earlier that showed the same performance?

Add a CPU to it and it's a perfect work mate for any Nikon camera for the foreseeable future.

Night sky can only be properly "brightened" when you shoot earlier in the evening. Apparently this was done too late so brightening would render the overall scene looking pretty strange.

[Tristin]

Jakov, I like to keep the image as true to the original scene as possible.  Bjorn is right, brightening it would make the picture look unnatural as this was taken around 1am.

Bjorn, I first became interested in trying the f/1.8 version when I saw the image you posted displaying it's spectacular starbursts.  Which was also at f/11, so must have been that one.  Was originally just going to go with the f/2.5 until I saw that post, thanks! 

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Most night scenes require a tripod to be used anyway so stopping down the lens is just 'natural'. Rendition of point light sources improves as well.

[Tristin]

Bjorn, beyond being able to identify the lens used, what does chipping the lenses provide?

[Bill De Jager]

Very nice shot of a very familiar roadway that I used to travel often, years ago.  On the left is Japantown, a victim of the WWII relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans, and later of a 1960s-era urban redevelopment project that destroyed what was left of a historic ethnic district to create a modern and failed imitation.

[Anirban Halder]

Very nice, clean shot Tristin. Love those starts!
FWIW - When I'm in US, I personally take night long exposure shots 20min after sunset, to get the best color of the sky. And that twilight sky only lasts for 5-8 minutes.

[Bjørn Rørslett]

Bjorn, beyond being able to identify the lens used, what does chipping the lenses provide?

Ease of use. All possible shooting, metering, and program modes are available. The lens can be used on *all* available Nikon models be they low- or high-end models. Plus you get better and more consistent metering.

I initiated my comprehensive lens CPU project some ten years ago as a consequence of the above, plus spurred on by annoyance of not getting the full EXIF data when I did test shooting. The latter deficiency was really a problem for setting up and calibrating for my UV photography.

I must have modified hundreds of lenses over the years. Not counted the non-modified lenses at my disposal, but they probably are countable by one hand. Apart from one or two that I keep in their factory state for testing camera features, the remainder will meet their CPU fate sooner or later.