Yesterday UPS left something on my doorstep.
I proudly present:
My first camera, with motordrive, and my very first zoom lens.
This, along with a Nikon FM2, a 17mm f3,5 Tokina lens, a 50mm f2 Ai and 55mm f3,5 Ai micro Nikkor formed my complete photography kit for almost 10 years from 1995 to 2005.
I loved the lens, but after buying the 80-200 f2,8 AF-D it did not see much use anymore. Now that my lens kit has grown and I no longer take "just" a 20mm, 55mm and 105mm with me I found the big AF 80-200 to be bigger then I'd like. It just takes up a lot of space that is also occupied by a 16mm Fish-eye Nikkor, the 20, 55, 105 and occasionally the 200mm f4 Nikkor-Q.C or any of the 135mm lenses. Add to that both a digital and an analogue camera and I would either need a bigger bag, or need to scale down in packing size.
So, with that not really in my mind, I started to miss the mechanical perfection of th e80-200 f4 Ai-S recently. I used the Nikon FM on a few trips, and it just didn't feel the same without the zoom, so I decided NOT to look for one on ebay.
After Kristina telling me a hundred times that I really should not look at the 80-200 f4 Ai-S that much on ebay (and that I should stop drooling on one or two occasions) I accidentally made a lowball offer on a lens from a German seller.
Reviewing the offer I thought of 3 things:
-I really miss this lens
-No way is that seller going to accept my offer
-So what do I tell Kristina?
The seller did not flog me. He accepted my offer within minutes, and while I was driving to Kristinas parents. So I did not see that I actually bought the lens until some time later. When I did I instantaniously paid for the lens and told Kristina that a "mishap" had happened and that I had no clue as to the how and why.
I already made some boring test chart shots at my usual working distances to see how this copy performs, and I'm thrilled. This lens could very well become a frequent resident of my camera bag, depending on where I go and how light I want to pack.
What I still want to do is take some real photos with the lens and see how it performs. OoF rendering and such. Sharpness is well up there with the 135mm and 200mm primes I tested it against.
More to follow soon...
