Reviews > Lens portraits with the Nikon Df

Lens "porn" with the Df: The 'Pancake' lenses

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Bjørn Rørslett:
[ Posted 11 January 2014 - 19:17 ]

jrflanne, on 11 Jan 2014 - 19:03, said: I have a 45mm P pancake sitting on my desk staring at me. It wants a Df. Bad.


I tried the two existing "pancakes", 45 mm f/2.8 GN and 45 mm f/2.8 AIS-P on the Df. True enough, the entire outfit becomes very compact, but in my opinion, these lenses can be troublesome because the grip is poor due to the very narrow aperture and focusing rings. In fact, of the two, the older 45 GN probably is the better handling in terms of grip. However unless you disengage the coupling between aperture and focus rings, it is very stiff to focus and there is the added drawback focusing works backwards from the usual Nikkor behaviour. Neither lens is a candidate for winter shooting when you wear gloves :D

A friend of mine, Jakov Minić, loves the 45 Ai-P on his Df and has produced wonderful images with this combination. I cannot do that due to the handling issues outlined above, though.

Here are the two "pancake" Nikkors for comparison. The 45 P in foreground, behind it the 45 GN . On the Df itself I have mounted an old pre-WWII Zeiss Tessar 50 mm f/2.8 (sits inside a focusing extension and will give infinity focus). The CPU of the 45 GN reads 44 mm f/2.8 to discern it from the 45 P (which, of course, is 45 mm f/2.8 ). The vintage Zeiss has badly hazed glass which is the reason I got it in the first place, to act as a soft-focus lens, a task it performs admirably. The brightness of this lens is lower than the other two so its CPU reads 50 mm f/3 and in contrast to the Nikkors, the CPU works only in "G" mode (the Nikkors are both "P").

Danulon:
@Bjørn Rørslett : Did you try the Voigtländer 40 mm Pancake on your Df?
It's compact, but at least for my fingers still quite usable. And I like its optical quality.
Btw. you fixed mine in Mannheim last year (a kitchen table and match sticks for fixing the cpu that had gotten loose).

Cheers,
Günther

Jakov Minić:
Here is an example of why I like the 45P and the Df.
I took this shot today at f/8.

John Geerts:
Great colours.   That's what I like about the 45P, it's magical colour-rendition ;)

charlie:

--- Quote from: Jakov Minić on April 01, 2016, 17:46:29 ---Here is an example of why I like the 45P and the Df.
I took this shot today at f/8.

--- End quote ---

The colors, perspective, and depth of this view.
I like what you've done here, Jakov.

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