Sunday, July 7, 2019

Introduction of the Nikon old 135mm f/3.5 AI-S lens




I am fond of old vintage lenses a lot even in this modern age of digital photography where focus locking is happening around 0.02 secs (as per Sony claim) and all these “Eye AF” thingy going on by everyone. There are plenty of reasons in my disposal which still makes me love old lenses, few of them are like …

·      They are cheap, and I mean dirt cheap.
·      They are sharp. And I mean really sharp.
·      They are mostly Prime lenses and Prime always deliver the best optical rendition which you can image in compared to zoom.
·      They come with a lot of “Chromatic Aberration” (AKA C.A.). In my view it is good because it helps to create a 3D feeling on a 2D image plane. How? Well this requires a separate blog which I will try to publish some time later.
·      These lenses push you to get out from your comfort zone and makes you to do things which you have not done before. And like they say, “In order to get what you never had, you need to do what you never did”. And trust me, if you go with this ideology, you will be having some marvelous results.

Well above are the few points among many which I firmly believe. Now coming back to the main point which is …. Introduction of the Nikon 135mm f/3.5 AI-S lens.


Introduction:
Nikon produces some great lenses in the 135mm category range. The one I know and experienced are,

-       135mm f/2 DC (Auto Focus)
-       135mm f/2 AI-S (Manual Focus)
-       135mm f/2.8 AI-S (Manual Focus) 
-       135mm f/3.5 AI-S (Manual Focus)

All of the above lenses are excellent in their own premises. The one we are talking today is 135mm f/3.5 AI-S which was introduced by Nikon as a “BUDGET LENS”. Over the period of time, Nikon launched different configuration of this lens from 5 elements in 5 groups to 4 elements in 4 groups. Less elements means superior image quality, but more group means the lens definitely is not perfect that why optical engineers assemble them into groups to remove the short comings. Why? Well there is a whole lot of description about it which I will share later in some other blog.

When ever you talk about this lens, its superior cousin 135mm f/2.8 AI-S always comes into the picture. Even I also wonder why Nikon made 2 lenses with the same optical quality, same rendition, same size but different focal length. One is f/2.8 & other is f/3.5 which we are talking here. Answer is, one is fast lens and other is budget lens. I own both of them and they literally optical identical. So, it doesn’t matter what focal you own, its one wonderful lens.


Fit & Finish
When you first hold this lens for a very firs time you will be forced to say …. Damn!!! …. (or at least Hmmmm!!!). That lens is all metal construction, including “built-in” metal lens hood. Built like a freaking tank. You drop it on the ground and nothing gonna happen to it. This is why I love old manual focus lens because of their durability. Lens is compact in design (due to no AF mechanism and no VR in it).

Technical Specs:
·      This lens has viewing angle of 18 degree.
·      Weighs around 409 grams which is kind a heavy considering no focus and VR mechanism into the lens.
·      52mm from filter thread, which is kind a surprising was a standard for almost all the old Nikon AI-S lenses which include from wide angle lenses to 200mm.
·      4 elements in 4 groups.
·      7 classic blade apertures.
·      Aperture started from f/3.5 to f/32.
·      Close Focus is 1.3m.
·      Comes with depth of field scale which is very handy.


Optical & General Performance:

When it comes to optical image rendition this lens literally put many other lenses from the same class into shame including Nikon owns 135mm f/2 DC. The sharpness of the lens is constant across all apertures. This lens produces images rich with contrast and color saturation. It does produces micro contrast. This lens is a typical good example to challenge general perception of users towards cheap optics. The f/3.5 version of this lens also provides the best portability among all medium telephoto Nikkor lenses. This is especially true for those who wish to travel light in photo assignments such as travel, mountain climbing, tracking etc. Other than its superior advantage in weight factor, the lens is equally appealing when it comes to its price. Generally, on eBay its available between $50 ~ $100. Below are the sample images of the lens itself including some quick sample images which were taken right from the camera, no editing.





























Babar Swaleheen



#Nikon #vintage #lenses #135mm #photography #babarswaleheen













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