Early Nikkor-HC 5cm F2 Rigid LTM NKT, compared with Classic Sonnars

You’re a bad influence on me. Picked up a later Sonnar to see what all the fuss was about. Bought it to have something faster than the Elmar to use on my Barnacks. Serial number is 651819 , price worked to ~ $180 , glass is clean, no coating marks. It even came with a rear lens cap in the form of a very nice Nicca 3-S. ;-)

Now all I have to do is make time to expose some film…….

Glenn
 
Tim Read said:
@Sonnar Brian - have you described elsewhere in a thread what the change in the optics involved or means. If so please direct me to it and if not can you do so now if you have the time. Thanks.
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The Infrared Mark is a measure of the amount of Chromatic Aberration of a lens. The IR mark being at a higher F-Stop indicates more chromatic aberration. A lens with the IR mark at F2.8 has less CA than one at F5.6. The optics of the F2.8 IR index lenses were either different to achieve less CA, OR Nikon just got the calculation wrong. The only way to know is to test the lens. I have a full-spectrum Olympus EP2.
 
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Sonnar Brian said:
The optics of the F2.8 IR index lenses were either different to achieve less CA, OR Nikon just got the calculation wrong. The only way to know is to test the lens. I have a full-spectrum Olympus EP2.
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Another potential option... the guy who set up the lens barrel engraving machine got it wrong 😆
I'll be very interested to see the results if you do manage to test the lens!
 
I have Two Nikkor-HC 5cm F2 S-Mount lenses, an early Rigid "5008" series lens and a slightly later NKJ 635xxx lens. I picked up the 5008 lens for Parts- what I would call Damaged or "Dead" glass. Enough visible to the eye to make you not want to use it. The NKJ lens is perfect. Mint. Beautiful. Has the metal Black Cap.

I now call them Vincent and Old Bob.
RIMG0119-1.jpg
Vincent_OldBOB.jpg

Close up of the 5008 series lens:
RIMG0120-2.jpgRIMG0122-4.jpg

The surface of the glass "is just beat up!"
And the NKJ:
RIMG0121-3.jpgRIMG0123-5.jpg

I shot both on the M240. The biggest difference in the images: the damaged lens produces lower contrast images.
Not bad for a lens that I've used for a Body cap for almost 20 years.

Full res here Old Bob:
ibb.co

Nikkor 5cm F2 "5008" series

"Rough glass".
ibb.co ibb.co

Full res Vincent:

ibb.co

Nikkor 5cm F2 635xxx

Perfect Glass S-Mount Nikkor
ibb.co ibb.co
 
And now with "Vincent"... Perfect Glass lens.
F2 and F4 pair,
M2405853.jpgM2405854.jpg
M2405847.jpg

Wide-Open.
M2405848.jpgM2405849.jpgM2405851.jpgM2405852.jpgM2405855.jpg

I was going to pop the glass from this one and put it into the NKJ LTM barrel- but going to leave everything in place. I can use this lens on an adapter, and the NKJ LTM lens is way better than I thought it would be. Old Bob now sits on a Nikon S.
 
jonmanjiro said:
Another potential option... the guy who set up the lens barrel engraving machine got it wrong 😆
I'll be very interested to see the results if you do manage to test the lens!
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I can see why the 5cm F2 lens has the IR mark at F2.8: This is in the S-mount camera body instructions. My original Nikon SP manual states to use F2.8 for the 5cm F2, F4 for the 5cm F1.4, and F5.6 for the 5cm F1.1.
I will test the lenses. Plural... another earlier NKT 5cm F2 in LTM popped up on Ebay, and it needs me. Another with Oil on the surface behind the aperture.

www.ebay.com

Nippon Kogaku *Tokyo* Nikon 50mm 5cm Nikkor- H.C f/2 Lens Leica M39 L39 LTM | eBay

Nikon Nippon Kogaku 50mm Nikkor-H. C Tokyo f/2 #618104. Early Tokyo lens has nice glass but needs oil condensation / haze cleaned from behind the aperture. Optics have no scratches, fungus, or separation.
www.ebay.com

What is odd: the other NKT 5cm F2 lenses I've seen has a black paint rim, mine is chrome.
 
SO- I ended up swapping out the rear doublet on the above Nikkor-HC 5cm F2. Also turned out it needed to be shimmed. I discovered that Shims from the pre-war collapsible CZJ 5cm f2 Sonnar work. Inner diameter is smaller, but it does not matter. Some J-8 shims could not be squeezed in, outer diameter "slightly" too big.

The lens is beautiful, the front group is near perfect- better that the first two. The rear group- coating is damaged, at some point I will remove it.

Tools to take the lens apart: Spanner for rear retaining ring that holds the barrel in the mount; Rubber Cork to remove from element; and either a custom made tool that slips over the rear fixture and grabs recessed slots OR as shown a metal tube that fits firmly onto the rear of the fixture- 23.25mm inner diamater. I am using a tube cut from a tripod leg, works by dumb luck.

Oil build up- I am 3 for 5 for cleaning up perfectly, 2 bad- got into the coating. I had a replacement from the same batch from a lens with unusable front group.
RIMG0157.jpgRIMG0158.jpgRIMG0159.jpgRIMG0161.jpgRIMG0162.jpg
 
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#750,xxx NKJ. Black belt. I really like the image quality and skin tones of the f2 version. In fact, I prefer the f2 over the f1.4, especially when fine detail is important.
These are initial test photos done immediately after I got the lens and cleaned it. I included bright light sources in or just outside of the frame to see how the lens handles them.
_OSR3796 by Brusby, on Flickr

_OSR3852 by Brusby, on Flickr

_OSR4332 by Brusby, on Flickr
 
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What I particularly like about this lens is how it is able to create a sort of halo and/or film halation effect wherever the highlights are allowed to overexpose significantly. For example in the first photo above the details of the face, such as eyes, nose and mouth are fairly well maintained -- without getting too washed out or too low in contrast -- despite very strong backlighting, while the over exposed highlights display a kind of halo effect similar to film halation and/or lens aberrations found in some early Hollywood portraits by the likes of photographers like George Hurrell.
 
Nice comparison and discussion. I have a number of LTM Nikkors including Sonnar types and they are indeed gems.
Regarding the f1.4, all of mine have some level of separation in the rear element. That makes images wide open very strange. But then stopped down to f2 that goes away and they render beautifully.
 
Darinwc said:
Nice comparison and discussion. I have a number of LTM Nikkors including Sonnar types and they are indeed gems.
Regarding the f1.4, all of mine have some level of separation in the rear element. That makes images wide open very strange. But then stopped down to f2 that goes away and they render beautifully.
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I think even properly functioning f1.4 types are a bit funky wide open but clean up pretty quickly when stopped down even just a bit to f2. At least, the couple I have are that way and they don't have any separation or other optical issues.
 
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David Douglas Duncan preferred the Nikkor-SC 5cm F1.5 over the newer F1.4.
The latter- underwent several design changes, including increasing the diameter of the optics. Which made it even funkier.
 
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