Nikon 50mm 1.4 - mid 1950's - questions

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Meleica

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Having read Dante Stella's essay on the LTM version of the Nikon 50/1.4, found here

http://www.dantestella.com/technical/nikoleic.html

I have a few questions: first, do you think his comments hold true for the Nikon RF mount 50/1.4 Nikkor or were there differences b/t the nikon and ltm version ( I know at least the LTM version had uncoulped, close focusing )...but how about optical performance ?

Also, I have always had a hard time believing his comment that this lens was "optimized for close ups, wide open." Especially when even Dante admits, this lens has "uncontrolled field curvature..." It just doesnt make sense....normally one would use a lens "wide open, up close," for portraits and with a longer focal length ( like Nikon's 85 and 105 ).... Dante doesnt state where he found this "fact." Do you believe it ?

Dan
www.antiquecameras.net
 
I think part of the reputation for close-up optimization is the fact that the lens's distracting out-of-focus highlights tend to smooth out close and wide. I only have a few examples on my work computer. My daughter with the old TLR is at 1.4 for sure. The others might be at 1.5ish. I tend to not open it quite all the way because my particular lens has some edge separation, which creates a halo at 1.4 (see the 1993 airplane night shot -- which works in this case, as it was a humanitarian mission on the Bosnia airlift) that disappears at 1.5. I don't have any example with the not-pretty and much-discussed doubled 'bokeh', but it does exist at mid-focus and mid-aperatures. (By the way, for those who get wrapped around the axles by harsh bokeh, watch a DVD of "the Wizard of Oz" and look at the out-of-focus areas -- harsh indeed, yet that film has a well-deserved reputation for sumptuous photography. Probably the lenses used for early Technicolor were optimized similarly to similar formulae as the early Nikkors).

Finally, don't forget that in the late '40s and early '50s, when this lens was designed and marketed, most people used just a 50 as an all-around lens, including and primarily for family portraits. The minimum 3-feet focusing distance is well suited for portaiture.
Vince
 
I'd bet the Nikkor suffers from a good deal of focus shift, just like the Summilux (and Noctilux) does. I really liked the look from mine.

Still looking for that SP. Not yet worth trading the Noctilux...
 
Found one more 1.4 wide open on my work computer. The lens does lose contrast when opened competely, but you can punch contrast in printing or in Photoshop.

I actually use the 85mm quite a bit more often than the 50mm, just because, as was mentioned above, its quality is so high, especially close in. I shoot mainly with an old S-3 and an SP. I bought my S-2 in 1990, and it came with a 1.5 Sonnar, but my copy was never especially sharp -- okay for color work and I used to use it all the time back when I did Kodachrome, but it never held up well with black and white prints. When I bought my S-3, it came with a Nikkor 50 1.4. I was just stunned by its quality and immediately started using it for everyday work. Back then I was doing newspaper work in a bureau, so my editor never knew that I'd stepped back 35 years in my equipment.
 
I don't really believe that the 5cm/1.4 Nikkor-S is "optimized" for wide-open close-ups. I base my opinion on fairly extensive use of 2 LTM & 3 Nikon RF mount Nikkor-S's as well as their 50/1.5 Sonnar forbears & many other fast RF 50's of roughly the same time-period (e.g., 50/1.4 Canon, 50/1.5 Nokton, etc.). IME, all of these "classic" 50s are soft wide-open by today's standards & improve visibly when stopped down, starting as wide as f/2. IMHO, it's obvious that when shooting @ any lens's closest focusing distance, the sheer proximity of one's subject compensates a great deal for any details lost due to the softness of the lens optics--if this is what Stella means by optimized for close-up & wide-open, then *every* high-speed lens of the 1930s-50s was so optimized. However, I'm not a Nikon historian, so perhaps there's something in the historical record where the NK lens designers actually stated that such optimization was their objective . . . Sounds like a job for the Rotolonis of the world to answer.

Meleica said:
Having read Dante Stella's essay on the LTM version of the Nikon 50/1.4, found here

http://www.dantestella.com/technical/nikoleic.html

I have a few questions: first, do you think his comments hold true for the Nikon RF mount 50/1.4 Nikkor or were there differences b/t the nikon and ltm version ( I know at least the LTM version had uncoulped, close focusing )...but how about optical performance ?

Also, I have always had a hard time believing his comment that this lens was "optimized for close ups, wide open." Especially when even Dante admits, this lens has "uncontrolled field curvature..." It just doesnt make sense....normally one would use a lens "wide open, up close," for portraits and with a longer focal length ( like Nikon's 85 and 105 ).... Dante doesnt state where he found this "fact." Do you believe it ?

Dan
www.antiquecameras.net
Click to expand...
 
I don't think it's the separation that created that halo, Vince, it's just plain old flare that's inherent in every 50mm & 85mm Sonnar & Sonnar-type lens (such as the Nikkors) I've used when a strong light source strikes the front element @ the "right" angle (I think it has something to do w/the curvature of the front element in the Sonnar design). I have 1 Carl Zeiss 50/1.5 Sonnar w/separation & it is no more susceptible to this type of flare (which I've dubbed the "Sonnar ring") than any of its non-separated brethren.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=003uuy

VinceC said:
I tend to not open it quite all the way because my particular lens has some edge separation, which creates a halo at 1.4 (see the 1993 airplane night shot -- which works in this case, as it was a humanitarian mission on the Bosnia airlift) that disappears at 1.5.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
>>>> don't think it's the separation that created that halo, Vince, it's just plain old flare that's inherent in every 50mm & 85mm Sonnar & Sonnar-type lens (such as the Nikkors) I've used when a strong light source strikes the front element @ the "right" angle<<<<<

That's good info to know. My Sonnar 1.5 can do something similar, though not quite as spectacular, when wide open. I just chalked it down to physical age rather than a characteristic of the design. I tend to keep the Nikkor closed down just a bit, and it then vanishes. I don't think I've ever had a compable problem with the 8.5cm f/2 Nikkor, which I use at least as much, if not more. However, I do keep a lens shade on it, which must help. I have a much smaller rubber collapsible shade for the Nikkor 5cm, made by B&H. It preserves the small size of the lens, which is one of my main attractions to it. I've also extensively used a 50mm f/1.4 SLR F-mount from the mid-to-late '60s (it came with a Nikomat FTN). It clearly uses a different formula, doesn't have rings, and has smoother out-of-focus areas. These days I'm shooting mainly pictures of my family and just use the SP and S3. I mentioned getting a digital SLR and my wife said, "the cameras you use have been working fine for 50 years, why change them?" We have had a Canon G1 digital for about five years. I like it for its compactness and the advantages of digital.

>>>Vince, those are great shots. Ditto on the Aircraft shot (C130?). The Nikkor 5cm and 8.5cm are "the pick of the litter" that put Nikon on the map.<<<<
>>>Vince you Bosnia night drops picture is a timeless stunner I love it! Sorry guys back on thread.<<<

Thanks! It's an Air Force C-130 at Rhein-Main Air Base, Germany, a few hours before midnight in, I think, late February 1993. It was the first night the Air Force started dropping food and medicine over beseiged enclaves of Bosnia. They dropped leaflets the night before telling people what would be happening. I probably took this with the S2 because I remember taking all three cameras that night -- so I would have kept the 50mm on the S2. It's always been the easiest to focus in the dark.

I must say that when I discovered this Web site a few months ago, it helped inspire me to pull my old Nikons out of the closet. About six years ago I settled down for parenthood reasons and switched to a writing job that involves almost no photography. I'd been using the digital (and cursing at it from time to time) to take pictures of my two girls. When I took out the SP and S3 and started chasing after my daughters, it was like rediscovering old friends.

Two more wide open or nearly wide open shots. There might be more to come. This particular thread has led me to have a "1.4 weekend."
 
Back to Dan's original question about Dante Stella's opinion that the lens was optimized for close and wide open ...

I just took another look at my copy of David Douglas Duncan's book "This is War," based on his Life magazine photos from Korea in 1950, shot with Leica IIIcs and screw-mount Nikkors. He and some colleagues were credited for "discovering" Nikkor lenses, and at the end of the book he has a page-long essay on how he and a coworker tested the Nikkors and found all of them but the wide-angle (probably the 35 f/3.5) to be superior to anything then being produced in any country. Two-thirds of the book is shot with a 50 f1.5, while the final third is shot with the then-new and unique 50 1.4. The differences in image quality between the two are not really noticeable in the prints. Duncan, as well as his printers back at the Life darkroom, considered the Nikkors to be consistently delivering the best "miniature camera" images they'd yet worked with. Every picture but one in the book is shot with a 50 -- it was the workhorse of that era -- you composed for the lens instead of choosing a lens to fit the subject. Most of Douglas work was shot stopped down to f/11 -- he was shooting for action and depth of field on "Eastman Super XX," ie., the Double-X precurser to Tri-X. There are only a few examples of up close and wide open -- the classic portraits that most of us have seen are mainly cropped from images that appear to be shot fairly close but around f/2.8.

Anyway, it seems to me that photojournalists would be impressed by a lens that was not optimized for a specific situation but instead maintained high quality in a variety of shooting situations, distances and F/stops. Even if the lens is "optimized" for close and wide open, the result is a lens that's quite modern across the f-stop and focus-distance range. Very contrasty, very sharp, very accurate tones.

Vince
 
hey, let's do a lens test! i've got a 50/1.4 nikkor ltm and have been using it at f11 for a bunch of rolls.

the only point of this test would be to graph how performance rises and falls through the aperture range, closeup and at infinity. we're talking relative sharpness and contrast. there's no need to find absolute resolution or whatever. from everyone's reports, i think it would be best to test every aperture because there's something going on all the time.

so use a tripod and cable release. whatever film you're comfortable developing. as careful focusing as possible (which you keep constant). for closeup, shoot a newspaper taped flat against a wall. for infinity, shoot a landscape on a day or time that'll let you shoot wide open.

how's that sound?
 
I'm up for a test. I know from 15 years of personal experience that the lens performs much better at 2.8 than it ever did at 1.4 (I've had two examples over the years, the first being an early chrome one that got dropped once too often). 2.8 is where I do the bulk of my shooting (or 3.5 for those lenses that don't open up to 2.8).

A neutral-density filter, if you have one, can help those wide-open outdoor shots. I used one a couple of times this weekend when I shot a roll entirely at 1.4.

I'd like to see some results from the 5cm f/2 lens. I expect it's a much better lens. I have an SLR version whose images run circles around my venerable and much-used 50 f/1.4 F-mount lens. It has much more pleasing out-of-focus areas and seems to be just really sharp and contrasty (or at least that's my recollection. I haven't shot an SLR in years).

Vince
 
If my Voigtlander experience is anything like the Nikkors, the f/2 is a MUCH sharper lens (I've both for the Prominent), so much so that the f/2 is probably competitive to modern f/2 lenses. I don't use mine as "sharpness ain't everything," and it doesn't have the (almost) extra stop over the Nokton, but it still impresses me when I do use it.
 
Ditto. As problematic as my f/1.4 lenses are, I never used the f/2 back when I shot with SLRs, and I nearly always carry the 1.4 with my rangefinder kit for those times when I just need that extra stop. As you said, sharpness isn't everything, expecially if it means missing the picture.
 
I just looked over a roll I shot with the f/2 on an autumn day last year, with an orange filter. My goodness, it's sharp. I forget, sometimes, exactly how much so- on slow film, f/2.8 is fine.
 
I was thinking of getting one of the kids to nap in a fairly bright room. I do so hate taking pictures of brick walls and newspapers.
 
Now that I think about it, the 2-stop neutral-density filter would let me do close-ups of the kids outdoors. In the open shade or backlit with ISO 200 film I can get away with 1000 shutter speed at f/1.4 if I'm using the filter. (I betray my lack of a light meter here ... it broke about eight years ago and I never got around to getting another). Then just pull off the ND filter once I'm down below 125 shutter speed.
 
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