Hi Dave,
on the wide and normal side id doesn't get much better than 28/2.8 AIs and 50/1.8 AIs, clean, sharp, but not exactly character lenses. If you want character, maybe find an old 35/2 Nikkor-O and/or 55/1.2 Nikkor-S and/or Nikkor-S 5.8cm/1.4 ? The latter two have nice swirly bokeh ... Along a different road, the classic Nikkor-H 5cm/2 is very sharp and rectilinear but with lower contrast (like an early Summicron).
Regarding Teles and the various 105 Nikkors:
I was doing some experiments on my new digital Leica and comparing the LTM 10.5cm/2.5 (Sonnar), LTM 8.5cm/2, 105/2.5 AI (Gauss) and 105/2.8 Micro AIs.
I observed much more difference between the 10.5 Sonnar and later Gauss versions than what people usually describe. The Sonnar is very creamy and sharp in the center wide open and close, best portrait lens bokeh that I know, but it's quite a bad performer at infinity, only gets sharp even in the center at f5.6 and higher. This is different from the more modern 105/2.5 AI/AIs Gauss lenses, and I was surprised as I only found a couple of other user reports confirming what I saw. Note also that my 8.5cm/2 LTM Nikkor is much harder/sharper at all distances wide open, but at the cost of bokeh.
So I found this article
http://www.nikkor.com/story/0045 that confirms that my 10.5 Sonnar is doing what it's supposed to do; aberrations are intentionally under-corrected to improve close up portrait performance, at the cost of wide open infinity resolution.
Long story short: if you want a true character lens
by design for your F2a, get an early F-mount 105/2.5 Sonnar (silver focus ring - that one has the same design as my LTM copy). For a best performance all around tele, I suggest the 105/2.8 AIs Micro Nikkor, not the later 105/2.5 AI/AIs Nikkors. The 105/2.8 Micro is stellar as a general purpose lens, has a longer focus throw than either 2.5 AI or AIs lenses, and can do macros too, as an SLR is supposed to
🙂.
And finally, a non-Nikkor suggestion: you can now find the Helios 40-2 85/1.5 with Nikon mount installed by the factory (I had to convert my M42 copy years ago since the native Nikon mount didn't exist yet). That's a very special lens.
Roland.
