Are you 100% satisfied with any lens you own?

Michael writes:

I am fully satisfied with my 105mm f/2.5 NIkor. It is a non-AI manual
focus lens from the original Nikon F era, makes beautiful images, is
fast enough (though not truly "fast" by the standards of its 1960s
1970s day) and a perfect portrait length that still can function as a
walking around lens when it isn't necessary to get in close.

I had that lens from about 1980 until sometime this century; and I never
did manage to bond with it. I preferred the Leitz 90mm Summicron on my
M3, and the Olympus 85/2 on my OM-4s, and the Nikkor 85/1.8 AF on my
D700 now. The 105 was too long, and at the time it seemed too slow
(since then I've been abused by enough slow f/2.8 zooms, and have such
enormously higher ISOs available, that I'm getting less addicted to
really fast lenses).

Which just goes to show. Your opinion is MUCH more common than mine,
from what I can tell; that lens in many of its variants is regarded as a
classic. (I had the f/2.5, so at least very close to the same as
yours.)
--
David Dyer-Bennet, ; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

Bruce wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
I had that lens from about 1980 until sometime this century; and I
never did manage to bond with it. I preferred the Leitz 90mm
Summicron on my M3, and the Olympus 85/2 on my OM-4s, and the Nikkor
85/1.8 AF on my D700 now. The 105 was too long, and at the time it
seemed too slow (since then I've been abused by enough slow f/2.8
zooms, and have such enormously higher ISOs available, that I'm
getting less addicted to really fast lenses).
Which just goes to show. Your opinion is MUCH more common than mine,
from what I can tell; that lens in many of its variants is regarded
as a classic. (I had the f/2.5, so at least very close to the same
as yours.)


I agree with you, David. I have had three examples of the 105mm
f/2.5. All of them came with complete outfits that I bought either
to get other items, or to break up and sell.

I have always preferred the 85-90mm focal length range because it is
ideally suited to classic head and shoulders portraits. 105mm works
OK but the longer shooting distance means a flatter apparent
perspective. 135mm is much worse in that respect, and I have never
been able to work out why that focal length is so popular for
portraiture in Japan.

Flatter (more spatial compression), yes. But there is some justification for
feeling that a longer f.l. can make a "stronger" portrait. There was a
portrait photographer many years ago (I've long forgotten his name) who
routinely used a 300mm lens for doing head-and-shoulders shots of girls at
the beach, and they were very effective.


The 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor is sharp with smooth bokeh, which probably
accounts for its popularity, but for some years now my favourite
portrait lenses have been the Tamron 90mm f/2.5 and later f/2.8. Not
only is it a very accomplished portrait lens, it is a fine macro
lens.

No-one could ever truthfully say that of the 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor.
Owning the Tamron means one less lens to carry. ;-)

I have the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro myself, the newer version with built-in
AF motor, and it's great. But all my DSLRs are DX format, and I agree with
you that generally a 135mm (equiv.) is really too long for portraiture --
notwithstanding the success of that long-lens portrait photographer.

So I bought Tamron's 60mm f/2 macro. It is really a honey of a portrait lens
for DX cameras. And for macro stuff I find it's as good as the 90/2.8 --
there is not even any penalty in close working distance as might be expected
with the shorter lens, since the 60 has the front element right up front
rather than deeply inset as it is in the 90.

Neil Harrington wrote:
Bruce wrote:
David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

I had that lens from about 1980 until sometime this century; and I
never did manage to bond with it. I preferred the Leitz 90mm
Summicron on my M3, and the Olympus 85/2 on my OM-4s, and the Nikkor
85/1.8 AF on my D700 now. The 105 was too long, and at the time it
seemed too slow (since then I've been abused by enough slow f/2.8
zooms, and have such enormously higher ISOs available, that I'm
getting less addicted to really fast lenses).
Which just goes to show. Your opinion is MUCH more common than mine,
from what I can tell; that lens in many of its variants is regarded
as a classic. (I had the f/2.5, so at least very close to the same
as yours.)

I agree with you, David. I have had three examples of the 105mm
f/2.5. All of them came with complete outfits that I bought either
to get other items, or to break up and sell.

I have always preferred the 85-90mm focal length range because it is
ideally suited to classic head and shoulders portraits. 105mm works
OK but the longer shooting distance means a flatter apparent
perspective. 135mm is much worse in that respect, and I have never
been able to work out why that focal length is so popular for
portraiture in Japan.

I wonder whether that has anything to do with the size of one's
personal spaces. This is both a personal and cultural variable. When
you're hanging out with a group of friends how close is too close, how
far away is too far? That would set the range of distances at which
you most often contemplate someone's face in detail. That in turn
would set a characteristic perspective.

If so, and Japanese distances are a bit further than Western, that
would explain their preference for a longer focal length.

Flatter (more spatial compression), yes.

The effect of long lenses is often said to be spatial compression. But
I don't like to think of it in those terms. In terms of perspective
projections, which involves among other things how much larger
something twice as near sould be in the image, the longer the lens the
smaller the difference. Architects for example sometimes choose to
make their drawings with no perspective, i.e. no convergence of
receding parallel lines. That would be how a lens of infinite focal
length would see it. Maximum "spatial compression" seems an
inappropriate concept.

I prefer to think of the effect of a long lens as zero perspective, a
neutral representation where there are no perspective expansions or
reductions of apparent size with distance.

What different focal lengths give to portraits are different implied
distances of the observer. A very short focal length is a very close
intimate distance, a cuddlable distance. A very long focal length
implies observing from a distance at which your presense and
observation may not be known to the observed. An abstract study
without personal proximity.

But there is some justification for
feeling that a longer f.l. can make a "stronger" portrait. There was a
portrait photographer many years ago (I've long forgotten his name) who
routinely used a 300mm lens for doing head-and-shoulders shots of girls at
the beach, and they were very effective.

Note too that many wildlife "portraits" are taken with 300mm and
longer focal lengths. If you shot a tiger's "bust" portrait with a
50mm lens it would look more intimate and imply quite correctly that
you were pretty close to the tiger, i.e. good friends!

Particularly important for portraits is how the lens renders out of
focus detail, i.e. the bokeh. Macro lenses which are very sharp at
wide apertures will have sharp-edged bokeh, too sharp for some kinds
of portrait. Hence the popularity for portrait purposes of older
spherical lenses with spherical aberration. That can be arranged to
provide a soft edged bokeh at wide apertures, especially at the edges
of the image, while having very sharp in-focus detail resolution in
the centre.

Hence the popularity of old "nifty fifties", often 50mm f1.4, with
crop sensor DSLRs, where they give a close approximation to the old
(Western) ideal portrait perspective of 80mm with 35mm film.

Arguably the prize for the best bokeh of any lens is held by the lens
very specifically designed for that purpose, the Minolta (now Sony)
STF 135mm f1.4 which does it by having in effect an edgeless iris with
a circular density gradation. At the longer Japanese 35mm film
portrait focal length. Excessive for Western tastes on DX DSLRs?

With modern lens design and fabrication methods that design could be
further developed to give better and more controllable variation of
the interaction with edged and edgeless apertures etc.. But Sony at
the moment seem to be cutting back on lens development so there seems
little prospect of further development of that idea from them.

--
Chris Malcolm