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Best Nikon Lens?

M

Matt Zervos

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For those of you who have worked with the Nikon lens and mount, which lens would you recommend?
 
Zeiss ZF's are the best bang for your buck. They feel like cinema lenses and they are very smooth. I have the 28mm f~2, 35mm f~2, 50mm f~1.4, 85mm f~1.4 Zeiss lenses. The 80-200mm f~2.8 Nikon Zoom is also really nice.
 
For a wide zoom the Nikon 14mm to 24mm is great. It is the same lens Focus Optics is re-housing with what they call the Ruby.
 
The Tokina 11-16mm F2.8, super wide, super fast, super sharp and somehow still super affordable. You will need a little adapter to control aperture. Sanjin has a thread with a link to the adapter.
 
The ZF's are supposed to be excellent; I haven't had a chance to use them yet.

I have a Nikon 17-35 and a 70-200 that I'm partial to (though the breathing on the latter makes it more of a variable prime, and it has no aperture ring).

The 14-24 and 24-70 are both supposed to be excellent lenses (I believe both are again missing aperture rings).

Obviously, be prepared for the mechanical shortcomings of still glass, even if the optics are fairly competetive... can't beat the price though!

Cheers,
Tim
 
All the g type lenses have internal aperture controls.

As for which lenses. I think it highly depends on what you're shooting. I agree with Andrew on those choices (I love the 85). I would add the 105 Macro 2.8.

I would also stick with primes.
 
Tokina 11-16 and Nikon 17-55 DX series are fantastic, use with GDX Mount on RED from Long Valley Equipment. Adapter that Sanjin uses requires Canon EOS mount on RED.

Also like the Zeiss ZFs - they look great, excellent optics and still mechanics. Best bang for buck in primes would be used AIS Nikons. I have 28, 35, 50.
 
My 17-35 2.8 looks as good as any of the manual primes. It lives on the Red 80% of the time, and it has an iris ring. I keep trying the primes, but the new optics in the 17-35 seem superior. I am no lens expert, and would love to hear some feedback on this.

Rockwell slightly prefers the Nikon AIS to the ZF's , which are made by Cosina, not in Germany. He points out that these lenses are almost identical in optical performance. User skill is much more important.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/50-comparison/index.htm
 
The 85mm f~1.4 Zeiss ZF is one of my favorite lenses I have in my kit right now. Its very sharp even wide open. Granted when you close it down to f~5.6 you can feel your eyes getting cut by the images...its that sharp. The 50mm f~1.4 ZF gets a little soft wide open but as long as your careful with the focus and what your shooting you can work around it.

The optics on the Zeiss ZFs are really nice but the mechanics are what sold me on them. They don't feel like still photos lenses. They feel like if a still and a cinema lens were genetically spliced together and then trained to be assassins for 20 years. Very dangerous lenses. Granted I am getting a set of the RPP's but I will also be using the Zeiss ZFs even when I get them. Plus when I decide to go with the 6K FF35 Epic I'll be covered.
 
I have the Zeiss, ZFs, Tokina 11-16, Nikon 17-35 and a variety of Nikon primes.

All fantastic.
 
Now that everyone's mentioned the ZFs, I'll mention some cheaper alternatives.

The Voigtlander lenses from Cosina are built in the same factory as the ZFs. Somewhat cheaper build, but still much better mechanics than modern Nikkors. Optically they are excellent.

20mm f3.5
40mm f2
58mm f1.4
75mm f2.5
125mm f2.5
(The 75 and 125 are discontinued)

For Nikon brand lenses, these are my favorites from the old days, before I upgraded to ZFs:

20mm f2.8 Ai-s
28mm f2 Ai-s
35mm f1.4 Ai-s
50mm f1.4 Ai-s
85mm f1.4 Ai-s
105mm f1.8 Ai-s
180mm f2.8 Ai-s
 
I also forgot to say that the Zeiss ZF have a much long focal throw than the Nikons I had before. The 28mm and the 35mm travel further than the Nikons in that same size. But the 50mm and the 85mm have some really long travel, which is good because you can creep up to the sharpest focus instead of going right by it. The 85mm has as much travel as the 18-50mm Red Zoom...maybe even a little further.
 
The two best Nikons I've used with the RED are 85 AIS f1.4 (simply a stunning, stunning lens) and the Nikon 105 DC (which is an even better lens than the 85, if you can believe it).

BUT, you MUST, and I mean MUST buy that Tokina 11-16mm zoom. What an amazing piece of glass. . . it truly is the bargain of a lifetime.

The 50mm AIS f1.4 (but NOT the f1.2, which is a piece of garbage as far as I'm concerned) will be your mainline lens at least 50% of time if you shot like I do.

The last great recommendation is the 30mm Sigma f2.8. This puppy is SHARP, even wide-open, and I really like it.

But remember, you'll need the Underdahl Nikon mount to use either the Sigma or the Tokina.

Stephen
 
Nikkor 85mm AF f/1.8 worked pretty well for me. Sharp as hell, breathless but very tough to follow focus. I also was a pretty big fan of my old late 60's 50mm F1.4. I shot a number of other lenses but didn't really love them for one reason or another.

I'm pretty happy with my Canon set overall. There isn't a lens I pull out I don't feel good about shooting.
 
Douglas Underdahl said:
Tokina 11-16 and Nikon 17-55 DX series are fantastic, use with GDX Mount on RED from Long Valley Equipment. Adapter that Sanjin uses requires Canon EOS mount on RED.

Also like the Zeiss ZFs - they look great, excellent optics and still mechanics. Best bang for buck in primes would be used AIS Nikons. I have 28, 35, 50.
Click to expand...

Zeiss (made by Cosina plastic housing), Nikon G also mostly plastic housing.

but the best offer is still from Leica R (if you can find them), thaat staring with 15mm f/2.8, 19mm f/2.8,... till 180 f/2.8.

All are in metal housing, much better production control than Zeiss/Cosina or Nikon G (China), smooth focusing, nice and warm Leica color rendering, 3D feeling bokeh, ...
 
Sanjin Jukic said:
but the best offer is still from Leica R (if you can find them), thaat staring with 15mm f/2.8, 19mm f/2.8,... till 180 f/2.8.

All are in metal housing, much better production control than Zeiss/Cosina or Nikon G (China), smooth focusing, nice and warm Leica color rendering, 3D feeling bokeh, ...
Click to expand...

Leica R lenses can also, allegedly, be adapted to Nikon mount. Link: http://www.leitax.com/leica-lens-for-nikon-cameras.html

(If the Nikon mount part is not that important, Action Products and Doug Underdahl make dedicated Leica R mounts.)
 
Can't find any info about Leica R mounts from action products, neither from Long Valley.
The old link Doug Underdahl put a while ago in that thread http://www.reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=10210 doesn't work for me.
If it exist What's the price of it?
Brice
 
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