The most significant problem with modern lens design is that, some years ago, some savvy marketing person said ‘hey, let’s take all these engineering charts and throw them into our marketing literature. No one will know what they mean but they’ll assume because they’re included that they must be awesome.’ Now lens design suffers because so many new lenses are built to provide awesome MTF charts, not fantastic image characteristics.
Why is that a problem? Because it makes the images from those lenses sterile, drab, and functionally lifeless, not to mention relatively identical across the brands. I can’t tell a modern Canon lens from a modern Sony, Nikon, or Fuji lens, with a handful of exceptions. But I can pretty reliably recognize the image character of vintage Nikon, Canon, Olympus, and Pentax lenses. And I think that losing a focus on image character in the name of technical demonstration has been a great loss to the camera industry.
Part of using old lenses is embracing their image aesthetic and character. Lenses like these were designed on ancient computers equally, perhaps less, powerful as a four-function calculator. Humans with analog computing devices like slide rules still did a significant amount of manual design calculation. These lenses are not close to as technically perfect as a modern lens; that’s a huge part of the magic. The imperfections in these lenses, and let’s be clear that the imperfections are little more than nit-picky little differences in many cases, create photographs that capture scenes beautifully. Embrace it. That’s what these lenses do, and do far better than many new lenses.
In fact, the very same Photography Life review I read that pointed out this lens’ field curvature and mustache distortion recommended the 28mm f/1.8 G over this lens because it’s sharper across the whole field than this lens, but downplayed, at best, that in the center this lens is equally as sharp as or sharper than the modern, faster lens. As a sidebar, I’m certain that their affiliate link also had no bearing on their lens recommendation.
Quality and high-end old lenses are not soft and they are not poor and they do not fill your images with flaws. Quality old lenses give your images a lifelike look and feel that is frankly unmatched by most lens makers today. This is an incredibly high-quality old lens and if you know how to use it your images will look fantastic.
A lot of people come to this video series looking for ways to improve their photography and their lens use, and I believe have an idea that a new lens will hold a secret magic that unlocks their creativity. If that is you, here is the best advice you will ever hear about your photography: Ignore the technical reports and sections in lens reviews. Pick a lens based on what it does for your overall lineup based on sample images you see from it. If that lens has some kind of magic that you need, it’s not going to show it to you the first time out. So pick a lens, slap it on your camera, leave it there for six months, and use only it. Forget everything you think you know about lens technical data and take time to learn the vernacular of lens use from your lenses. Lenses will speak to you, but not on your clock, and only if you try to listen.
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Video Index:
0:00 - Intro
0:15 - Skip the Intro
3:00 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Specifications
5:20 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Tips & Tricks
9:59 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Lens Diagram & Ray Trace
11:16 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Video Use
14:39 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Strengths & Weaknesses
19:53 - Nikon Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 Narrative
References:
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"Suffer City Blues" by Suffer City used under active license from Epidemic Sound at the time of this video's upload.
