Grand Central

Nikon just announced its latest 28mm with maximum aperture at f/1.8, nano coating, SWM and whatnot.  I like my 28mm f/2 manual focus lens all right and I have no plan to acquire the latest and greatest.

Update:
Comments:  My pictures are exceedingly and astoundingly boring, as usual.  My take on the manual 28mm f/2 lens is that, chromatic aberration, ghosting are well under control.  The lens produces sharp, colorful and contrasty images.  Unfortunately its 28mm focal length which is not exactly wide to begin with becomes even more normal, or 42mm, when mounted on my D7000 or any Nikon DX cameras.  Having said that, there is actually nothing wrong with the 42mm focal length except it's not really behaving like a 28mm on a DX camera.

Update update 4/24/2012:
Regarding CA, I think if you shoot JPEG, like I do most of the time, the camera actually corrects that in-camera.  So I don't know how much is the lens and how much is the camera that I should credit for the lack of CA.  In any case, I still think the 28mm f/2 is a superb performer.

Update update update 4.24.2012
I checked the 28mm taken with the oldie D70.  The images have no CA or at the very least well under control.

Dia: Beacon

Fishkill Farms

Morning

Breakfast At Home

Me constantly annoying household members by pointing my camera at them, as evidenced here.

Gyro Corner

I think I take better pictures at Gyro Corner.  I like their food there, maybe except the Donner plate with rice:  the meat is like what's left over--too dried and cut too small.  The Octopus is fresh and cooked just right without being chewy or anything.  I always love their salad.

Technical details nobody cares:  The Nikkor 28mm turns out to be one of my favorites lenses.  It's just good at close range shooting.  Nice contrast, color, sharpness and out of focus rendition.  Best of all, I got it on craigslist at a good price.  I think the white balance is right on without giving me or my subject any jaundice.

D7000 NEF TO JPEG

There is a 40pixel wide band to the right of the image when NEF is converted to JPEG using UFRAW.  The image above has that band removed already.

Fifth and 42nd

Flowers on Sidewalk

Shooting Into The Light

Wow, there is no flare and no ghost.  And I have an UV filter and no hood on.  The Nikkor 28mm f/2 AIS is that flare and ghost resistant.  Shot at f/5.6 aperture priority with -0.7 or -0.3 EV compensation.

update 1/26/2011
When I made the above two shots I wasn't thinking about testing the D7000 or the 28mm Nikkor f/2 AIS, let alone on flare or ghost specifically.  I shot them just for artistic or no reason at all.  As it turns out my comment on flare and ghost concurs exactly what Bjorn Rorslett has said about the 28mm AI (not AIS though) on his lens survey.  I found the flare and ghost resistance pretty unusual myself.  Maybe if the sun was a tad higher it would have more of an effect.

Angel

Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 28mm f/2 AIS @f/2.8, 1/80s, ISO200

I found it very difficult to shoot this close hand-held.  The depth of field is very shallow, more often than not, the focus falls at the back.  I have the face recognition on in live view and it does work with MF lens but unfortunately it doesn't recognize the face correctly resulting in wrong focusing feedback.  No post sharpening applied.  Image scaled to 1920 wide.

Boat Shoe

When Timberland boat shoes were still Made in the USA.  Focus on the brass eyelet.  Handheld.  f/2 1/40s ISO200.

In response to millions and millions of emails requesting test shots from my Nikon D7000, here is one.  Judge it yourself.  This is just a resize to 1920 wide, no nothing is done other than in-camera adjustments like sharpening and contrast.  I don't know much anyway.

Pancake Breakfast

I like my Nikkor 28mm f/2.  It performs pretty well especially shot close.  It isn't a macro or micro lens but when shot close I think it gives very nice result.  This is handheld at 1/100 at f/4 at ISO 500.  I did a curve to lighten and darken ever so slightly.  No post sharpening.  I have to say it looks pretty sharp to me especially given that the fact that it's shot close and handheld.  So I have no complaint.  But I just don't like the white balance, the yellow bothers me--here I am pretending to know what I'm talking about.

Ski Trip Without The Ski Part

Shot and rendered in 1920x1080, uploaded at 1280x720 at 23.976fps. Edited in Cinelerra.

Note:  The audio level may be considered loud for some in some environment, so you may want to turn it down or wear a headset before playing the clip.

I just noticed it's mono.  I should have copied the same track to at least make it stereo before rendering.

Horsey at Bryant Park

Shot with a Nikkor 28mm f/2.  When the subject is in focus.  The picture is sharp.  Problem is there are zillion focus points and I guess not all of them are reliable all the time.  I feel like sometimes when the green dot is on but in reality it's not where it's focus.  But this is just me, not at all scientific.  This is done with USM, Radius 5, Amount 0.5, Threshold 0.  In live view you can really get things in focus.  But then you can't shoot everything in live view.

Times Square

This is everyday Times Square.
I guess if you were to wear heels these high, you would have to walk like her, just to balance.

UPDATE:

SCENES FROM A PHOTO SHOOT

I just got my 28mm f/2 lens with me. Do I wish I have my 80-200 with me at the time? ( Or my D3x for that matter?  Just kidding.)  Yes, but it's highly unlikely I will carry that pig of a lens with me without knowing what exactly I am going to shoot. With the 28mm f/2 I can't have the reach I want and I totally lose out on the auto department, no metering, no auto exposure and no auto focusing.

Sunday Breakfast

Nikkor 28mm f/2 at f/2

42nd Street

Gyro Corner

Kodak 160VC.  Nikon FE.  Nikkor 28mm f/2

 The bottom one is scanned by myself using the sucky Epson Perfection V500 Photo.  It's straight from the scanner, well except to scale it to the smallish 1818 width to match the paid scanned file from some operation in midtown.
I can understand how I can do such a sloppy job but I just can't understand why people who got paid can do such a sloppy job, am I expecting too much?  I look at the negative, they just chop it off somewhere and stuff them in one single sleeve, all 36 exposures in one single sleeve.  If it's really you got what you paid for then I don't know how much I have to pay in order to get a modicum degree of professionalism and anal retentiveness from these operators.

First Day of School

With nonchalance and trepidation, the children begin a new school year.

Bore yourself with technical details:  D70 with manual flash at 1/8 of the power.  Nikkor 28mm 1:2