Interited Lenses

Daily, Geeky August 29th, 2009

It’s midnight and I’m writing a new entry while watching a Saturday evening EPL match in downtown Bangkok. It was an exhaustive but fun day. I met my high-school friends at Siam Paragon for lunch, watched G.I. Joe (and I may recommend it to anyone who’s looking for something not contentious). Then we went for Golf driving site near Ekkamai. It was my first time to hold the bat, nevertheless I managed to drive the balls almost 100 yards at the end of the day thanks to my experienced friend. It was enjoyable and we’re looking forward to play these shots again.

Anyway, a few days ago I went over some drawers to explore a collection of my dad’s lenses he obtained 20 plus years ago. They are unarguably ancient, but mostly in immaculate conditions. I’m gonna nick a few as he no longer into photography any more.

Let’s start with the body. I remembered him using this taking family photos when I was young before he later possessed several non-slr automatic film cameras. From labels on the camera, I believe it’s a first generation Nikon FE. According to the production date on wikipedia, it should be about 30 years old.

Attached to it is the nikon 43-86mm f3.5, that I haven’t tested.

This long ancient-looking lens is a tamron made, 85-210mm (why zoom ranges of these old lenses are so strange?).

My dad seems to quite like Tamron as he’s got another Tamron lens. This one, though, is a prime, 24mm f2.5.

These Tamron lenses are unlike new Tamrons that readily mount to Nikon, they require an adaptall (not a typo, they are called ‘adaptall’ on the box) to mount them on Nikon bodies.

Let’s move to a more interesting one, this one is the Nikon 50mm f1.4. I would expect this one to be ideal for low-light conditions.

I mounted this one on my Nikon d4o and quickly took a trial shot (of my dad). To be truthful, given how old it is, the result impresses me.

Ok, the last lens. I guess this one is the newest in his collection, Nikon 16mm Fisheye f2.8. It’s the only AF one. This means that I don’t have to manually set the aperture (it doesn’t auto focus on my body still). Surprisingly, I found it still in production nowsaday.

Aesthetically, it’s pristine. Unfortunatelly, when it took some test shots, it revealed foggy and blurry images. This implies that this lens needs thorough and proper cleaning. I will call Nikon Thailand on Monday to inquire about the possibility.