Took my "new" lens out for the first time today. It's a Nikkor Ai-S 28mm f3.5 prime of around 1983/4 vintage. The last of the old school Nikon lenses.

I'd been watching a few on ebay that had all gone for around £90-£110 and came upon this one that was rated as excellant++ condition. The only issue was that there was a half a mm mark on the coating of the rear inner element which now i have the lens you can only see when holding it in a certain position and once the lens is on the camera it makes absolutely no difference to any pictures taken. In the end i got it for £60 inc. next day delivery!!!

The build quality is absolutely awesome compared to the rest of my modern lenses. It's a full on manual lens on my camera as the camera doesn't meter with it, (It's a D90), but i've already started being able to guess-timate when taking shots and they've come out pretty good.

Here's the shots i got with it today.....

Jubilee Bridge by WaveyDavey13, on Flickr

Waterfall by WaveyDavey13, on Flickr

Old Folly by WaveyDavey13, on Flickr

Cheers

Dave.

Edited 2 March, 201214 yr by WaveyDavey

I love the colours!

Rarely do marks on the surface or dust inside for that matter have any effect on the images...

Just use them rather look at and never use like so many people do!

Looks like a cracking lens. Nice and sharp with lovely colour rendition. As has been said small marks on the lens rarely transfer to the image so should be nothing to worry about, and especially at that price. Some lovelt shots of Matlock there by the looks of it.

Cheers guys.

The mark is just a tiny section where the lens coating has gone rather than a scratch or mark on the glass itself.

As I said the build quality is awesome. All metal construction a d the focusing is so smooth and precise compared to modern lenses. Glad I've got used to guesstimating quickly enough.

Cheers

Dave.

I've done a little more digging on my lens and it's one of the last few they made.

I found a site that gives you all the serial numbers of Nikkor lenses along with the dates they were made between. For this lens the serial numbers run from 2100001 to 2139599 and they were made from July 1981 to March 1983. Mine has a serial of 2136283 so just over 3,000 from the last one made. If you say that they average out at around 1885 made each month then it makes mine out to be from around February 1983.

***Geek Mode Off***

Cheers

Dave.

Edited 4 March, 201214 yr by WaveyDavey

Well done, nice find! Any chance of an un-edited pic to see the quality compared to modern day glass?

Well done, nice find! Any chance of an un-edited pic to see the quality compared to modern day glass?

Next time i'm out i'll take a comparison shot with the 28mm Ai-S, The modern 50mm 1.8D and my 18-105mm kit lens.

***Edit***

A couple of shots taken with the lens with no editing/adjustment other than conversion from RAW to JPG and size reduced to something respectable.

DSC_2905 by WaveyDavey13, on Flickr

DSC_2914 by WaveyDavey13, on Flickr

Cheers

Dave.

Edited 8 March, 201214 yr by WaveyDavey

Is it my screen or are they quite dark? (or is this because of the lack of metering?)

Is it my screen or are they quite dark? (or is this because of the lack of metering?)

They're quite dark due to the lack of metering.

I'm still learning to shoot without any metering done by the camera. I have a light meter app on my iphone but these were all taken using best guess-timate. Till i get more used to it i'll be adjusting the exposure slightly whilst processing the RAW files in lightroom / photoshop.

Cheers

Dave.

Edited 8 March, 201214 yr by WaveyDavey

Cool, yeah p/s and lightroom rock! lol