Its been a while since I posted in relation to my vintage lens journey and I’ve added to my collection during that time. The first of my recent acquisitions was a Nikon 105mm f2.5 Pre AI lens. It was a popular lens back in the 70’s and 80’s and was made famous by Steve McCurry who shot the famous Afghan Girl image for National Geographic with a copy.
I really like this lens. It’s very sharp with lovely smooth bokeh wide open. It is heavy, very heavy in fact, but that’s a small price to pay for a lens of this quality. It’s built like a tank which is just as well as I dropped mine from waist height onto a concrete floor last week. Luckily it landed on the lens converter and, despite the sudden jolt, the lens seems to have come through the ordeal unscathed.
As I was so happy with my previous Nikon purchases I decided to invest in a Nikon 28mm f2.8 AI a few weeks ago. There are several versions of this lens and what I really wanted was the later AIS version. That lens is regarded, in some quarters, as the best lens ever produced by Nikon. It has 8 elements, one of which is floating, as opposed to the 7 elements in my 28mm AI version.
At the time of purchasing my AI version I couldn’t get hold of the AIS model in the UK. It’s an expensive lens as well so I thought I’d buy an AI version which was a lot cheaper (about the third of the price of the AIS version). It had a small amount of fungus on the edge of the front element but that’s had no impact on my images.
The lens arrived just before a weeks holiday in Rethymno, Crete where I used it a lot. The hype around these Nikon 28mm lenses is justified in my opinion. This is a cracking lens and I really enjoyed using it last week.
Whilst we were away a Nikon 28mm AIS became available on Ebay in the UK. It was advertised as a mint example and was being sold by a seller I’ve bought from before and who I had been really pleased with. I decided to make a bid on the lens with a maximum price I was prepared to pay in mind. On the final sale day I won the auction by £3!
The lens arrived once we were back from Crete and it’s a really good copy. I’ve not had chance to use it yet but I’m looking to going out with it sometime this week. I might sell my existing 28mm or open it up and see if I can clean the fungus. I’m keen to have a go. I need to buy some Japanese Industrial Screwdrivers before I can open it up so I’m still mulling that one over.
The quality of these old Nikon lenses (and the Canon FD lenses come to that) is superb. They’re a joy to use and it’s made me revaluate where I’m going with these old lenses. I’ve found I now have favourites amongst my collection and I’m not using a lot of the mostly cheaper lenses I initially started out with.
However, the majority of these other old lenses seem to have at least one redeeming feature which makes me want to hang on to them. Usually it’s the way they render bokeh. That redeeming feature is probably why I bought a particular lens in the first place.
I’m still really enjoying using these old lenses but I’ve found myself moving on to higher priced, better quality, examples as my journey with them continues. So, for the time being, I think I’m going to resist making any further additions to my collection. Well, until I read another vintage lens blog with another amazing lens review and recommendation.
All images: ©Stephen Hyde 2007-2026 – All rights reserved
Steve Hyde 