M8 and Nikkor PC 8.5cm f2

[fefe]

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I had been looking for a portrait lense to use additionaly to my 35 cron Asph. As it was mostly to play and I knew it wouldn't spend much time on the M8 I was looking for something relatively cheap. I could have baught the CV 75mm which has recieved very good reviews, or look for some used Leica lenses, but I went a bit farther and looked at old USSR, Canon and Nikon lenses. I liked the look of the old Sonnar derivates and decided I would go for it as for my intended use (portraits) they seemed to give nice results.

 

The old Nikkon Kogaku - Nikkor P.C. 8.5cm f2 was quite praised in his time and I found a relatively cheap one on the bay in excellent optical conditions, added a 28-90 screw to M mount adapter, a step up filter ring from 48 to 49mm, my second Leica filter (49mm) and I was set. The first thing that impressed me is how good the lense was feeling despite being almost twice my age, focusing is very smooth, and the rangefinder accuracy is much greater than the one from my eyes (If I have the time I manage to get perfect focus, but am thinking of buying a magnifier as it's quite hard). With all the horror stories about backfocusing, focus shift and so on lenses with very narrow depth of field I was fearing the worse. The 90mm lines are accurate enough for me, I am just not used to them and seem to forget there is an area in the picture that is to the right of the focusing patch...

 

I have been carrying it along and taken lots of shots out of focus and a few I really like. At f2.0 the lens is a bit soft but it becomes quite sharp above f2.8. I read in a few places it was optimized for short distances and not infinity and I verified it, infinity shots are quite soft (and it's visible without pixel peeping) but everything between 3.5 and 40 feet is sharp. It is quite sensitive to chromatic aberations at f2 but resists well above and I got less flares with it than my 35 cron (I rarely use hoods). I also find the bokeh quite pleasing.

 

Here are a few shots, if you want to see more you can go on my zenfolio, all recent pictures that don't have any lens info in the EXIF were taken with the Nikkor 8.5cm P.C.

 

We're looking at you:

 

Turkish Bazar Doors:

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[fefe]

And a few portraits:

 

One downside, it's heavy and big (the filter and step up ring add almost 1cm), but I managed to tuck it in my current bag so I still can carry it around all the time.

[fefe]

And the Camera, with and without filters:

[marknorton]

Julien, am I missing something here, is this lens rangefinder coupled?

 

I'm waiting for a CameraQuest Nikon F to Leica M adapter to allow me to try out the Nikon 14mm f2.8 - which will be functionally equivalent to the Zeiss Distagon if not the same high level of image quality, and also the Nikon 28mm f1.4 where it will be interesting to the benefit, if any, of the extra stop compared to the 28mm Summicron. The lens is huge and, of course, not rangefinder coupled.

[fefe]

Hi,

yes it is RF coupled, it is a Leica screwmount version of the lens.

[GarethC]

nice review Julien, always good to see somebody thinking outside the box with hteir lens choices.

[LucisPictor]

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Hi!

 

I really like the portraits and the lens looks great at the cam. Wow!

What I do not really like is the somewhat disturbing bokeh in the first frame.

[pklein]

Fefe: You've done well. The 85/2 Nikkor is a great lens. If I recall correctly, David Douglas Duncan covered the Korean War with it and its 50/1.5 counterpart. It's essentially a Zeiss Sonnar, tweaked a bit and with modern (for 1950s) hard coating. I eventually sold it after somebody sold me a 90/2 pre-aspheric Summicron at a price I couldn't refuse.

 

There were really only two reasons why I finally sold it:

- It was too heavy to lug around to places I wanted to take it.

- It has rather harsh, "double line" bokeh (out of focus rendering), particularly at wide apertures Fine for concerts and theater, but not for pictures with prominent out of focus backgrounds.

 

If you work around these issues, it is one of the best buys there is in a short tele lens. At f/2.8 it is already as sharp as you need, and it only gets better.

 

Here are a few shots with the 85/2, all on film.

At f/2:

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/musicians/bravahelen.htm

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/musicians/02David.htm

 

At f/2.8:

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/musicians/quartet.htm

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/harpolean.htm

 

At f/4 (I think):

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/HarpoLapBW5.jpg

 

And here's one showing the bokeh issue I mentioned (f/2):

http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/roar.htm

 

Enjoy your lens.

--Peter

[fefe]

Thanks for the picture links. I agree with your comments that the lens is heavy and big, about the bokeh it is true that I prefer the rendition of simple background much better than the one of complex backgrounds (like my 3rd portrait and your catwoman where the background almost has some kind of swirl).

 

I end up making portraits mostly in dark environments where the backgrounds have usually very little high frequency detail and a few spotlights, and in this case I love the results.

 

I also got results that I like against the sun in very bright contrast, where my 35 cron asph+filter would always show harsh flares, I ended up with a slight "veil" that gives a soft but nice look to the image.