Nikon SLR Cameras

Nikkor 50mm f1.2 AI-S vs Nippon 50mm f1.4 Non-Ai. Serious Lens Knowledge Required?

Guest
Guest

Hopefully someone on here will have enough lens knowledge and experience to answer my question,

I have been looking high and low across the web looking for a comparison between the Nippon 50mm f1.4 Non Ai lens from Nikon and the Nikkor 50mm f1.2 AI-S also from Nikon but can't find such a comparison anywhere. I own the 1.4 which was made in 1969 or so but still has decent optics but I'm thinking of buying a secondhand 1.2 which is 1979 lens I believe but is still in production for about £300 for it's marginally better wide open performance and extra half stop of aperture but I would really like to know if anyone has experience with both these lenses and how large the difference in performance is between them, if anyone has experience with the 55mm f1.2 also that would be great because it's a slightly cheaper alternative to the 50mm. I use a D800 by the way and I'm aware of the inconveniences of manual lenses as they make up the majority of my lens base, I want to use the 1.2 for video use due to the poor low light quality of the d800 which is caused by it's ridiculous 36mp and an ultra wide aperture which has a decent sharpness I hope can help me.

Added (1). "serious lens knowledge required?!" in the title isn't a question it's a statement haha I can't correct it to two exclamation marks.

fhotoace
fhotoace

Ara57 is right.

The only Nikon dSLR that can use non-AI lenses is the new Nikon Df

As far as the D800's "poor low light quality" is concerned, it actually performs in low light better than any dSLR camera but for other Nikon dSLR's

You need to consider using more light when lighting your scene, just like they do when shooting motion picture. Just replace all the 40 w and 60 w lamps in your scenes with 250 watt lamps. That will boost your light level enough so that the camera does not have to bump the ISO up in order to get properly exposed video;

Here is how the D800 low light performance compares with the D610 and much older D300

http://www.dxomark.com/...15_792_440

I added the old D300 so you can see that even a camera with a poorer low light performing camera can still produce nearly noiseless images.

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Shooting scenes that look like low light is much different than shooting in low light

Here is a sample of what such a video can look like when lighting is added without disturbing the way the scene appears to a persons eyes.

Ara57
Ara57

The non ai lens will need to be modified before mounting on your D800.