[Dr.AD]

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D

That is the full and official name of this lens from the bygone era. This lens was originally designed for film cameras (yes, the design is that old), and later adopted to Nikon digital SLRs. This lens, updated for the then emerging digital cameras, entered into production in 2002, and although it sounds unbelievable, Nikon still produces it! I recently got myself a brand new copy of this ancient lens produced in 2022, a good 20 years later since the lens made its debut.

To be honest, I got this lens for quite illogical reasons. I was always fascinated by those old lenses with those white markings, dials, and rotating rings on them. It was only after I took up photography as a serious hobby that I understood what those markings and the numbers meant. But long before that I was fascinated by these markings and rings. Those lenses look like some scientific equipment (which they really are!), and I was always curious about how they work and how to use all those numbers and markings and the rotating dials. I always wanted one of those types. So this irrational, childish reason was the prime reason why I got this vintage prime lens.

Further, 50mm prime lenses are always good to have and they provide versatility and interesting options in compositions. It is a perfect focal length for my usual photography needs (travel and street photography, for example), and that coupled with the wide f/1.8 aperture makes this a great lens for me to have in my bag. Even though I am new to photography, I have already experienced the benefits of prime lenses in my compositions and I am already a fan of prime lenses. Therefore, a 50mm prime was something that was a must for me.

This lens is also quite compact and lightweight (weighs only 156g), and that makes it a perfect lens for travel photography. When mounted on my compact Nikon D3500 body (DX format), the camera+lens combination is very compact and lightweight, almost like a bridge camera or a point-and-shoot camera. I love this compact combination for my travels and street photography.

Nikon AF 50mm f1/1.8 D with old fashioned markings (it has those Depth of Field markings too!) and rings that I always found fascinating (the white plastic cap looks cheap, but thankfully, the lens mount is actually metal)



The lens in hand shows how compact the lens is (also notice the metal mount)



Mounted on my Nikon D3500 body, the complete set is very compact (looks just like a bridge camera) and lightweight (less than 600g, including the camera and the lens)

Limitations when using with Nikon D3500 (or any D3XXX or D5XXX body): This Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 D is a full-frame lens, originally designed for Nikon full frame (FX format) cameras. My camera body is Nikon D3500, which is a DX format (with APS-C sensor, or "crop sensor" as it is often called) body. This lens still works with my DX camera (with limited compatibility), however, the 50mm focal length effectively becomes 75mm focal length. This by itself is not a problem at all. In fact, 75mm is more suitable for many of my photography needs, and I am quite happy about that.

However, by "limited compatibility" I mean that there are several limitations of this lens coupled with the Nikon D3000 series and D5000 series cameras, as mentioned below.

• The biggest of these limitations is that the autofocus does not work on Nikon D3000 series and D5000 series cameras (and also a few other Nikon cameras). This lens is designated AF, so it does support autofocus. But it does not have a built-in autofocus motor like the Nikon lenses designated AF-P or AF-S have. This lens depends on the screw type autofocus driver in the camera body for the autofocus to work. My D3500 body (and any other D3000 series and D5000 series bodies) do not have this autofocus mechanism built into them. My camera body depends on the autofocus motor in the lens, which this lens does not have. In summary, no autofocus mechanism is present either in this lens or in my camera body (they both expect each other to have this mechanism), and thus, in the net, my lens and camera combination can only work with manual focusing.
• The second big limitation is that that the lens works with my camera only in full manual (M) mode. Not even in Aperture Priority (A) or Shutter Priority (S) modes. In nay mode other than "M", the camera body given an error saying "incompatible lens". Only in M mode does the camera recognize this lens, and even there, it can not electronically read any lens parameters (forget about being able to electronically set those).
• The reason for the above is that the lens does not communicate with my camera electronically. Maybe the lens has older communication protocols that my camera does not understand. Therefore, the camera body can not even read the aperture value from the lens, leave alone being able to set it electronically. The only way to set aperture is by physically moving the aperture ring on the lens. The camera keeps showing blank values of aperture in the settings display. Since the camera can not communicate to the lens or read the lens parameters, no mode other than M is compatible.
• What makes this Manual photography with this lens even trickier is that even the exposure meter does not work. Since the camera body can not communicate to the lens electronically, none of the "Through The Lens (TTL)" features such as exposure meter or rangefinder work. Since there is no exposure meter, there is no question of metering modes. In many manual photography tutorials, the experts recommend looking at the exposure meter in the camera as a reference while setting the manual exposure. In this case, that is not possible as there is no exposure meter. Thus, this is a true blue manual photography with absolutely no reference readings and no help from the camera or the lens in setting either the exposure or the focus.

This final challenge, emphasized above, is what ultimately made me excited about this lens. This lens would force me to learn full fledged manual photography, and that sounded more exciting than anything else. With my other lenses, I usually shoot in Aperture Priority (A) mode, and sometimes in Shutter Priority (S). However, this lens helped me discover the joys of using Manual (M) mode. And now I am never going back to A or S.

When I read reviews of this lens on international forums, a very common theme was how photographers found this lens a joy to use. This lens brings back the pure joy of old fashioned photography - the joys of rotating the aperture and focus rings by hand. And as soon as I got a hang of using this lens, I realized how right they were. I fell in love with this lens, in spite of the severe challenges this lens offers, or maybe because of the severe challenges! This joy is similar to the joy of driving an old, but mechanically perfect manual car with a sweet gearbox and a sweet little engine. You know it is not the fastest or the best, or does not have any features, but you just love the pure driving feel of that old car. This lens gives me exactly that joy, and I totally love taking photographs using this lens.

Optical Qualities: Compared to any modern lens, this lens has nothing that stands out in optical quality. This lens is not the sharpest at wide open (f/1.8) aperture. The images have a bit of softness at f/1.8. The center part is still useful, but the softness is evident toward the edges. However, thankfully, the lens becomes sufficiently sharp as you step down to f/2.8, and becomes tack sharp from edge to edge at f/4.0 and below. Further, these sharpness flaws at wide open apertures are evident mostly on full frame bodies. Since my camera body is APS-C sensor, which basically retains only a central crop of the image, I get the sharper crop of the images and not the softer areas on the edges. Thus, on an APS-C sensor camera, this lens is sufficiently sharp even at f/2.8 from edge to edge, provided the photographer gets the focus right! However, as expected, at wide open apertures (f/1.8 or f/2.8), with extreme shallow depth of field, the manual focusing requires a good amount of skill and practice. Even a slight error in focusing will make the complete photo useless. It is certainly not an easy task to take good photos using this lens, with manual focusing, at wide open apertures. But with practice, it is possible, and once I was able to do this with sufficient practice, the joys are unparalleled!

This lens has 7 diaphragm blades, which means the bookeh is not as smooth or creamy as it is with the modern lenses with 10 or more diaphragm blades. The bookeh is strictly average. (You can see an example of 7-sided light discs in the defocused background in one of the images at the end of this review).

In short, the optical qualities are acceptable but are nothing great, especially compared to modern lenses. But then, this is not a lens that one buys for optical quality (Instead, the newer and more modern Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8 G is the one to get for much better optical qualities. This f/1.8 G lens is the successor of this ancient f/1.8 D lens, and eliminates all the drawbacks on the ancient lens and offers fantastic optical qualities). This f/1.8 D lens is the lens one buys not for the optical qualities, but for experimentation with old fashioned manual photography and exploring the pure joys of manual photography. These are precisely the reasons I bought this lens.

What makes it even more justifiable to buy this sub-optimal optical quality lens purely for experimentation and fun is that this lens is quite inexpensive, and widely available even today. It is available for about Rs. 7,400 on amazon.in, and at similar prices on most other online sites as well as in camera shops. This is a very small price to pay for this iconic 50mm prime lens from the bygone era, and experiment with it today.

In summary, let me list down the pros and cons before I move further.

What you will like about Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 D:

• A fast prime at an affordable price.
• 50mm focal length is perfect for many situations, and offers great versatility.
• Compact and lightweight (weighs only 156g).
• Offers good sharpness at f/2.8 and lower, especially on DX bodies, provided the photographer gets the focus right.
• Although the lens is made of plastic, the build quality is decent, and the mount is high quality metal mount.
• Manual focus right is smooth and precise, and is a joy to use.
• Aperture ring and depth of field markings, typically of the bygone era, are great to have (if you are fascinated by such things like I am).
• Works on both full frame (FX) and APS-C (DX) Nikon camera bodies.
• Offers the absolute joy of old fashioned photography with those aperture rings and manual focusing, just like the joy of driving an old sweet manual car!
• This lens is addictive! It can make you want to take more photos!

What you will not like about Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 D:

• Makes you work hard for each picture (which is something I actually like, but that is the illogical side of me).
• Autofocus works only on the camera bodies which have built in screw type autofocus driver, and even on those, the autofocus is very noisy and annoying (on all other camera bodies, only manual focus is possible).
• On Nikon D3000 and D5000 series of camera bodies, only Manual Mode (M) is compatible, with the limitations mentioned above.
• Optical quality has nothing that stands out compared to newer and more modern lenses, although this lens is reasonably sharp except at wide open aperture.
• Some lack of sharpness at f/1.8, which is especially visible in full frame (FX) bodies (but hidden to some extent in DX bodies).
• 7 diaphragm blades results into an average bookeh, not as creamy and smooth as that with modern lenses having 10 or more blades.

My experiments with manual photography

As I mentioned earlier, before I got this lens, I used Aperture Priority (A) mode most of the times, and on some rare occasions used Shutter Priority (S) mode. But with this lens, I was forced to use Manual (M) mode, as that is the only mode my camera supports with this lens.

Further, even the exposure meter is not available with this lens, and thus, I had to learn judging the exposure manually. And of course, this was also my first time experimenting with manual focus too.

With that, in all my excitement of learning these things, I started experimenting with photographing a few objects in and around our home. I started to look for interesting lighting conditions and started taking photos there to practice the exposure settings and judging the exposure. I took several practice shots, both indoors and outdoors, and that itself became a fun activity. Let me share a few sample images from my typical "practice sessions".

(Note: Please click on the images to see them in full size to assess the quality of the image)

Practicing manual exposure and focus in indoor lighting conditions on small household objects



These leaves, as seen from my window, under interesting and challenging lighting conditions are great practice subjects



A pot hanging outside our balcony is my subject for practicing exposure and manual focus



Finally, a Subway sandwich, where you can see how sharp this lens can get when I managed to get the focus exactly right!

One thing that happened during these initial "home trials" is that I absolutely started enjoying photography with this lens. It is a pure joy to use this lens. It demands that you get involved in the act of photography at a much more fundamental level. You have to think about the exposure settings, the focus, and the composition that suits the fixed 50mm focal length (effective 75mm focal length of my APS-C camera) , and the camera does none of this for you. This way, you get much more involved in the process of photography, and I started to enjoy that. I had read similar reviews on the international forums. In spite of the shortcomings of this lens, people fall in love with this. I am one more addition to that category now. This lens is truly addictive. I now often want to carry nothing else but this lens and my camera, and go out and take photographs.

And that addiction lead me to taking this lens out on a "filed trip" to Karwar.

A "Field Trip" with this Lens:

After getting a hang of using this lens and manual photography with this lens, I took this lens with me to Karwar and Devbagh beaches during my recent trip there. I am sharing a few "sample images" below.

Boats at a beach near Karwar




One more "practice shot" of the boats on the beach




A photograph with "focus at infinity"



Thanks to the wide apertures, this is a nice lens for low light photography. This photo was taken in quite low evening light, at f/2.8. However, manual focusing with such shallow depth of field and in such poor light remains a challenge (as you can judge from the not so perfectly sharp flowers that I managed; however, please click on the image to judge this. the flowers look much sharper when seen at full resolution.)



Another photograph in fairly low light, but with even more stepped down aperture to achieve broader depth of field



Another photo with focus at infinity and stepped down to f/8



The signboard at Devbagh Beach Resort, taken to test manual focusing on the text on the board, in broad daylight at f/8 (Of course, it is much easier to achieve good manual focus at f/8 than with extreme shallow Depths of Field at f1/.8 or f/2.8)



A random test photo of a boat at Devbagh Beach Resort



Sunset at Karwar, again with f/8 and infinity focus



A finally, an image that I really liked, which I shot from a bridge somewhere near Karwar

Evening in Varanasi

Recently, I got a chance to spend an evening at Varanasi, and also see the famous Ganga Aarti there that evening. Varanasi is a photographer's delight, and I was looking forward to taking photos there. Given that I would be moving around in huge crowds (often people jostling with each other) during the Ganga Aarti and in general while walking through the jam-packed streets of Varanasi, I did not want to carry any big and heavy lenses or gear. Having gained confidence from my previous field trip with this Nikon AF 50mm f/1.8 D lens, I decided to take only this lens with me to Varanasi. My camera plus this lens was a small enough kit that fit into a small camera pouch (almost the ones designed for point and shoot camera), and I was happily carrying this small and light equipment through the crowds of Varanasi. I was happy that I did not have to face any inconvenience of lugging heavy equipment.

Portraits in Low Light: One of the key uses of a 50mm f/1.8 lens is for portraits. This lens is no exception, and this is a very good portrait lens. Assuming the one is able to get manage the sharpness at f/1.8, or even otherwise at f/2.8, this is a great portrait lens even in low light. In Varanasi, during out boat ride in the evening hours (with fairly poor light), I got a chance to test this lens for portraits, and here are the results.

Portrait of our boatman in low light



Portrait of a friend of mine, again in low light

In addition to these portraits, I took several pictures of the ghats of Varanasi, and the Ganga Aarti.

Ghats of Varanasi



Ghats of Varanasi



Ghats of Varanasi in the late evening hour



A photo from the boat (and here you can clearly see the heptagonal elements of light in the defocused background, corresponding to the 7 diaphragm blades in this lens

Ganga Aarti was a perfect subject for practicing manual photography in those challenging lighting conditions (the contrast of the darkness and the lights glowing in the dark), and I thoroughly enjoyed that. A few sample images are given below.

A photo from the Ganga Aarti



Another Aarti photo, with interesting lighting conditions for photography



This is one of my favorite photos from this Aarti photoshoot



I experimented with these lamps floating on the river, to try to get focus right in the challenging and dark conditions



This was challenging to get right. It was pitch dark there, and the only light there was from this lamp. I had to get both the focus and exposure right to get this shot, and I was really happy that I got a decent shot here.



And finally, while walking around the streets of Varanasi, it is impossible not to get temped by such lovely hot and fresh food being prepared and served on the roadside stalls (both for eating as well as for photography)



Another food shot. Fresh hot pooris in a roadside stall.

Summary: This is a lovely little lens - compact and lightweight, at a very affordable price. It takes one back to the bygone era of photography, and makes one fall in love with the process of photography once again. I am really glad I got this lens. I now-a-days end up using this lens more than the other relatively "better" lenses that I have. It is the joy of using this lens that is unparalleled. Given that this is so easily available at such as affordable price, if you are a Nikon user and you yet do not have this, I would strongly recommend this lens just to explore the art of using an old fashioned lens and enjoying the process of photography.

Thank you for reading!

[GTO]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

Going to our homepage today

[graaja]

A fantastic write-up of a cool lens AD. And some great pictures to make that thread complete. You are a true experimenter! Looking forward to many more fantastic images from this manual lens.

[boniver]

I had this lens for roughly one year: bought it pre-owned in October 2018 and sold it in December 2019 for more than the buying cost. I realized I wasn't using it much since I'd bought it mainly for low-light photography and it was cumbersome to get the focus correct manually in the dark. Plan was to then buy a 50/35mm 1.8G, but I haven't even picked up my camera since then so didn't feel like investing in another lens.

Some photos that I clicked using this lens:

[raktim]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 D

That is the full and official name of this lens from the bygone era. ..... [/left]
[/left]

A thorough and very catching write-up and some wonderful snaps! Pleasantly reminds me of the early days of using manual SLRs. Still having a Pentax K1000 in possession! However, with film SLRs there used to be the additional difficulties of working with only a fixed film speed and not being able to know the results unless the film is developed.

[argho]

Beautiful pics.

I have owned this lens for many years now (I think almost 20 years).
AF works fine with Nikon D7xxx series cameras (which is what I use).

If you want to explore the creative possibilities of a prime lens (and how it forces you to move around to compose shots), I would reccomend the Nikon 35mm F1.8G lens.

- It works really well with Digital cameras
- Auto-focusess on all the current Nikon bodies
- Gives you a near 50mm equivalent field of view with APS-C sensor cameras

Its also quite inexpensive.

https://www.nikon.co.in/en_IN/produc...or-35mm-f-1-8g

[dragonfire]

Am just a casual photographer and has owned this lens for quite some time now. For the average user, this is the lens for

1. background blur
2. bokeh, bokeh, bokeh

Two other aspects - sharpness and distortion - are kind of overrated. For regular people they are not very noticeable.

I bought this lens because it has received rave reviews from all alike, but all these reviews fail to mention one aspect - versatility.

A regular photographer is better off with a good zoom lens (not the usual kit lens). Bokeh is available at the long end of the zoom and distortion is now corrected by software and people don't notice the sharpness.

[RGK]

This is a very useful thread Dr.

In the world of photography, I am absolutely a noob. What is the best available camera and lens to start taking pictures with? What will the investment be?

I've been putting off this purchase because many people suggest that taking images with your phone is sufficient .

[UD2021]

Very nice thread with some excellent images. Nifty fifty (a fast 50 mm prime) is a lens that most photographers have used at some point in time. It's a great VFM lens. Because of the fixed focal length, you need to move around to compose the frame that you want and new photographers benefit a lot from that.

[FloatingCanvas]

Originally Posted by RGK

In the world of photography, I am absolutely a noob. What is the best available camera and lens to start taking pictures with? What will the investment be?

I've been putting off this purchase because many people suggest that taking images with your phone is sufficient .

The best camera is the one you have at hand to capture the moment!

Smartphone cameras have come a long way and are almost as good as most beginner level cameras. Having become an extended part of ourselves, they are the most commonly available cameras to capture slices of life even when you don't come/go prepared to click pictures.

So start taking pictures right away, with your phone camera. Most phones do have a manual or pro mode nowadays and that mode will help you play around with some basic settings like ISO, exposure, focus and shutterspeed. Read up on the basics, and try to experiment with the different settings to take photo of the same object. That's the best way to learn.

That said, DSLR cameras offer a lot more options to compose and make images to your liking. The level of learning on a proper DSLR with a good prime lens are unmatched.

Canon and Nikon offer similar cameras that have a wide range of lens and accessories to complement the cameras. IMO and experience, Nikon is sturdy by build and offers more focal points and sharper images. While canon is slightly easier to use and gives richer (colour) images. Canon definitely gives better video output than Nikon, while Sony beats both.

I would recommend the same camera being used by OP. Nikon D3500 unless you plan on shooting videos extensively.

Get Nikon D3500 with 18-140mm lens combo if possible. This lens is very versatile and you wouldn't need to change from the the kit lens 18-55 mm lens (approx 3x zoom) to 55-200mm (approx from 3x equivalent to 8x) for normal events. This would help you use the camera for most all circumstances. A 50mm Prime Lens would be very helpful to learn photography and shoot some great landscape/portrait/low-light photography, but without the option of zoom.

Ideal combination should be 18-140mm lens for general photography including vacations and family functions. Prime lens for some portraits, landscape and low light photography where the lack of zooming capabilities shouldn't bother you.

Only camera: approx INR 31k
Camera with 18-55mm lens: INR 36k
50mm Prime lens (with autofocus): approx INR 18k
50mm Prime lens (without autofocus built in): approx INR 7.5

Hope this helps.

[zurura023]

Lovely write-up and a great perspective here Dr. AD.

Although I hate the fact that Nikon introduced the castrated models [D3XXX, D5XXX] which did not support the D lens lineup, the old Nikkor glasses are excellent. You even get a 50 f1.2 quite cheaply if you are now comfortable shooting manually [exposing + focusing]. I am not sure if your camera has focus peaking [I guess not]; but that really helps in nailing the focus. Try getting your hands on an used 24mm or even a 20mm, if you like that perspective. Having used few m42 lenses, I can vouch for the "experience" when you mention the manual clicks for changing aperture and relatively long focus throw.

Glad that you got the fun back in shooting. That is the more important thing above any gear. Happy shooting to you.

Originally Posted by RGK

In the world of photography, I am absolutely a noob. What is the best available camera and lens to start taking pictures with? What will the investment be?

I've been putting off this purchase because many people suggest that taking images with your phone is sufficient .

It depends what you want to shoot, how much control you want and what you want to do with the output as well. If it is simple social media sharing of family pictures and vacations, a phone caters much well due to the sheer convenience. If learning photography or getting some niche shots or low light photography or making large prints or large screen viewing is involved, better get a camera. It would take some time to learn it properly though. I would advise getting a used one so that your investment is low and the you can easily sell it off without much loss if you don't take a liking to the effort involved.

[BloggerMathai]

Ah! The "Nifty Fifty". I had this lens and used it on both my FM10 and my D60. It was a challenge at first but then soon got the hang of it and loved the beautiful bokeh at such a low cost.
If I may, sharing my 52 week project where I forced myself to shoot 1 picture a week for a whole year using ONLY the 50mm.

Nikon 50mm 52 Weeks Project



ps.. Looking back at them now, I'm a little embarrassed as they were taken a decade ago and I was a newbie then Please be gentle.

[amol4184]

Originally Posted by Dr.AD

However, this lens helped me discover the joys of using Manual (M) mode. And now I am never going back to A or S.

Hello, So glad to see this thread here. At one point I was collecting Nikon MF lenses like a mad man.
If you liked this semi manual lens you will love the proper MF lenses from AI or AI-S times. Amazingly, Nikon still makes two of the AI-S lenses : 50mm F1.2 AI-S and 28mm F2.8 AI-S. Both these lenses are incredibly well made. You can't help but appreciate the craftsmanship especially of 50 1.2 and 58 f1.2 which have solid heft to them. And the focusing, aperture rings are pure bliss the way we revere slick shifting manual gearbox here.

The age old optics fall short on 36MP+ sensors but that is the whole charm. On 20-24MP which is my favorite res the lenses resolve enough detail. Its not just the sharpness and detail though, the pictures coming out of these vintage lenses have something that you will be hard pressed to obtain from S, G, P or Z type of lenses. Oh and the sun stars coming out of these vintage lenses are outright fabulous too.

Attaching a few photos from my collection. Mostly taken with Nikon Z6 with FTZ+ these lenses.


Fantastic F1.2 AI-S duo. 58 on the left, 50 on the right. I have 55 too but couldn't find picture of that one.


Breathtaking stars courtesy 50 f1.2.


Pretty sharp for decades old MF technology.


Look at that massive front element.



Taken with 58mm F1.2 wide open. Lucius bokeh.

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by GTO

Going to our homepage today

Thank you very much, GTO. Really appreciate this!

Originally Posted by graaja

A fantastic write-up of a cool lens AD. And some great pictures to make that thread complete. You are a true experimenter! Looking forward to many more fantastic images from this manual lens.

Thank you very much graaja. We can do more experiments with this lens in our future drives. :-)

Originally Posted by boniver

I realized I wasn't using it much since I'd bought it mainly for low-light photography and it was cumbersome to get the focus correct manually in the dark.

For me this the whole point. The difficulties in manual focusing in the dark is something I relish (after all this is a hobby for me, so some challenges in the hobby are welcome!). This is why I posted those Varanasi Ganga Aarti photos. They had a very challenging conditions (dark background with small lighted objects like lamps), and I thoroughly enjoyed manual focusing in those conditions. But yes you are right that this can get tedious unless one enjoys it for some reasons, like I do.

Plan was to then buy a 50/35mm 1.8G, but I haven't even picked up my camera since then so didn't feel like investing in another lens.

I have the 35mm f/1.8 G too, and that is a fantastic lens. But I still enjoy using this 50mm f/1.8 D more for the reasons I mentioned.

Some photos that I clicked using this lens:

Thank you for sharing these photos. Nice photos!

Originally Posted by raktim

A thorough and very catching write-up and some wonderful snaps! Pleasantly reminds me of the early days of using manual SLRs. Still having a Pentax K1000 in possession! However, with film SLRs there used to be the additional difficulties of working with only a fixed film speed and not being able to know the results unless the film is developed.

Thank you very much. Yes, film cameras would have been a different level of fun altogether. I once owned a point-and-shoot film camera, but never got a chance to own and use a SLR film camera. I completely missed that era of photography :-)

Originally Posted by argho

Beautiful pics.

Thank you.

I have owned this lens for many years now (I think almost 20 years).
AF works fine with Nikon D7xxx series cameras (which is what I use).

OK great. Yes, the AF will work with Nikon D7xxx cameras because they do have a build-in screw type focus mechanism. It is on the D3xxx and D5xxx cameras (which do not have this mechanism) that the AF does not work.

If you want to explore the creative possibilities of a prime lens (and how it forces you to move around to compose shots), I would reccomend the Nikon 35mm F1.8G lens.

I already have this lens, and yes, I agree it is a nice lens. Yes, it works flawlessly on my camera, including Autofocus. I like the 35mm focal length (effective focal length of 52.5mm on my DX camera) mostly for car photography. And I use this 35mm f/1.8 G lens for car photography.

For example, here is one photo I took (this is @robimahanta's M340i) using the 35mm f/1.8 G lens at f/2.8:

Originally Posted by dragonfire

Am just a casual photographer and has owned this lens for quite some time now. For the average user, this is the lens for

1. background blur
2. bokeh, bokeh, bokeh

Actually the bokeh produced by this lens is quite average. This has only 7 diaphragm blades, which produces rough and unpleasant bokeh. Newer lenses with more than 10 blades produce soft and creamy bokeh that is so much more pleasant. I do not use this 50mm f/1.8D lens for bokeh for this reason.

As an example, let me share some sample images.

This picture below shows the poor bokeh from this 50mm f/1.8 D lens:


In comparison, this is the lovely creamy bokeh I got from my telephoto lens (AF-P DX NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3G ED VR):

Two other aspects - sharpness and distortion - are kind of overrated. For regular people they are not very noticeable.

I sort of disagree. I do photography for my own sake, as my own hobby. I myself care a lot about sharpness and distortion. I hate distortions in my images. Therefore, I do not agree these are overrated. I pay high importance to these attributes.

A regular photographer is better off with a good zoom lens (not the usual kit lens). Bokeh is available at the long end of the zoom and distortion is now corrected by software and people don't notice the sharpness.

Again, I see your point, but I respectfully disagree. A prime lens makes one work harder and stimulates creativity in compositions (due to limitations of focal lengths), and overall, helps one take better pictures. I have used this lens and also my other prime lens (35mm f/1.8 G) a lot and both of these give me often better pictures than the two zoom lenses that I have in my set.

Originally Posted by UD2021

Very nice thread with some excellent images.

Thank you very much.

Nifty fifty (a fast 50 mm prime) is a lens that most photographers have used at some point in time. It's a great VFM lens. Because of the fixed focal length, you need to move around to compose the frame that you want and new photographers benefit a lot from that.

Agree 100%. Exactly the point I was trying to make above. I have benefited a lot in my compositions by using a prime lens.

Originally Posted by zurura023

Lovely write-up and a great perspective here Dr. AD.

Thank you very much!

You even get a 50 f1.2 quite cheaply if you are now comfortable shooting manually [exposing + focusing]. I am not sure if your camera has focus peaking [I guess not]; but that really helps in nailing the focus.

Thank you for these tips. I will look for these lenses.

Try getting your hands on an used 24mm or even a 20mm, if you like that perspective.

I somehow do not like the wide-angle perspectives. I am not much into wide-angle photographs. I have rarely found myself using anything shorter than 35mm these days. But thank you for the tips!

Glad that you got the fun back in shooting. That is the more important thing above any gear. Happy shooting to you.

Exactly! That was the point of this review. Thank you!

Originally Posted by BloggerMathai

Ah! The "Nifty Fifty". I had this lens and used it on both my FM10 and my D60. It was a challenge at first but then soon got the hang of it and loved the beautiful bokeh at such a low cost.
If I may, sharing my 52 week project where I forced myself to shoot 1 picture a week for a whole year using ONLY the 50mm.

Thank you for sharing these! Some of these pictures are very nice. And great that you did this 52 week project! Thanks again for sharing.

Originally Posted by amol4184

Hello, So glad to see this thread here. At one point I was collecting Nikon MF lenses like a mad man.

Thank you.

If you liked this semi manual lens you will love the proper MF lenses from AI or AI-S times. Amazingly, Nikon still makes two of the AI-S lenses : 50mm F1.2 AI-S and 28mm F2.8 AI-S. Both these lenses are incredibly well made. You can't help but appreciate the craftsmanship especially of 50 1.2 and 58 f1.2 which have solid heft to them.

Thank you. Will check out these lenses.

And the focusing, aperture rings are pure bliss the way we revere slick shifting manual gearbox here.

Exactly. This was my point too. I enjoy using the focus rings and the aperture rings as much as I enjoy driving my 12 year old manual car with a NA petrol engine :-)

Attaching a few photos from my collection. Mostly taken with Nikon Z6 with FTZ+ these lenses.

Wow! Beautiful pictures. Thank you very much for sharing these!

[Dr.AD]

Originally Posted by RGK

This is a very useful thread Dr.

Thank you.

In the world of photography, I am absolutely a noob. What is the best available camera and lens to start taking pictures with? What will the investment be?

I've been putting off this purchase because many people suggest that taking images with your phone is sufficient .

Let me make a few points:

1. Taking photos with phone is "sufficient" in a way you can get decent (or better than decent) photos with most phones today, to depict the scene in a general way and also bring in a little bit of artistic element based on your skills of compositions and skillful use of available lighting conditions. Basically if you want to just document what you see, phones are good.

2. Beyond that, if you want to push your photography to next level, you will quickly realize that even the best phone cameras have limitations. The biggest limitation is the focal length. You can not choose a lens with focal length of your choice. Most phone cameras use wide-angle lenses and suffer from severe perspective distortion typical of wide angle lenses. You can not change the Aperture (even in pro mode, the Aperture of phone lens is fixed), and that means you can not change Depth of Field. These become severe limitations very soon once you start understanding these things and want to start experimenting with these.

3. Phone cameras neither excite you nor encourage you to learn more about photography. I learnt so much about photography in my first six months of using a DSLR than with six years of using a phone camera. If you want to learn a photography, give up on a phone camera (and the conveniences of that) and start using a DSLR. You may find that photography with a DSLR is so much joyful in itself that you will start loving it and will develop a serious new hobby. That is exactly what happened to me.

4. Once you learn the fundamentals of photography and experiment with different techniques with a DSLR (or a mirrorless camera), you can actually go back to a phone camera and you will realize you can take much better picture with a phone camera then. I have realized that with my phone camera, I can take much better pictures now thanks to the techniques I learnt by experimenting with a DSLR. But I would have never learnt this in the first place if I had kept on using just the phone camera everywhere all the time.

5. In short, get a DSLR (or a mirrorless camera) within your budget and start learning photography seriously. There are tons of online courses and videos which can help you get started. I started a complete online Masterclass on photography two years ago.

6. Now coming to which camera, there is no one best camera. It all depends on your budget, kind of photography that excites you more, and how much gear you are willing to carry around. As others have mentioned, the camera I have, Nikon D3500 is a great camera to get started with. I recommend getting this with the kit lens which is a 18-55mm lens. This is good enough to get started and learn various fundamentals of photography. Once you get a hang of it and understand what type of photography you enjoy the most, you can get more lenses later. I started with this kit 2 years ago and by now I have got a small collection of a few lenses, each with specific purpose and style. The investment required for this D3500 body + 18-55mm kit lens will be around Rs. 40,000.

7. Finally, the most important point is that in photography, the artistic elements such as compositions, color coordination, use of light, shapes and patters etc are much more important than the gear you use. Therefore, if you are serious about learning photography, start reading about this right away even before searching for the right gear. Thankfully, as I mentioned, there are tons of great online courses on these topics too. So it is very easy to start learning and there is no need to have a DSLR to learn these things. These fundamentals apply exactly the same way for phone photography too.

Hope this helps!