Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/03/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Don Dory wrote: > > I would suggest a new AF Nikon. The N80 or F80 is going for around $400 new > after rebate. If offers a great smallish, light body that is easy to use. > 8008's go for the $300 range, don't focus as fast as the newer bodies and > also don't have the really cool grid screen at the touch of a CF button. > N90's are big, heavy camera's relatively speaking. > > If you will almost never use AF then look at a 2020. Very intuitive > controls, just really slow AF. Prices can be below $100 for a "user". > Whatever you do, stay away from the 4004, 4004s, or the 5005. This series > had only one thing going for them, the F mount. > > Don > dorysrus@mindspring.com > It's not that it's Nikon. And Nikon on a or "the" Leica list but it's gotta be Nikon "AF." So we get lists and lists of endless comparative tupperware. Would you get much more focussed and better received answers from a huge client base if you asked this on the Nikon list? They can give you the clock speed of every micromotor in every Tupperware Nikon ever made! Most of us are just not in the auto-focus mentality over here. We're just not all freaked out that the Leica R system didn't go AF. The older pre AF Nikkor macros are said to be better than the AF's. By "said" i mean I've heard that from more than one local friend of mine. We all started out with Nikons. The urban legend is that Micro Nikors used to be optimized at macro distances (close) but they became general purpose lenses so they knocked it to infinity. Ah the road to mediocrity is all downhill! I've always believed that but its just the kind of thing which would turn out to not be true. If I were using a macro lens I'd want it optimized macro. Close. I'd plan to not shoot too many clouds with it but how sharp does a cloud need to be? Jim Brick by the way was just telling me yesterday how well his 120 CFE worked shooting bridges. The results didn't appear to be able to get any sharper! I had some reticence traveling across Texas a couple of years back with my 120 CFi macro as my only tele for my Hasselblad. But I've gotten over that. I also got a 180. But we're talking Nikkor not Zeiss here. I shoot 35mm macro every once in a blue moon and I've kept my Nikons for the occasion as I'm not going to insult them by selling them for chump change to some kid who'd rather have AF but cant afford it. They created the major part of my body of work. Medium format had a long time catching on with me. So I still have a 105 2.8 micro Nikkor and for making slides of my prints although a 55 or 60 might be a bit better ergonomically. I put it on a FM2 or FM body. Sometimes I'll even put it on my early tupperware 8008! Love that motorized rewind! And love the fact that everything works on 4 AA batteries, meter and all. No chips! But I'm embarrassed being seen in public with it and embarrassed to even mention it. I could pick up a 60 Nikkor now for the price of a Leica UV filter and an end cap but I'm not going to waste another dime on Nikon. A 60mm would very possibly give me what is becoming my favorite focal length as I'm shooting the famous 100 on my Hasselblad most of all. A cropped normal. Ultra highly corrected. I understand a MACRO-ELMARIT-R f/2.8/60 mm can be picked up used for the price of two new Leica UV filters plus one back cap!. A lens which, like the Zeiss Planar CFI 3.5/100 would send shivers down your back it's so sharp. And that's a back used to the high quality it usually gets from Zeica. (I just made that up! Sounds Russian!) Would love to say "Leitz and Zeiss". You would need AF for macro? Is it going to follow a little bumble be going from flower to flower better then you could? Why not stick to the Leica frame of mind a bit more and pick up a used FM2 for chump change they are built like tanks and they are even making more of them but they are calling them something similar. I like my FE2 with it's A setting though and easy to get to override. And it's borderline hockypuck feel. The last hockypuck Nikon was the F2. The F3 is an elegant classic. The F4 and 5 awesome monsters I'm sure up to anything but I've not gone that route. Why not stick to Leica? Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA http://www.rabinergroup.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html