Impressions on Nikkor M 450mm f9

[Dan Fromm]

+1.

We tend to talk more about gear here than about technique, and more about technique than about vision. Gear is easy, and we have the language. Technique is harder to discuss because we often don't have the language. Vision? Nearly impossible.

[Drew Wiley]

You're perfectly welcome to use a Coke bottle lens or cardboard box pinhole camera or whatever. I happen to like sharp images. So if you can't stand the crisp look a Nikkor M gives, I'd be happy to trade you a Coke bottle for it any day.

[Drew Wiley]

Dan - this is a lens thread, not about aesthetics. But tools do need to match our individual sense of vision.

[Drew Wiley]

Pere - I'm well aware of certain advances Nikon has made in nano-coatings. And view camera lenses normally need a large image circle relative to format. But this needs to be an apples to apples discussion, and if those same coatings were applied to a modern M tessar with its limited number of elements, it would no doubt skunk even the latest zoom with respect to contrast. A few percent loss here and there all adds up visibly. But there are side effects to extreme contrast, esp with some color films, so I'm glad the M lenses were designed just the way they are.

[Drew Wiley]

... in other words, zoom lenses are an ideal application for nano coating because they're more prone to such problems, esp if they go wide.

[sanking]

Sandy, it was on your recommendation I acquired a 450M for my F&S 12x20. It's a terrific lens, thank you!

John,

I am glad the 450M has worked out well for you on the F&S 12X20. The lens was recommended to me for 12X20 by Dick Arentz, one of the masters of the F&S 12X20 (and pt/pd).

Sandy

[Dan Fromm]

Dan - this is a lens thread, not about aesthetics. But tools do need to match our individual sense of vision.

Yes, of course. But it has drifted a little. I responded to post #100 above, which is all about the relative importances of gear and vision.

[Drew Wiley]

I don't collect lenses, but tend to have functional spares or options per focal length category. Lenses are interesting in their own right. But for nearly twenty years I worked with only one view camera and one lens. The pictures never suffered from that kind of limitation, but it's nice to shift gears periodically, learn something new. And since I'm not getting any younger, I'm glad I did purchase some compact light wt lenses. Now that I'm retired I'm taking some rather long backpacking trips while I still can, and extra food competes for backpack space with photo gear.

[Pere Casals]

There's a local legend about a press photographer who consistently won awards at photo shows.

His colleagues got fed up and stole his extensive and expensive kit, replacing it with a simple Kodak box camera. He continued to win awards using only the box camera.

True or not, I cannot say. But I believe it.

- Leigh

Monolith, Face of Half Dome by AA was shot with an Adon, which basicly is a telescopic tube with some bottoms of coca-cola bottles inside (a bit exagerating... but not a lot )

He always told he would have liked to use a better lens, but he was always proud of that photograph, and he discovered "visualization" concept that time.

[Pere Casals]

Drew, let me say some points about that

Pere - I'm well aware of certain advances Nikon has made in nano-coatings.

In a NCC Nano crystal coated Nikon lens normally only one surface had that coating(Canon SWC, or Subwavelenth Structure Coating), normally it is the rear of the outer element or group, this is useful to prevent goshts and flare in extreme wides, still the "N" is more a commercial term in some lenses than other, a longuer than wide lenses does not benefit much of nanocrystals, as its benefits are with very extreme angled rays comming to the surface, a situation found in extreme wides.

I don't to what extent the Nikon's "N" lettering is more or less commercial branding.

Here Nikon explains : !and is particularly effective in reducing ghost and flare peculiar to ultra-wideangle lenses:

https://www.nikonimgsupport.com/eu/B...d=1&lang=en_GB

And view camera lenses normally need a large image circle relative to format. But this needs to be an apples to apples discussion, and if those same coatings were applied to a modern M tessar with its limited number of elements, it would no doubt skunk even the latest zoom with respect to contrast. A few percent loss here and there all adds up visibly. But there are side effects to extreme contrast, esp with some color films, so I'm glad the M lenses were designed just the way they are.

Drew, IMHO modern LF lenses are the perfection, you see same contrast in the scenne than in the projected image, there is no practical margin for improvement in the same way that the excellent cheap Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AFD cannot improve more the contrast, because the projection has near the 100% of the contrast that the scene has.

I'd suggest you a test... use a M 450 in 4x5, you won't see that crisp, clean hue and saturation.

Use it in 8x10 and you will see it.

Go again to 4x5 with the M 450 but this time use an adjustable front hood to trim the 440mm circle to the 153.7mm that 4x5 requires. Oh !!! you recover that crisped look !!! , even greater than with 8x10 if AOC trim was good !!!

what happened ? easy, now you are not illuminating the bellows with the 80% of the light intake !!!

Adjust the front hood with a W 300 and you'll get the same crisp than with a M 300...