Impressions on Nikkor M 450mm f9

[Michael Kadillak]

The contrast of Nikkor M's is nearly as good as MC Kern Dagors. Less air/glass interfaces in both cases compared to plasmats.

Absolutely agree. As someone that only shoots B&W, I also love the Fuji 600C , 450C and 300C for the same reason.

[Drew Wiley]

I keep the Nikkor M's in my longhaul backpack with an Ebony 4X5 folder. The Fuji A's and C's go in a different large pack for day use or road travel which accepts either my 8X10 folder or Sinar 4X5. I like to have separate kits ready to go on a whim.

[Drew Wiley]

...forgot to say, the reason for the A's and C's being in the 8X10 & Sinar kit is their larger image circle. The M's are particularly small, so are particularly good for backpacking and airline carry-on.

[scerto]

Best of M 450 is weight, 650grs for 450mm focal and 440mm circle.

It is a highly regarded lens for 8x10 Pros, it is multicoated and the simple design with less groups makes it flare resistant.

Drawback is that it only has 4 elements in 3 groups, tessar design, so it is a simple design that is less refined than a regular plasmat type lens, for example, a plasmat would probably deliver a larger circle, but for 450mm a plasmat would be huge. This is seen in then 300mm focal, for example, comparing Nikkor M 300 vs W 300, just to realize the M meaning.

The 450 focal needs only 52º to cover that 440mm circle, so with only 4 elements necessary performance can be reached, and manufacturing was also cheaper.

So it is a perfectly good lens for 8x10 landscape, if wanting more circle for architecture there is Fujinon CM-W 450 f/8 with 520mm circle, but weight is 1140grs.

The M 450 it is a lens that I was to acquire, I had a good opportunity, finally I judged that having a 360mm I can always crop the 8x10 negative and still having lots of image quality, and first I should deserve a lens like this.

Love the M design! I do use a lot the 300mm on my 4x5" and wanted something similar on 8x10". Still keeping the 300mm W for this format!

[scerto]

Awesome lens. I also use it on my 14x17 camera.

Didn't know it covered 14x17"!!!

[Pere Casals]

Absolutely agree. As someone that only shoots B&W, I also love the Fuji 600C , 450C and 300C for the same reason.

The contrast of Nikkor M's is nearly as good as MC Kern Dagors. Less air/glass interfaces in both cases compared to plasmats.

With modern, 30 years old, multicoatings flare generated by a 4th group is way irrelevant, as a maximum it can be (0.002 x 0.002 x 6) + (0.002 x 0.002 x 7) = near nothing, zero in práctical terms, just multiply.

But a tessar type Nikkor M 450 can generate awesome flare in a 4x5 camera, with a 440 circle only aprow 15% of the light goes to the negative an 85% of the light bounces in the bellows, mostly in the inner bends (specially if bellows longuer than necessary), reflecting a lot, this may generate a 3 to 10% flare !!!!

Because that the smart way is front shade that effectively limits the angle on coverage to the required.

About the modern perfection of coatings, we can see what does a low flare zoom, like the FX Nikon 70-200 f/2.8, it has 16 groups, this is 32 air-glass surfaces. http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/70-200mm-ii.htm

... and some LF lenses have 6 or 7 groups without noticing problems...

Flare resistance is proportional the square of the coating efficiency, because the ray has to be reflected two times, once to the front and again to the back of the camera, and today we are under 0.2% reflection, so a lens with a single element lens would provocate 0.002 x 0.002, this is 4/1,000,000 flare. Just to realize how efficient coatings are.

[karl french]

What a mess. Down the rabbit hole.

[Pere Casals]

What a mess. Down the rabbit hole.

Not at all, the thing is quite simple, with modern multicoated LF lenses near all flare comes from excessive image circle, and it can be avoided with a shade in the front. Beyond that some lenses can show more goshting with sun.

[karl french]

You are missing the point. The OP asked about a lens that has been discussed many times here. I offered a simple answer to his question based on my experience with the lens as used on an 8x10 camera. The thread quickly went off the rails into a discussion of many other lenses and how tessar type lens with large coverage may produce more flare on 4x5 cameras.

But I do agree that a lens shade is a good idea.

[George Losse]

Didn't know it covered 14x17"!!!

The 450 M also covers 8x20 nicely also.