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Picked up an old Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 off ebay for a pitance and thought I'd have a play with the extension tubes with it.

The lens is fully manual (aperture and focus) but it is now the fastest lens I have and may come in handy in low light where flash is inappropriate.

This shot was taken in quite a dark area of the grevillea. I thought the very limited DOF gave a nice subtle and pastel feel.

Iso 200
1/160s @ f/1.4

MArk, Lovely colour. Did the extension tubes come with the deal? Are they Kenko or Nikkor? The depth of field is the issue with these shots though. Fiddling with the PB6 I faced even worse depth of field challenges. I am thinking of the R1 package for it to allow smaller aperture and more depth.

Very nice Mark - is that the 50mm f/1.4 Ais

Dargan wrote:MArk, Lovely colour. Did the extension tubes come with the deal? Are they Kenko or Nikkor?

Thanks Michael. I already had the tubes which are "Glanz Triplus"

sirhc55 wrote:Very nice Mark - is that the 50mm f/1.4 Ais

Thanks Chris. This is the lens. It does seem a bit tight (the aperture ring is seems to touch the camera) when fitted direct to the camera but fits easily onto the extension tubes. Have to work on that.

That is the earlier S model - they came in two forms - fine aperture ring or ribbed. Serial # 403283 would have been made between 1964 and 1966 and comes within the range 396566 and 454363.

Mark,

That is sweet. Pre AI even.

Our pre-AI 55 micro is also tight, but ....

Thanks for the info Chris. One of the reasons I chose Nikon over Canon was the ability to use older lenses and this sure backs up that decision

gstark wrote:Mark,

That is sweet. Pre AI even.

Our pre-AI 55 micro is also tight, but ....

Gary,

The aperture ring is almost impossible to move with the lens mounted to the camera. Any workaround you know of? I thought about having a few thou shaved off where it comes in contact with the body.

Mark,

Sorry, no. We just deal with it.

I guess for $57.00 I can live with a few limitations

Mark,

It may be an old lens but it still takes sharp pics. You scored a bargain there, mate

Cheers

Michael

Mark,
I may on the wrong track here but I think that if you use a pk-11a extention you will find that the you will get around the aperture ring binding issues.

There have been a few bargains on ebay recently. I scored a PB-6 bellows and PS-6 slide copying adaptor for $175 a couple of weeks ago out of Alaska. Looks like it had never been out of the box. Looking for a lens with a bit more length than the Nikkor 60 now.

Thanks Steve. I'll look into that. Though, it does seem to focus OK when on the camera so I would think any extension would present problems focusing at infinity. Worth a look though

Makes me wonder if this 50mm 1.4 is a sharper lens than the later digital 50mm 1.4? It looks better built.

Michael, it is very solid. I haven't really had a chance to have a play on camera with no extension tubes but when I do I will post the results.

Slider wrote:Thanks for the info Chris. One of the reasons I chose Nikon over Canon was so when my photos came out bad I could blame the equipment

Very nice shot Mark. Definately subtle and has appeal on many levels.