Repair: Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 Ai

Hello, everybody! Being the sentimental and romantic person that I am, I was surfing the net checking-out my old classmates that I haven’t seen for decades on facebook then I just remembered that I was pursuing a girl in my teens who everybody had a crush on. She’s popular and all but I discovered something that nobody else noticed, she has a sister and she’s just as amazing. She’s polite, simple and cute in her own way with her little flaws. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it’s her sister that I actually wanted all along. I was young so I was foolish to let her go. Did you ever have the same experience as me? There are many times when you’d realize that what you wanted isn’t what everyone wanted at all at first. I think that this is a profound feeling and this just goes to show that you have matured in a way because you now follow your heart instead of what other people say is hot. Today, I am going to share to you a lens that caught me by surprise. It’s been thrown-off to the limelight because of its “hot” sibling but it’s every-bit as good or even better for those who know what they wanted. Please read the article to find out what this lens is.

Introduction:

The Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 Ai is the successor to the New-Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 which shares lots of similarities to this one that you can consider both to the same lens in every sense. The later Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 Ai only differs in the sense that it comes with an Ai-ring, you can add a factory Ai-ring to the older New-Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 and you basically end up with a near-identical lens so what applies to this lens also applies to that one, too. There are few differences in the models that came between the first one and the last model but they’re all minor and shouldn’t matter at all except for collectors. The New-Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 is a trail-blazer, it started a new lens line because the closest model that came before this is the Nikkor-H•C 28mm f/3.5 Auto, a lens that has an old optical design and was at one time the widest SLR lens available that you can use without having to flip the mirror up. That was a popular lens and it sold a lot but people wanted a faster lens so this design debuted in 1975 as the New-Nikkor 28mm f/2.8. It took Nikon that long because designing fast and wide lenses was difficult given the technology of the time but Nikon managed to make it, it has a 7 elements in 7 groups design which is reasonable for a lens in this class. It soon became popular and it sold very well because the performance is fantastic, it’s resistance to flare and ghosting is something that’s hard-to-beat to this day and it’s sharp as well. An even bigger bonus is that it only has a mild distortion profile considering its focal length. I will consider this design to be one of Nikon’s high points in optics engineering.

IMG_2520The lens feels great in your hands, it certainly feels like a classic Nikkor. It’s compact but it’s just a bit bigger than the usual small prime from the same era. You can throw this to an assailant and this will likely crack his nose, they don’t make lenses like these today. More