Hello, everybody! How are you today? I just took the family out to a Korean restaurant. I know that there are a couple of cheap eats there and I thought it would also be good for the family to see the other cheap deals at the vicinity. There are many things that we can get for cheap and being cheap doesn’t always have to be bad. In fact, some cheap things are just as good or even better than the more expensive things just like Stolichnaya when you compare it to the top-shelf vodkas. Today, I’m going to introduce to you a cheap and very good Nikkor that many people started out with and many pros used these,too.
Introduction:
Today, we will talk about a lens that almost every Nikon photographer owned because it was cheap and it exceeded expectations, the AF-Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens! This lens was a big hit for Nikon because of its great price/performance ratio. The lens is “Made in China” and it lowered the production cost even more. I will show you what’s inside this thing so you will know how and why Nikon kept its cost down.
The AF-Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 is the original “plastic fantastic” lens for Nikon users back in the days. Many photographers started with one, built their portfolio with one and made a lot of money using one. They are also very easily sold soon after as they usually lust for a faster f/1.4 lens so these were very plentiful back then and maybe even to this day.
Hello, everybody! I got back into smoking again after quitting it for 5 years. It has always been on-and-off for me but this time, I’m using the “heat-not-burned” type where tobacco is heated instead of burned. The most popular one sold here is the IQOS. It’s by far the most popular model because of the cost and availability, it is not the best option so mine is now up for sale. In the long run, you end up spending more on tobacco because of bad design decisions made by Philip Morris. This is what I would call “false economy”, you are given an impression that you save plenty of money but at the end you actually spend lots more. That’s the reason why GLO, is slowly kicking the IQOS out of the market. It’s much better designed and is the best option in the “heat-not-burned” market. I’m not endorsing you to start smoking but instead I want you to quit! While we’re on the topic of economy, I will show you a good lens that’s hyped-up as being inexpensive but is really going to cost you more in the long run, a good example of false economy.
Introduction:
Today, we’re going to look at the Nikon 100mm f/2.8E lens! This lens belongs to the cheap Series E line of lenses. Series E lenses were made by Nikon for the budget conscious. They really had great value way back when they were introduced with the cheap Nikon EM. If you guessed that the “E” in Series E means “economy” then you got it right. The Series E line and the Nikon EM were made for ease of use, light weight and economy. This family of Nikon products were aimed at women who are fussy at the size or weight of their gear and ease of operation is important. Now, before branding me as sexist remember that this was the late ’70s. Maybe society is indeed sexist because cameras are still designed to satisfy these parameters today and much of the mirrorless segment shows this (ie: Fuji X-A line).
Series E lenses are generally compact and lite, the Nikon 100mm f/2.8E is no exception. Its weight is almost half of the equivalent Nikkor, is just as small as some small primes and was decently made to satisfy Nikon’s marketing and accountants. They’re pretty good but not Nikkor-good. More
Here are more photos for my gallery that were taken around 2 years ago up till around last year. Some of the photos were shot with cheap C41 process film and the rest were shot with a Nikon DSLR camera. I take plenty of photos, probably a couple of hundred each year. This is a lot of pictures but if you consider the fact that I take photos almost everyday then this number doesn’t seem too much. I’m slowing down quite a lot lately because “wasting silver” is not practical and with the dwindling supply of that precious metal, this isn’t a good thing to do either.
Observing what people do can be a relaxing activity. Standing at the corner of a street just waiting for something to happen puts me in “the zone” and it has the ability to slow my though process down. You can take it as a form of meditation wherein you drop everything else in your mind and just focus on a single thing. More
Hello, everybody! Here are some of my black and white photos that I took some 2-3 years ago. Most of them were shot with film but I believe that less than a handful of them were shot with a DSLR. I rarely ever convert my colour photos to monochrome so I can be sure with this. The film stocks I used were Kodak 400TX, Ilford HP5+ and probably a few were even shot with Kentmere. All were developed with Kodak D-76 as that used to be the only thing available to me here in Tokyo. The photos were mostly shot during my lunch break as I wander through the crowded streets of Shinjuku.
I was trying to do a series with bicycles and here are some of the pictures. Bicycles are a very common sight here in Tokyo and almost everybody owns at least one. It can be hard to make interesting photos of the subject but I tried anyway.
Below are lists of the articles that I made throughout the years. I made this so my readers will have a convenient page to look for my articles without having to Google anything for what they need from my blog.
The articles are arranged in several categories for easy browsing. I hope that this will be useful for you. I will update this page every time I post something new. Thanks, Ric. More
Hello, everybody! It is Nikon’s 100th anniversary today! The company was founded with the merger of several smaller companies and it was called Nippon Kogaku which means Japan Optical literally. There are milestones throughout Nikon’s 100 years of continuous operation and I will tackle some of them here in my blog. You may have already seen my Nikon Museum series which I began a few months ago along with the related articles and this is just a part of that. I hope that you will enjoy this series, Nikon lover or not.
Introduction:
Today, I am going to show you a historically significant lens as far as the Japanese optics industry is concerned and that’s no other than the old but venerable Nikkor-P.C 8.5cm f/2! The Nikkor-P.C 8.5cm f/2 was perfected and sold during the post-war reconstruction years following WW2. It was heavily inspired by the Zeiss designs since Nikon was new to this game and needed somewhere to start from. I would consider this lens to belong to the 1st generation wherein the lenses have very strong resemblances to the Zeiss “inspirations”. By the 2nd generation,Nikon had learned enough and their lenses begin to look different in terms of design and engineering. Everybody has to start somewhere, right?
This is a compact but dense lens. The Nikkor-P.C 8.5cm f/2 is a joy to hold in your hands. It was made of chrome-over-brass with big pieces of glass, hence the weight. This amazing lens is legendary and you can even say that it was partly responsible for introducing the Japanese camera and optics industry to the world. Nikon is known here (in Japan) as one of the companies that helped revive the Japanese post-war export industry and this lens helped it achieve that. If you want to know the remarkable story of this lens then please read this web comics made by Nikon. This lens is so significant to Nikon’s history that the lens has its own comics! More
Hello, everybody! I was at the hospital last week to have a heart monitor installed. I was a bit tired and stressed the last few weeks so my health was a bit down. Now, the doctor advised me to have the heart monitor attached for a day to see what’s going on and while I think that this is a little too much since my problem is only some weird palpitations and not some dangerous heart condition, I just went along just for the sake of it. I can repair broken equipment but I cannot fix sick people. If only we can just have our organs fixed or replaced just as easily as opening up a machine and changing what’s wrong then the world would be a very different place to live in. I do not wish to be a bionic but I’m very thankful of the advances in medical technology. Today, I am going to show you a how to replace a problematic part found in a very popular Nikon gadget so please read on!
Introduction:
The Nikon MD-3 is a very popular motor drive amongst Nikon F2 users. It was affordable and is the “basic trim” as far as Nikon F2 motor drives are concerned. It is convenient to have this with your Nikon F2 when you have a heavy lens and it is very useful for sports photography in particular because you have automatic advance as a feature. In this blog post, I am going to show you how to repair a very common problem with the Nikon MD-3 and show you why this thing happens. There aren’t many resource available on this topic so I hope that you will enjoy this article and if you like it, please share this on your page!
Here is the Nikon MD-3 inside the shop’s display case. It sure has seen better years. These are usually found in this condition because they were usually used pretty hard by pros.
Hello, everybody! We just had a great dinner tonight and we had some banh mi from one of those Vietnamese shops in Shinjuku. I liked how the taste and texture of the ham gelled so well with the liver paste. The combination is so good that it will work universally with any sandwich from any cuisine. There are combinations that work so well that you will want to use it all the time. Today, I will show you a great combination from Nikon and I’ll also persuade you to buy one if you don’t own one yet. Read on.
Introduction:
The Nikon MD-4 was designed for the Nikon F3 series of professional cameras. The design is so well-integrated to the Nikon F3 that you just have to use it with one of these and see it for yourself. It really feels like a single unit and the Nikon F3 balances better with one installed specially if you are shooting with a heavy lens attached to it.
Here it is with the Nikon MD-3 set that I just worked on the night before I worked on this Nikon MD-4. Notice how much smaller it is? This compact form factor is very good since it helps a lot with the weight distribution. The Nikon F3 is physically smaller compared to the Nikon F2 for which the Nikon MD-3 was made for. I love mine a lot! More
Hello, everybody! I am going to show you a little project of mine. I get bored with fixing and repairing lenses so I do modifications as well when time and budget permits. Here is my latest creation (now in prototype stage) – the Autofocus Helios-44 for Nikon!
Here is the thing in action. It works surprisingly good at this stage so I am going to take this thing for a test tomorrow afternoon!
Hello, everybody! It’s now really hot here! I am now craving for a serving of ice-cold noodles served with wasabi and light dipping sauce! While this may sound a bit weird to some, this is a very popular way of cooling-off in Japan on the hot summer months. It is as weird as vanilla ice cream on your chips but I will tell you that many people do this and that includes me! Next time you go to a fastfood restaurant go order some and try it for yourself. While we are on the topic of unusual things I will show you an obscure lens from Nikon today. It’s so obscure that not a lot of people know about it.
Introduction:
Today, I’m going to show you one of the more obscure Nikkors that was ever made, the Nikkor-S 5.8cm f/1.4 Auto! This little lens is relatively unknown to the average Nikon photographer and is only being talked about by collectors and older lens aficionados like me. There are several small details that were unconventional at the time with this lens if you compare it to other Nikkors of its time that some people even dared to speculate that this lens was made by another company. I will show you what is different with this lens during the teardown section but do not get your expectations too high because the differences aren’t really that much and is insignificant except for one thing which I’ll show to you later. This is the only place on the internet that talks about things like this.
This is the first lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4 for the F-mount. Just think about the light that it’s able to gather. It’s a beautiful lens and you can start a conversation with many people just because of how it looks. Despite it looking almost identical to the Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 Auto that replaced this a few years after this debuted it is a completely different lens on the inside. Many people confuse the two lenses at first glance and many collectors are even confused when they saw one from a distance at the camera shops.
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The AF-Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 is the original “plastic fantastic” lens for Nikon users back in the days. Many photographers started with one, built their portfolio with one and made a lot of money using one. They are also very easily sold soon after as they usually lust for a faster f/1.4 lens so these were very plentiful back then and maybe even to this day.
Series E lenses are generally compact and lite, the Nikon 100mm f/2.8E is no exception. Its weight is almost half of the equivalent Nikkor, is just as small as some small primes and was decently made to satisfy Nikon’s marketing and accountants. They’re pretty good but not Nikkor-good. 
This is a compact but dense lens. The Nikkor-P.C 8.5cm f/2 is a joy to hold in your hands. It was made of chrome-over-brass with big pieces of glass, hence the weight. This amazing lens is legendary and you can even say that it was partly responsible for introducing the Japanese camera and optics industry to the world. Nikon is known here (in Japan) as one of the companies that helped revive the Japanese post-war export industry and this lens helped it achieve that. If you want to know the remarkable story of this lens then please read 
Here is the Nikon MD-3 inside the shop’s display case. It sure has seen better years. These are usually found in this condition because they were usually used pretty hard by pros.
Here it is with the Nikon MD-3 set that I just worked on the night before I worked on this Nikon MD-4. Notice how much smaller it is? This compact form factor is very good since it helps a lot with the weight distribution. The Nikon F3 is physically smaller compared to the Nikon F2 for which the Nikon MD-3 was made for. I love mine a lot! 
This is the first lens with a maximum aperture of f/1.4 for the F-mount. Just think about the light that it’s able to gather. It’s a beautiful lens and you can start a conversation with many people just because of how it looks. Despite it looking almost identical to the 
