I picked up a new (to me) lens. An old, 2 pound 9.6 ounce, glass and steel demi-monster Nikkor 300mm 1:4.5 f/4 AIS (manual focus for the kiddees).
Yes - it does work on a DSLR. Yes - you have to shoot in M mode. Yes - it does display "No Lens" the entire time :-)
And yes - it's wonderfully sharp. Sharper than any of the new 300mm lenses I can afford :-) But I jump ahead...
So I had to test it. Both to make sure it was functional and - because - it's a new toy. There's this pink flowering thing (Crepe Myrtle ?) towering over my car. Dark green pine trees as a background distant enough to test DOF. And wind, just to make things interesting.
I have 2 D3200 bodies and I put the 300mm on one and the Tamron 90mm SP Macro on the other. Both on the same model tripod set to the same height. Side by side and remote triggers for both bodies.
Since the 300mm has no electronics, I set both bodies to Manual and set the exposures for both bodies from the 90mm. And varied exposures by the same amounts on both bodies.
And forgot the 90mm was set to manual focus so I'm missing usable images for the f/8 flower comparison shot :-(
It was blond when I had hair :-)
All images are manually focused, just to level the playing field. Any failings of sharpness is a combination of my old eyes and wind. I did mention it was windy, right??
| Aperture Setting | 300mm | 90mm |
|---|---|---|
| f/32 | |
|
| f/8 | |
no image |
| f/32 | |
|
| f/8 | |
|
And it takes decent movies as long as you can set an aperture that gives you a shutter speed of 1/60 or faster :-)