Just walked from University to home, to take some test shots with the new lens: Nikon Ai Nikkor 50mm f/1.2S. By using an adapter on the Sony A7 camera, all shots are taken at max aperture f1.2!
It is a raining day in Tokyo City, so I chose metro to Uni. However it turned into fine at night, allow me to take a walk to home, and by this chance to pick some photos.
Talking about the incredible f1.2 lens, the combination with the mirrorless camera Sony A7 is perfect. I could imagine if the camera body is a Nikon D600 or what DSLR, the manual focus will become extremely difficult. But with A7’s focus peaking function, except some fast moving objects, the manual focus was smooth as a baby’s bottom.
The shooting mode in on M or S, stands for Manual exposure and Speed priority exposure. However I use auto ISO in both mode, it made them exactly the same. Although the dials function made some changes.
Besides the focus peaking function, A7 also has a zoom focus assist function, which zoom an area up when I pushed a self modify button. In the situation that focus peaking is not so fitted, push to a focus area zoom will help me out.
Downside of this lens is of course the vignetting, the corners falls down about 3 stops which at night completely falls into a black ring.
Color performance and contrast is great through this lens even when wide-open. In post production, no saturation adjustment is necessary but add a little contrast is always welcome.
Fringing can be found in wide-open photos, sometimes it is out of my patients. The center is alright but just go a little bit to the outer side, the fringing will pop out.
The fringing goes out in out of focus objects as well. As a result, when an photo includes several distance object in a narrow spaces, the fringing will disturb you hardly.
To unleash the maximum power of this fantastic lens, using old school style! Keep the light source behind the camera, think precisely about the structure, remove the distributions, and it will impress you!
Since the lens is developed 30 years ago, maybe put some respects and enjoy a film camera shooting experience, that is the lens is all about.
The online reviews that the lens owns another personality when aperture ring turns upon f2.0, I am really looking forward to having an further test at day time.