After cleaning my "new" Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Ai lens (which I got together with a Nikon FE at a flea market), I wanted to compare it with the other 50mm lenses I have been using in order to see if it is any good. I have two other 50mm f/1.8 lenses:
Here are the contestants:
- the AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8G which is just a couple of years old and which I typically use on my digital camera and
- an old Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8 Series E pancake manual focus lens which I typically use with manual film cameras.
Here are the contestants:
To compare those lenses, I shot the same pictures with all three using the exact same settings (aperture f/1.8, wide open for all lenses). I chose a horrible back-lit scene to see how the lenses can handle it. Bellow is the picture from the three lenses.
Clearly the first picture is the best in terms of flare. Pictures 2 and 3 have quite severe flare and ghosting. Not much surprises here, the first is the modern AF-S Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8G and the second and third are the older manual lenses. In terms of overall contrast and colors, I would say the the second is the best, the first is not bad and the 3rd is the worst. I am a bit surprises to see that the Ai lens seem to be actually a bit better than the AF-S lens. Bellow are some crops to evaluate the details and sharpness.
All pictures have been captures in RAW using the same settings and the exact same processing has been applied to all 3. On the cropped image, the winner is clearly the second one, followed by the first and the third is again the worst of the three. On this particular test, the Ai lens seem to be the winner. This is a bit surprising to me, I thought that the AF-S new and modern lens would be an obvious winner.
Conclusion
This "new" Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Ai lens shows quite some flaring and ghosting but in terms of sharpness, contrast and colors, it is on par (or maybe even slightly better) than the modern AF-S 50mm 1:1.8G lens. That is a surprise and I did not expect that. The other important finding is that it is actually much better than the series E pancake lens which I have been using on my film camera. I will definitely favor using the Ai lens from now on. It is not that much larger than the pancake lens anyway.