I got into a discussion over on Photo.net with a guy, no doubt a member of "generation digital" who has never picked up a film camera, about old vs. new Nikkor glass. His presumption was that newer Nikkors were "so much better coated" than older Nikkors which had bad ghost problems. I immediately called bull***t to that statement and asked him how many "old" Nikkors he owned. I also challenged him to put his money where his mouth was and provide actual proof...........cue the sound of crickets chirping. No surprise.
I decided to do a little bit of somewhat scientific but definitely real world testing. I took two of my wide angle Nikkors, ones with lots of little pieces of glass in them and ones where you were likely to get ghosts due to those "inferior" coatings. I chose my 28mm f/2.8 AI (late 1980's vintage) and 35mm f/2.8 AIS (mid 1990's vintage) and decided to put them through the harshest flare test imaginable, the sun in the upper corner. Both of these lenses are as close to a "black hole" as you can get when you look into them. Below are photos of both lenses with the sun in the worst possible place for lens. The exposure for both was 1/5000 @ f/11. The 35mm f/2 has often been reviled (I am sure mostly are "parrots" of what guys like Rockwell has to say and we all know what a reliable source he is) as having flare and coma problems. To that assessment I also call bulls**t. It is a wonderfully sharp lens, even wide open in low light. As you can see it has essentially NO flare or coma problems. Coma should be gone by f/8 but even at f/2.8 with photos taken at night with point light sources, it is minimal at best. The proof is in the pudding and I put both lenses through probably the toughest pudding there is.
I decided to do a little bit of somewhat scientific but definitely real world testing. I took two of my wide angle Nikkors, ones with lots of little pieces of glass in them and ones where you were likely to get ghosts due to those "inferior" coatings. I chose my 28mm f/2.8 AI (late 1980's vintage) and 35mm f/2.8 AIS (mid 1990's vintage) and decided to put them through the harshest flare test imaginable, the sun in the upper corner. Both of these lenses are as close to a "black hole" as you can get when you look into them. Below are photos of both lenses with the sun in the worst possible place for lens. The exposure for both was 1/5000 @ f/11. The 35mm f/2 has often been reviled (I am sure mostly are "parrots" of what guys like Rockwell has to say and we all know what a reliable source he is) as having flare and coma problems. To that assessment I also call bulls**t. It is a wonderfully sharp lens, even wide open in low light. As you can see it has essentially NO flare or coma problems. Coma should be gone by f/8 but even at f/2.8 with photos taken at night with point light sources, it is minimal at best. The proof is in the pudding and I put both lenses through probably the toughest pudding there is.
