Lenses in Their Prime

LUND--I have never been entirely happy with my Nikon D1x. It is an incredible camera in almost every regard and shooting in JPEG Fine can produce prints with no visible pixels to at least 24 by 36 inches. But it is big and heavy and unless I am very actively working a story I don't feel inclined to carry it much. If you know me then you know my love of film but even I will admit that film has its drawbacks in terms of expense and workflow. But I will carry my Leica whereas I simply won't carry the Nikon at times. The other drawback is that I am both used to and generally take better pictures with a manual camera. My first was a Nikon FM and both it and the Leica use a three dot LED lightmeter that is, when experienced with it, incredibly fast and intuitive, in my opinion absolutely the best and simplest metering system. Now of course you can set a D1x or an F5 or what have you in any manual way but using the thumbwheels and the top LCD display is not nearly as good or quick as the old combination of shutter speed dial and aperture ring.

I am happy taking pictures with my D1x again. I have never much liked zoom lenses but when I bought the D1x used from another photographer he included the 17-35mm continuous 2.8 Nikkor. I bought a tele zoom as well and used them mostly in full-auto mode and, truth be told, have taken some great pictures with them. But I was never happy. Recently I began mounting my old prime lenses on camera and while it is still big in itself the small primes make it much nicer to carry (35mm 2.8 Nikon E series, 55mm MicroNikkor 3.5 and 20mm 2.8 Nikkor). The primes work in Aperture Priority mode which, since owning an F3, I consider essentially speeded up manual exposure. If you know what your camera is doing then you know about what shutter speed is being selected when you change the aperture and thus can easily play back and forth with motion and depth-of-field. At the same time these lenses are manual focus and you never have the camera hunting for focus, it fires when you push the button and your focus oint is always chosen by you and not the computer. As well, the lenses are incredibly sharp.

Of course they aren't the same as they would be on the FM or F3 given the D1x's magnification factor. My favorite lens is the old 50mm which is about what the 35mm becomes. The 55mm MicroNikkor is a joy, however, giving me a short telephoto but allowing me to focus from infinity to about three inches. It opens up a whole world of photos. The only real downside is that the beautiful 20mm becomes a rather average wide angle lens. But then again I am usually perfectly happy toting around the Leica with often nothing but a 50mm (I have a 15mm and a 135mm).

In the last days I have taken more photos with the D1x that I have been happy with than in a very long time. I feel that I am actually using the camera as a true photographic tool, perhaps with some of the limitations that make you try and think a little harder and thus obtain better, more original images.