Nikkor 28/3.5 comparison

[Akira]

In the <> Sticky :: IR Photography: Cams, Mods, Lenses, Lights, Links <> section of this forum, you will find a comment on some versions of Nikkors 28mm f3.5, saying:

 

Non-K versions also good, but K is superior.

 

I've had a single coated Nikkor-H 28/3.5 and a K version arrived today.  So, I did a quick comparison of both.  The camera is a stock SIGMA fp, and the filter, Zomei IR850.  The first image was shot with the K at f11 and 1.6 sec., and the second image was shot with the Nikkor-H at f11 and 2 sec.  The camera was set at ISO 1250 and color mode "off" (meaning, no in-camera process like Vivid, Landscape, Portrait, etc.), and the images were jpegs converted and resized from the DNG files in ACR with no manipulation.

 

 

[Akira]

And here are cropped images from the original frames in the original size.  Please tolerate my sloppy cropping technique!

 

The both appear to perform almost equally well, and the K looks ever-so-slightly more contrasty.

 

That said, in the against-the-light condition, the difference can be more obvious.

 

K

 

Nikkor-H

[Andrea B.]

Akira - Thank you for this valuable comparison between the Nikkor-H 35/3.5 and the Nikkor-K 35/3.5 when used for IR.

 

It is possible that the original comment is based on the slight difference in contrast which you noted. I will amend the comment a bit. 

 

I must remark on how much I am enjoying the beautifully sculpted bushes and shrubs around the house. Someone living there is an excellent gardener. 

[Akira]

Thank you for the comment, Andrea!  I only used a pretty dense IR850 filter that I had.  The result could be different if the filter is a lighter one like IR720 for the false color.  I don't have a converted body, so I cannot do comparison with the lighter filters.  The ability of SIGMA fp to shoot in B&W IR without modification is an added bonus, even though the shutter speed has to be long.

 

By scrutinizing the images, I noticed that the Nikkor-H performed slightly better than the K toward the corners.  As the K allows to focus to 30cm as opposed to the Nikkor-H that only go up to 60cm (without IR compensation), the K is more versatile.