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Just remembered another one.

Very compact [52mm filter size] Nikkor AI
28-50/3.5 [constant]. Stellar ? No, but it's
a fine old steady aperture zoom in a really
small form, well built, and tho not "stellar"
a modest zoom ratio does allow for a very
sharp lens at a small price and size.

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

I have a D500 so I'm in the DX catagorie. I bought a Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 last month and man what a suprise. It had a lot of great reviews except from the snobby FX guys. But...it's so ooh clear and sharp. I also have the Nikon 16-80mm f2.8. Here again it has bad reviews only because it's a DX lens. It is my clearest, fastest all around go to lens I have. Next is my Nikon 200-500mm f5.6. Fast, wonderful, and the best wildlife combo with my D500. I will be getting the Tamron 70-200 G2 f2.8 next to round out my bag. It's a fraction of a difference in speed and quality compared to the Nikon but it's a third of the price of the Nikon too. I have a lot of older lenses both Auto focus and manual with my 2 older D200s. These newer more modern glass are really really awsum.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Well, I wasn't really surprised by it, but one of the best deals I've ever gotten was a vintage, manual focus Tamron SP 90mm macro lens I picked up in like-new condition with all it's accessories... for all of $20 at a local secondhand store. I'd used a couple of them in the past with film cameras and knew they are VERY good lenses. So was happy to find one at such a bargain price. It cost me another $40 for an Adaptall mount so I could use it on my Canon DSLRs.... but for $60 total, it's still a screamingly good deal. And it's fairly compact compared to most modern macro lenses, shown here on one of my 7Ds (left), separately with a Nikon Adaptall alongside (center) and with some macro extension tubes I often use with it (right):



It's slower to use since it's manual focus and manual aperture, but works pretty darned well (here at f/11 and with 20mm extension tube for high magnification... the lens alone is 1:2)...



The Tamron Adaptall lenses were offered in the late 1970s though 1980s and use interchangeable mounts to be easily adaptable to virtually any camera system. Their "SP" line are particularly high quality, were widely used by professionals and include a number of unusually high specification lenses for their day. In addition to the SP 90mm macro (several Adaptall versions were offered), in my opinion most notably there were SP 17mm, 24mm, 180mm f/2.5, 80-200mm f/2.8, 300mm f/2.8 and 400mm f/4 in the Adaptall series. There were also two compact, high quality Catadioptric (mirror) lenses: an SP 350mm f/5.6 and SP 500mm f/8.

More info about vintage Adaptall lenses here: https://www.apotelyt.com/photo-lens/tamron-adaptall-catalog

Adaptall mounts are still being made in China and are now available even for systems that have been introduced many years after the Adaptall lens line was discontinued. For example, I will be ordering one in EF-M mount to fit this 90mm to my Canon M5 "mirrorless", when I get that camera. (The EF-M mount intro'd over 2 decades after the Adaptall lens series were discontinued!) In addition to the Canon EF on the lens in the above images, I've already got Adaptall mounts for Canon FD/FL, Konica K/AR, Nikon F, Pentax P/K, Olympus OM and Minolta MD mount SLRs. These allow me to use this 90mm or any other Adaptall mount lens on any of those camera systems (all of which I've got some examples of in my collection).

Richieg50

I have several Nikon lenses. Portrait, macro and normal but my 28-300 3.5-5.6 is so hard to give up for general use. Very versatile and sharp. Originally around $1200.

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

IMHO DxOMark conducts the most comprehensive equipment tests in the industry. There is actually a bit of a learning curve to really understand the reviews, but taking the time is well worth it. DxOMark ranks the Tamron the same to better than the Nikon equivalents and the Tamron is $1k less expensive. I use to keep normal prime lenses on my bodies, mainly because the experts tell us to. I only occasionally use the primes now as the Tamron gives such great results. Here's the link to the review.

https://www.dxomark.com/tamron-sp-24-70mm-f-2-8-di-vc-usd-nikon-review-an-affordable-fast-standard-zoom-that-comes-out-on-top/

I use to believe the only lenses for best quality were from Nikkor as I have Nikon bodies. It turns out not to be true. If you carefully read multiple reviews you will find lenses that are equivalent or better than Nikkor for a lot less money. Sometimes you will find that a very sharp 3rd party lens might not be quite as good in the CA, vignetting, or distortion categories, but those are easily corrected in Lightroom.

wingclui44 Loc: CT USA

I did it to another one, the Nikkor 35mmf2.8 early version, it worked perfectly. they both don't have resale value anyway, but my other pre AI Nikkor, the 135mm f2.8 QC that I won't mess with it, I love this lens.

User ID

Been at this craft for decades, full career, etc but
that 28-300 was my first truly modern lens. Love
my endless accumulation of oldies, truly "golden"
oldies, and excellent as most were, the new stuff
is a very different breed, especially the best of it.

Amazingly "better" ? Better, or not, is somewhat
subjective. But amazing is amazing. Images are
strikingly modern. Some call it clinically sterile ?
Call it sharp and neutral cuz it's exactly what PP
programs seem to be built to work on best. And
PP output is the real photograph, not any SOOC
material. Film negs were SOOC. You hadda finish
the photographs to see them. IIRC, the industry
that did most of it was called "photofinishing".

Enthusiasts shooting chromes falsely believed in
SOOC output. They were messing with materials
not optimized for their direct use. Chromes were
fodder for CMYK halftone print publication as the
finished result. Negs, chromes, SOOC files, all of
those are unfinished photos. Files from "sterile"
lenses flow soooo nicely thru the finishing stage.

Anywho, did I mention how amazed I am with
the 28-300 ? I did ? Loooong ago ? Oh-kaaaay !

`

cyclespeed Loc: Calgary, Alberta Canada

Zeiss Touit 2.8 / 50 for my Sony a6000. A friend no longer needed it so sold it to me for $50 Tack sharp Love it.

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

Samyang 12/2, Canon 70-200/4, Sigma 24-60/2.8

nikon123 Loc: Toronto, Canada

I recently purchased a Nikon 20-35mm f2.8 lens. This lens produced in the period 1993 to 2001 was replaced by Nikon with the 17-35mm. The lens, purchased from Downtown Camera in Toronto, looked like it had never been used by the former owner. The lens body is perfect; not a scratch. The markings in white are pristine. The biggest satisfaction is the speed of the lens and the image quality. Sharp, sharp, sharp. I’ve matched the lens to my D500. What a great combination!

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`

Not cheap, but less than half the price of its
competitors, it's the Tamron 45/1.8 SP, with
IS and internal focus and no external moving
moving components. If all those other "exotic"
oversize normal lenses might "lab test" even
better than this, I can only ask how anybody
ever sees the difference in real pictures, even
verrrrrrrrry carefully executed pictures.

Referring to the category of oversize normal
lenses I'm not excluding this one. It, too, is a
very oversize normal, prolly a Distagon type,
but, thankfully, not as oversize as the others.


I've got two [EF and NF], and both deliver pix
that beautifully blossom, even explode, when
processed. AF usually too fast to see, without
little double motions at the stop, just Bingo !
OK, well VERY damnt near always a Bingo :-)

If the other giant normals for 2X and 3X this
price ... $400 with hood and baggie ... are in
any measure better at imaging, it's rather a
moot point in practical terms. But the several
hunnert extra USA sheckels is hardly moot !

I did check some reviews, which were crazy
positive, but all I cared about was to avoid a
doggie and to get a fast normal with IS. IOW
it didn't hafta live up to all the hype, not for
$400, as long as I got IS and lens speed. So
it was a wham-bam sooprize to see it live up
to the hype, every inane word of it. This was
the one time I'd ordered an "overpriced" lens
and so I strongly suspected I'd return it the
day after it arrived ... but it shocked me, so
I bought the second one !

Did I mention it's weather resistant:

therwol Loc: USA

Ditto, though I paid $200 for mine. Super sharp out to about 85mm, so-so beyond that. I've read that there is a lot of sample variation with this lens. Where it is sharp, it outperforms my 24-120 f/4 VR on my D810. I've used it to photograph entire vacations.

gwilliams6

The new Sigma Art 70mm f2.8 Macro is $569 and absolutely amazing with stunning sharpness, clarity and image quality. The best $569 I have paid for a lens. And I have owned dozens of lenses from Nikon, Canon, Tamron, Sony, Sigma over a long career. These were made about ten days ago. They are jpegs, straight out of the camera A7RIII and A7III with NO post processing, none, and NO noise reduction. Both shot handheld in natural light. Simply stunning ! The fly shot was made at ISO 500. The Dragonfly shot was made at ISO 8000. Cheers

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Tex-s

Without a doubt, my best buy was an old fully manual Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm 1.4. Paid 10 bucks including the (faux?) leather hard carrying case. I get stunning portrait bokeh and artistic softness at 1.4, with nice color rendition. As a macro set-up with extensions and/or reverse adapter, the lens, being full manual works better than most modern lenses.

therwol Loc: USA

This lens has been mentioned more than once. Mine was free. My father bought it new and gave it to me. I put an AI ring on it myself years ago. I pulled it out one day, put the EXIF data into my Nikon D810, and screwed around with it in front of my house. These two shots were hand held and focused manually. The license plate is perhaps underexposed. The flower is perhaps only an inch across. Download, zoom in and do a little pixel peeping. You can't see the detail without downloading. You'll be amazed at the sharpness. I wish all of my lenses were this sharp.

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