Nikon's Sato, a lens designer interviewed at nikkor.com was asked about old lenses. Sato singled out the 55mm f/3.5 P Auto as remarkable, so, curious, I decided to get one.

Auto normally indicates (1) pre-AI, (2) compatibility issues, and (3) low price. So for compatibility I planned to upgrade the mount to AI -- unless I found one that someone had already upgraded.

Well, eBay had a 55mm f/3.5 P Auto with an AI mount clearly visible in the main thumb (photo). The seller had mis-labeled his property as pre-AI.

My lens arrived late last week, $57.40, shipped. It is a newer model redesigned with five elements in 3 groups and an extra focusing scale, for the M2.

My point? You often can get AI for the price of non-AI. Out of curiosity, I looked at all the eBay non-AI offerings and found several more mis-labeled lenses that are AI and AI-S. Some such lenses that I saw should still be listed on eBay.

Thank you. That enables me to go forward.

East meets West.

Right. Pentax, Vivitar lens cap. /slinks away

So I read from several books after sending this to determine if the focal length for macro is 35mm or 135. I found 3-4 descriptions of the lens which were not clear about that.

So I put my own copy of the lens into "macro focusing" mode, which works at a shorter minimum focal distance than it would outside this mode.

Having done so, I note that the lens is physically extended to 135mm and cannot move to another focal length in this mode so its physical focal length is longer and must surely be 135mm (No time to put it onto a camera, however.).

I have a $5 Vivitar Super Takumar 135mm. Forums speak quite highly of it.

Apparently, it is readily fitted with Canon cameras, but fails to focus at infinity on Nikon with all adapters I have considered.
For Nikon owners, there are a couple of adapters that physically fit at closer focusing settings.

For lack of time I have not tried this out. Could not care at all about infinity focus. I am responding here to share what I dug up but not having tried it, I'd appreciate anyone telling me which adapter to choose and where my info is wrong.

I have put my money where my mouth is here.

Looking over your two posts and the replies, I see a lot of room for complexity and cost. Not sure what your "close" is for focusing distance, but from first-hand experience, you want some distance if only for lighting.

And you have perspective-rendition issues tied to distance, below, say, 85mm's angle of view, that is, at your 35mm and 50mm requirements.

With complexity, cost, lighting, and distortion in mind, I can suggest an obscure but simple! and stupefyingly low-cost way to go, esp. as you are familiar with zooms. But this solution is not for flat micro work. And not for true micro (macro) where sharpness is at a peak. In other words, you could consider so-called "macro focusing," not a true macro lens with today's reproduction ratios, coatings, VR, and AF. If you need life-size, you could crop your way there if you have lots of pixels.

So consider this:
Nikon made a Nikkor 35-135mm that always works safely with Nikon DSLRs but cannot support every shooting mode. This zoom offers a 1:3.8 reproduction ratio. This lens has a fixed-aperture "macro-focusing" mode. Its minimum working distance is consonant with several replies in this discussion, 1.3 feet. Apparently this all happens only with its 35mm focal length. The 35mm macro meets your requirement but does not dissolve potential perspective issues.

I paid $30.98 for mine. I just received it in the mail yesterday. Its feel and integrated push-pull/focus ring are aesthetically pleasing and usable. I just looked at the mount scoop and orange label, "22"; so it is AI-S and is, as noted above, no danger to your DSLR (D3300?? and higher).

Here is the manual; not much and leaves you hanging, as usual for Nikkor manuals: http://cdn-10.nikon-cdn.com/pdf/manuals/archive/Zoom-Nikkor%2035-135mm%20f-3.5-4.5.pdf

Wow! I was not clear about something or another! Kindly allow me to blame myself and try again:

Optics-metrics web sites are for AFTER !! the photographer has made many subjective choices, as in my examples.

My point follows from that sequencing constraint: Be sure, as a photographer, to know which lenses to compare and why. Example of my point: Some few have wanted to try out 50mm for head shots, for a certain look (subjective) so only then can they know to compare their choices among 50mm lenses.

So since this discussion is all about methodology, I'm illustrating why such subjective decisions are better taken AHEAD !! of some chaotic exploration of metrics. Otherwise, you may waste your resources.

That said, I have a a lens or two I wish I'd chosen differently. I doubt I'm the only one. And I am increasing my discipline.

I enjoyed the discussion here and benefit from the comparisons and real-world reviews. Still,...

I have to wonder: if someone wants to buy, say, a prime Nikkor lens for a full-frame Nikon do will they really know which focal length to get and why?

So, for example, when you are getting ready for head-and-shoulders portrait work ought you grab a 50mm, 85mm, a 105mm, or a 135mm? Or maybe even a 180mm or 200mm? Photographers argue for all of these in portraits, often failing to distinguish between full-length and head compositions.

Crucially, how do distance, filling the frame, and natural perspective rendition of the lens shape your choice? What are the 50mm's trade-offs between head shots and full-length (easy question)? Is 135mm perhaps a bit too long due to perspective distortion (arguable but marginal)? Which focal length does Nikon consider “ideal for heads” (105mm). What about 180mm or 200mm when you cannot get close?

In short, a bigger danger than methodology in optics-comparison methods is not even knowing which lenses to compare. It requires plenty of time and effort to be able to know. And still more effort to discover a lens's designers' preoccupations and triumphs. Don't look to DxOMark reports for help in this realm.

Then we finally get to which metrics to value and which metrics sites to visit. And so does the Chanel cosmetics photographer looking at metrics value sharpness over color rendition? And so it goes.

Some History
At the time the S and S2 cameras were offered, Nikon offered reproduction equipment in two models, SA, PA. Later, for the SP and S3 there was a quite different Model P Reproduction Unit. A Model S was also made.

These products enabled close-up, using baseboard, camera holder, extension rings and even bellows (for example, with the SA). During that period, you'd have used lenses such as the 50mm f/2 and, starting in 1956, the Micro 50mm f/3.5. Today, one of the 60mm micros would be preferable for copy work and micro. The 60mm would minimize compatibility issues for today’s cameras, while offering other advantages.

Your item
A gorgeous, collectible kit in top condition. Surely, it is a Model P, no earlier than 1957. It could be a minor variant of the Model P, as in a regional variant (like Japan) or a specialty variant for aerospace.

Date Errors
The URL in this UHH discussion, http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.XNikon+R..., is in error. The URL states the date of the Model P shown is December 1954. Actually, 12/54 is the date of the release of the S2, a response to the Leica M3 rangefinder mechanism. The M3 switched over the frame in linkage with the lens interchange (variable finder).

The Model P reproduction equipment set improved on the SA and PA equipment and appeared a little after the S3 went on sale in 1957 and was also sold in support of the S4.

Your date can be no earlier than 1957. Note the disconnect of a marketing flyer for the S2 in your Model P. Very likely not part of the kit. My guess is that the Model P box was simply a good place for some photographer to store an S2 flyer.

Notes on the Market
1. A Model P on eBay is discounted 35% from $5000+ (See URL, above.). What we are seeing is unfinished price discovery by eBay sellers. Effectively, a Dutch auction is going on. A Dutch auction may not be viable for price discovery because price can be acutely variable when the number of prospects is small and/or varies across time.

2. Substitutes at a lower cost can bleed prospects from product A to product B. Non-collectors might be more attracted to a simple copy stand with fewer bells and whistles. Nikon sold a PF series of reproduction units. For example, the PF-4 offers stability with a massive baseboard and a max camera distance of 3' from the built-in base. The camera holder tilts up to 45 degrees, enabling DoF manipulation (close up). There is a counterweight with spring. I am looking for a PF-4, but they are pricey, so I have been doing no more than looking into copy stands, after tossing my own cheapo stand in disgust.

A useful discussion topic, so thanks. It is a pleasure to wade in. Before I get started, I want to share that I have some nice socialist-realism posters I’d like to sell you (cheap!), auntPhil, since you advocate “progressive” –your word – messaging. If you like the earlier stuff, I’ll sell you some prints of “Man with a hoe.” Anyway, HCB teaches us plenty about grabbing a viewer, about technique, about packaging. He is so much about the climax of his stories.

You admire activist state-paid artists bribed to push a social message, to refract history. More admired today are the many America-resident impressionist artists paid by the feds during the depression. They produced much of the exquisite body of California impressionist art, all timeless, representational, inspired by light, but free of social-activist messaging. California impressionism is about joy, nature, and life, and not at all about dreary pettifoggery.

Tolstoy is the perfect example of someone who succumbed to the socialist-messaging temptation. His deprecation of universal truth in favor of a received social-justice truth came right after Anna Karenin, a nicely structured use of contrast to explore humans’ marriage universal -- across its start, its mid-stream, and its decay. After Anna, Tolstoy intentionally departed from “art for art’s sake” and devoted himself to a social sermon. His content after 1877-1878 is measurably lamentable, a cryin’ shame – the metric is, “Few read it.” See my master’s thesis in Notre Dame University library Tolstoy’s Theory of Art. In contrast to some of today’s social activists, the mature Tolstoy did not need to belittle those who came before.

I hope I’ve told a couple of universal stories here. Humans seek the essence of universals, truth, and beauty. Truth-seeking humans are above all else, avid for stories, not baited messages from their betters. Your critique is unmeasurable and your focus is on messages, never on images-as-stories.

The late, esteemed James Q Wilson taught (me, at UCLA) that every organization gets infiltrated and taken over. Apparently, Wilson’s rule could apply to UHH. Wilson never told us if the takeover successes are due to stealth, artfulness, inattention, absence of pushback, besmirching of icons like HCB, or what.

Composition and separation: beyond impressive.
A privilege to see this stunning creature.

"I think of them as "Art Glass" -- Where's the Like button??

Peter has captured the opportunity in pre-digital lenses, which can swamp the technical deficiencies exposed above.

For example, Rockwell writes admiringly of the "character" of the pre-AI 50mm 1.4, which is not remotely perfect, optically. This lens advanced flare reduction in a fast lens. See http://www.nikkor.com/story/0044/.

I have a Nikon book in which Nikon marketed this film-era lens as a lens that can be reverse-mounted, for close-up. Yet, most of us dismiss this lens as incompatible -- with D810s, for example.

While I followed the earlier technical discussion quite closely, the problems with the earlier lenses strike me as marginal for most scenes. It's not as if the earlier designers were unaware of transuranic glass for CA and lens hoods for stray light.

People who actually use film-era lenses attend not so much to the content of today's discussion. Users of older lenses either see them as art glass, as the best tools, or both. For example, for manual focusing my newer 105mm G offers me very little throw, while older lenses have more, say, the 100mm f2 makro Planar.

Thank you; so what remains is a one-plate stack for IR?

"Their reasons?" I'll illustrate with Nikon. "No low-pass filter" is quite a simplification in Nikon land.

Nikon cameras like D810 and D3300 have a three-part stack that is the supposedly removed filter. This stack covering the sensor includes a low-pass filter. It (partially) does the anti-moire job in one layer and then undoes the anti-moire effect in a deeper layer. This deeper layer is different than the layer that has traditionally finished the anti-moire effect.

This last-mentioned layer is new. This new layer replaces the second of the two anti-moire layers in the stack. The undoing happens here instead of the traditional completion of anti-moire.

The stack retains an infrared function. The changes to the stack are minimal. Less change is less risky than building something new and maybe cheaper and faster to build.

Maybe Canon does likewise for the same reasons.

[quote=rmorrison1116]My EOS 5Dsr has a low pass filter but the effect is canceled as if there were no low pass filter. An odd way of doing this but I guess Canon had their reasons for doing it this way.[/quote