Test shots with Nikon 28mm G f1.8 lens

Kitting out my D800e I've been able to buy a very limited number of new lenses and one or two used ones.

One of the new lenses is the Nikon 28 mm f1.8 lens.  This lens has only just started shipping in quantity, and I consider myself lucky to have one.

I'm delighted with the lens.  It is fairly compact (67 mm thread size), very fast to focus, handles color very well, and is razor sharp ... bearing in mind that DOF can be an issue at very wide apertures.

The lens arrived on 6/15, and I put it to work that evening.  At f1.8 it has amazing low-light capabilities, and while it suffers from softness at that aperture, it's nowhere near as severe as formal tests make it appear.

Here are some photos.  The first is taken from moving car.  It's a tad overexposed, but what it really shows when looked at full-size is an image which is at once buttery smooth and still sharp.

Here's the overview:













And here's the 100% crop.

The f1.8 does a really good job with savagely contrasting lighting conditions, though a lot of the credit must go to the Nikon D800e's dynamic range.

Indoors, in truly low lighting levels, the lens worked well without flash, though any sort of motion blur causes obvious difficulties.  This shot of a neighboring table was shot at f1.8, ISO 2000, +1, 1/20 th.  I should have cranked up the ISO for faster shutter speed, but this looks pretty good.  Plus .7 instead of plus 1.0 ev would also have improved the image.

Outdoors at 10:00 PM, the camera and lens had no problem capturing this  young woman.  The bokeh isn't the only attractive thing in this shot! F 1.8, 1/25, +.33, ISO 2500

























For the first time ever using a particular lens / camera combination, I'm delighted with the performance of the D800e / 28mm F1.8 G lens.  It's amazingly versatile, inconspicuous, and I think will be my walking-around lens for my upcoming journey to Northern Italy.

You just can't forget ANYTHING!

And at my age, I forget lots of things.

Had lunch today with my good friend, Robert Mendelsohn, attorney.  Robert has a picture of a piranha hanging on his office wall, courtesy moi.

In any event, I'd been telling him at lunch about my new camera and its unforgiving nature (which is also one of its main gifts).  Shot this pic in the bright 1:00 PM sunshine;

I used a 105 mm AF-D lens, at f3.5 and 1/500, ISO 64.  It was a stupid choice of exposure.  I should have shot at f8, ISO 200, and X shutter.

Now here's the important point:  at that aperture, with a 105mm lens, even 5-6 feet from the subject, the depth of field is less than one inch.  Here's a 100% crop showing plainly how shallow the dof was.

I should have taken a few seconds to think about the exposure.  I didn't, because I wanted a good shutter speed to cope with my shaky hands.

This isn't a bad photo.  But it's a heedless one.  To everybody, ESPECIALLY owners of D800 cameras, I say:  take the time to do it right.