Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Shooting the Nikon Df with the kit 50mm f/1.8 lens

Jim Grey
27 comments on Shooting the Nikon Df with the kit 50mm f/1.8 lens
2 minutes
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I bought my Nikon Df in a kit with a 50mm f/1.8G AF-S Nikkor Special Edition lens. I don’t know what makes this lens a special edition as I believe its optics match the non-special-edition 50mm f/1.8G AF-S Nikkor.

I’ve favored zoom lenses on the Df — the brilliant 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6D AF Nikkor and the frustrating 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF Nikkor. I wanted to get back to basics, so I mounted the kit 50 to the Df and waited for the next photo outing to use it.

That outing was to the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon, a festival near West Lafayette, Indiana, that has been happening annually since 1967. How had I never heard of it before? Margaret learned of it and we made a Saturday of it.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

Immediately, I wished I had mounted the 28-200 lens. So many subjects were so far away! I compensated by just making a lot of images, knowing I could crop the best of them to a good composition.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

The Df is a 16-megapixel camera, yielding images of 4,928×3,280 pixels. Even when the Df was new, you could get more megapixels in DSLRs. 16 MP gives great quality in prints up to 11×17 inches, and acceptable quality at several larger sizes. But a serious crop obviously shrinks the good-quality print size dramatically. Fortunately, I seldom print.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

These crops are all fine at the Web sizes where I normally share them.

Feast of the Harvest Moon
Feast of the Harvest Moon

I made good use of burst mode as these riflemen moved downfield and crouched to fire. It helped me get just the right moment.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

I swear, I haven’t seen this much cosplay anywhere but Gen Con, the big gamer convention that comes to Indianapolis every summer. I’m sure these people would bristle at me calling it cosplay, however.

Feast of the Harvest Moon
Feast of the Harvest Moon
Feast of the Hunters' Moon

On this chilly but full-sun day, it was easy for the Df to freeze motion.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

The Df continues to nail color. It’s almost as if it had an old-school CCD sensor in it.

Feast of the Harvest Moon

The two cameras I’ve had the hardest time learning and making do what I want are the two DSLRs I’ve owned: the Pentax K10D and this Nikon Df. I thought surely because the Df was laid out like a film camera, it and I would soon be fast friends. Nope. But every time the Df and I have had the best time together and got the best results, it’s been with this kit 50.

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Comments

27 responses to “Shooting the Nikon Df with the kit 50mm f/1.8 lens”

  1. brandib1977 Avatar
    brandib1977

    What a feast for the eyes! Great pictures, Jim.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Thank you!

      Reply
  2. Fred Avatar
    Fred

    Nice pictures ! Colors are great.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Thank you!

      Reply
  3. JR Smith Avatar
    JR Smith

    The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G AF-S Nikkor Special Edition lens was called “Special Edition” because, in retro fashion, it was designed to look similar to Nikon’s manual focus Nikon Ai-s lenses. It was a nod to the Df resembling a Nikon FE 35mm SLR.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I don’t have a regular 50/1.8 AF-S to compare it to, but to me it looks like any other AF Nikkor.

      Reply
      1. JR SMith Avatar
        JR SMith

        This is the lens. Has somewhat of a classic feel. https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/af-s-nikkor-50mm-f%252f1.8g-special-edition.html

        Reply
        1. Jim Grey Avatar
          Jim Grey

          I looked up the regular 50/1.8 G. I see it now. Cosmetics to make it look sort of like an old AI-s Nikkor on the Special Edition.

          Reply
          1. JR Smith Avatar
            JR Smith

            Yes!

            Reply
  4. Andy Umbo Avatar
    Andy Umbo

    I always prefer prime lenses to zooms, especially for the sizing of the components. Having a huge lens hanging off a small body was never a positive for me.

    If you think your digital cameras are hard to learn, try the Olympus system! I bought in for the excellent prime lenses, but find the bodies to be practically unusable. Confusing menus, features that can be set multiple different ways, and manuals that make little sense. Even a few aftermarket manuals written by third parties are confusing. I end up using my Olympus lenses on my M4/3rds Panasonic G3 body because it’s easy to set.

    BTW, I’ve spent a lot of time in retirement staying in touch with other professional photographers I’ve known over my career, and a common theme among our discussions is how happy we are retired and not trying to make a living with digital cameras! We went from being able to shoot film, and “nailing” it for what we wanted to produce, to digital where we can never seem to get what we want out of the cameras, and having to spend hours at our own expense “fixing” the image on the computer because it seems like the cameras can never be set to furnish the image we want. Not my world any more…glad I don’t have to make a living with digital.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      It does seem clear that digital = lots of time in Photoshop.

      Reply
    2. Kodachromeguy Avatar
      Kodachromeguy

      That is an interesting comment. In contrast, many readers of The Online Photographer (seemingly of an old geezer demographic) continue to state that they once used film but would never go back, that they now do better work, etc. It’s the same old cliches from the digital/film battles. Some sound like they are still trying to convince themselves of why they made a major change.

      Reply
  5. P Avatar
    P

    Very few digital cameras produce an image aesthetic that I find attractive. The Df is one that does. I don’t know why exactly it produces images that are so much more film-like than others, but it does. I’ve never looked into what sensor it utilizes or anything–perhaps I will one day. But if I was a digital person and could afford it, the Df would be my camera of choice just based on what I’ve seen of other people’s work. I hope you’re eventually able to figure out the Df’s software and interface so you can quit fighting it and just enjoy taking photos.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Thanks P. I hope I’ve cracked the code by just setting ISO to 3,200 with that 28-200 zoom. The Df doesn’t seem to have noticeable noise even at an ISO that high.

      Reply
    2. Andy Umbo Avatar
      Andy Umbo

      P, ditto, this camera has very film like results, and the only other one I’ve seen that seemed to do this, was the Canon 5D Mk 1 and 2. The Mark 1 was only 13 megapixels too, but the first time I saw the output, I thought it was the closest thing to film I had ever seen in digital. I still know photographers using these cameras and won’t move up to a newer, and more megapixel system! Used, these cameras are like pocket change at KEH, and I often think of buying one.

      Reply
      1. Tam Avatar
        Tam

        I used a 5D Mark II for work, sold it when I got a 5DS, and wound up buying yet another 5D2 to use as a backup.

        It’s not that I didn’t like the images the 5DS produced, it’s that the sheer size of the files that the 50MP sensor produced meant that I couldn’t just email a .jpeg to an editor from the road. We had to have a Dropbox.

        PS: For work stuff, I don’t miss film at all. Film is art and fun, digital is fast and business. ;-)

        Reply
        1. Andy Umbo Avatar
          Andy Umbo

          TAM, a very astute observation! At the dawn of digital, we were always comparing output to film, which for 4×5 and 120, was usable for everything at any size. I remember sitting in the pre-press department for a meeting, and their viewpoint was that it just needed to be enough resolution and size for the needs of the project. Anything in addition was just going to be harder to store, take up more space on the servers, be harder to move around, and more time consuming to work on. A real sea change when thinking about commercial work!

          Reply
          1. Tam Avatar
            Tam

            The megapixel race has definitely gotten silly. I’ve started shooting pics for magazines with older DSLRs every now and again for a lark.

            I recently did an enormous two-page spread with an Olympus E-5 just because I was feeling mischievous.

            Reply
            1. Jim Grey Avatar
              Jim Grey

              That’s awesome. Someone’s gotta keep using those older digicams!

              Reply
  6. Tam Avatar
    Tam

    I’d been angling to buy a Df but since Jim reactivated my hankering for one, I went shopping and was instantly dismayed.

    It feels like it was only a couple years ago that used Df’s…especially all-black ones, which were cheaper than the classic ‘panda’ look…were hovering around nine bills.

    Now the price on Df’s has ballooned to twelve or thirteen hundred, while the D4…which has the same sensor, plus all the features of a Nikon pro body…has dipped down to eight hundred bucks or so.

    Considering that the main reason I want one is to have a camera with more res than my D700/D3, but not so much resolution that you can’t use it with older, cheaper, unstabilized glass (cough lookin’ at you, D800), it’s looking like I’m probably going to try and scrape up the dough for the D4.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      I haven’t looked at used prices in a while, but when I bought mine 3 years ago the used prices were high enough that I just bought one of the last available new ones.

      Reply
  7. -N- Avatar
    -N-

    I have a number of different digital and film cameras, and at the moment do not use my Df for a variety of reasons – one the weight as I am getting over a broken arm. Nonetheless, the Df is an excellent digital camera, and it renders images beautifully, I think. Have you considered the 24-120mm f4, Jim? It is the newer version – a beast, but still very usable handheld. I have found, like you, 3200 iso is fine. As well, the G-mount lenses work well with it – and, if you didn’t know, they also work with the F100 film camera, too! Nice pictures altogether! Go back next year with a long lens and have some more fun.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      How are you healing up? My wife’s D3200 is really all the DSLR most people need. I have an N90s and love to use my G lenses on it. I haven’t tried the 28-200 though as I know the Df does a lot of in-camera processing to tame wicked distortion – the N90s doesn’t do that.

      Reply
  8. seatacphoto1951 Avatar
    seatacphoto1951

    For this situation a zoom lens is essential. For Street Photography using a 28, 35, or 50mm lens forces you to get close to your subject. On the Df I do not use Auto ISO,, just the controls on top of the camera.

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Yes, you’re right, this outing demanded a zoom. And I’ve just given up on auto iso. I think it’s technically still on in the camera but now I’m just setting ISO on the dial to what I want for the situation. The Df isn’t filmlike in this way – where I’d shoot ISO 800 film I need something like ISO 3,200 on the Df.

      Reply
  9. J P Avatar
    J P

    I have never heard of this event either!

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      And now you know!

      Reply

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