Old school Nikon glass; the way to a great arson of tools that won’t hurt your finances.
It’s fair to say that after splashing out a hefty amount on a decent camera that it’s almost heartbreaking to think of spending even more than the camera on the glass that’s going in front of it. I have had some expensive glass and it really can put a dent in finances. With this in mind I looked to find an alternative solution. Lucky enough there is a rather good alternative to buying top of the range lenses and what better place to locate it other than E-bay. A full set of primes can cost anywhere upward of £10 000 for a set of Zeis or the new Canon cinema range but there is no need to pay so much when we have so many quality second hand lenses on the market.
For me old school Nikon glass is the viable option. Get your hands on a mint 85mm f1.4 AiS and you will fall in love with the quality of the lens and the lovely bokeh it delivers. It’s the sharpest lens I have and one that I don’t think I would ever get rid of. My 50mm f1.2 AiS is small and super old but for critical low light is performs like a beast. Lastly my 35mm f1.4 Ais is the final piece to a very cheap yet perfectly usable set of primes, best of all, the whole lot cost me under £1000. Don’t use Nikon, don’t despair, Novaflex do an amazing adapter from Nikon F to Canon EF so you can use all that cheap glass on you C300, C100, 5D or 7D. You can also use the Metabones adapter to add these lenses to you BMCC or the Sony A7s or Panosonic GH4 and get an extra f stop out of these lenses.