[Klaus]

Nice ;-)

https://www.opticallimits.com/sonyalphaff/1158-nikkor105f25

[Rover]

2:1 so far in favour of the oldies. :-) How many will be there in total, 5?
Edit: oh, 1 see, 4 100/105mm and two 135mm. Nice.

[Klaus]

The next one will be less enthusiastic ;-)

[Rover]

I still feel the old-timers might win by penalty shots. :-) Of course, if you had been testing wideangles, the result would not have been assured.

[davidmanze]

I enjoyed that review more than I would have done of any modern lens ..... takes me back to my Nikon F with the 50mm F1.4 ........ never had enough cash to step into the Nikkor primes ...
 I certainly wasn't expecting that level of sharpness from a 5 element lens either including great rendering ....... and it beat the pants off the Pentax which surprised me 

I'm loving this historic review series ....... a breath of old yet fresh air !!

Good job Klaus

[Rover]

Looks like the 100s will be tied, depending on the magnitude of the disaster with the next one (Minolta Rokkor, right?) Klaus has already hinted it won't be pretty. :-)

Btw today I got out to shoot with the most unlikely camera/lens combo ever. :-) the lens cost $70 and the camera was two orders of magnitude more expensive.

[Klaus]

Well, besides the budget constraints, I also chose the semi-fast 100s because these are usually fail-safe choices.

The story will change very much when we move to the fast 50s and 28s ...

[thxbb12]

I'm enjoying this series of old vintage lenses as well.
Great idea and thanks for the tests, Klaus :-)

The IQ of this Nikkor, especially the sharpness at 42MP, is truly impressive!
When you see what this lens can manage in term of IQ with only 5 elements in 4 groups.
It makes one wonder why modern lenses couldn't be made with fewer elements, be smaller, lighter and cheaper, especially given the computer aid in lens designs!
What am I missing here?
I'd love to see smaller, less complexe designes while still offering descent IQ. Would that not be possible?

[Klaus]

You can find many "simple" Leica M lenses with stellar performance.

e.g. the M 90mm f/2.4 has just 5/4. The M75mm f/2.4 has 6/4. Even a behemoth such as the M 75mm f/1.25 has just 9/6.

Some argue that fewer elements result in higher micro-contrast/3D. Possibly not wrong because every surface transition is a bit imperfect. Although you can counter-argue that this doesn't matter as long as the circle of confusion isn't bigger than a pixel.

However, yes, there seems to be an inflation of lens elements lately. I'd also consider this an unhealthy development.

[Klaus]

FWIW - Nikon's own webpage about the history of this lens: https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/0005/index.htm

The "Afghan Girl" is one of the most iconic photos taken with this lens (the Ai-S version): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Girl