Through the Generosity of Friends

Today, a wonderful friend gave me an incredible gift.  It is a Nikon F, black, with the plain prism, and a beautiful example of Nikon's first f1.4 normal lens for SLR cameras, the 5.8cm f1.4.  The most important feature of this kit is that it belonged to his father, a master photographer with an amazing history, but I'll write about that some other time, once I'm sure he's comfortable with me sharing his family history.

The camera body is serial number 6430001 making it the first in the production batch that began in November, 1960.  The lens was produced early in a batch that ran from March, 1960 to March, 1962.

The 5.8cm f1.4 Nikkor-S is a very special lens.  Famous not for sharpness outside of the center or lack of aberration, it is known for producing a very unique, pleasing image.  So much so that Nikon introduced a modern version in 2013.  Quite expensive, the new lens has many of the same qualities of the original, but with modern autofocus, etc.

(Click Here) for a nice review of the modern version on photographylife.com

(Click Here) for the story of how and why the original lens was developed. 

I can't wait to try the camera and lens out together with film.  So, tonight I mated the lens up with the awesome Nikon Df body and shot this:

 

iso 2000, f1.4, 1/125 sec

Note: This is my first post with a new blog editor, as it seems my favorite, blogsy, is no longer available.  I apologize for any format weirdness 

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