50 years of Nikon F-mount – Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 vs. Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4G - Vignetting

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50 years of Nikon F-mount – Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 vs. Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4G

12 June 2009

Arkadiusz Olech

8. Vignetting

Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 has a quite big front lens and a little bit longer focal length, so it's angle of view is narrower than in the new model case. We expected that in this category the old model may get better results than its younger brother. Our results and the pictures below confirm our suspicion.

Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 - f/1.4	Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4 - f/1.4

Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 - f/2.0	Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4 - f/2.0

Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 - f/2.8	Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4 - f/2.8

Nikkor-S 5.8 cm f/1.4 - f/4.0	Nikkor AF-S 50 mm f/1.4 - f/4.0

In the case of Nikkor-S, for the maximum aperture, the vignetting reaches 64% (-2.23 EV). This result is just minimally better than in the new Nikkor AF-S 1.4/50 case, which looses 66% of light (-2.37 EV) in the frame corners.

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After stopping down the lenses to f/2.0, the difference is getting a little bit bigger. For Nikkor-S the drop of the brightness in the corners is, at 36% level and in the younger lens it reaches 41%. Stopping the lenses decreases the vignetting level to 18% for old Nikkor and to 24% for its younger brother.

Only at the aperture f/4.0 the vignetting is small enough for both lenses, such that we don't have to worry about it any more. The drop of the brightness in the corners decreases to 6% for Nikkor-S and to 8% for Nikkor AF-S.