On Wed, 18 Dec 2002 17:13:00 -0800, Gordon Moat wrote:

>Thanks for the comments.

>Neuman - Ruether wrote:

>> If people look at images projected with most slide
>> projectors, it is generally difficult to have the
>> edges and center focused at the same time (short
>> good alignment, glass-mounting, and using a good
>> flat-field projection lens), so poor edges might be
>> missed, as they also might be if B&W prints are made
>> with cropping of the edges for a 4:5 proportion...

>This is one aspect that I overlooked when I posted. It is definitely a consideration
>for chemical prints, even from a minilab. I suppose I did not think about this,
>since I usually scan full frame, and the image only gets cropped if the end client
>needs a certain crop.

>> Yes, I agree - the best buy, though, is the 28mm
>> f3.5 AI/AIS, which one poster advised avoiding,
>> and not the f3.5 non-AI, which I advise avoiding,
>> if one really cares about performance. All the
>> 28mm Nikkors perform about the same in the center
>> at all stops; the differences show at the edges and
>> corners...

>Yeah, I thought it was strange to not recommend that one, but perhaps that poster
>had a bad example. I own, and regularly use the 28 mm f3.5 AIS, and I have been
>quite happy with the images from it. I fin the images are very similar to those from
>an unshifted Nikkor 28 mm PC, at least under an 8x loupe.
>
>Ciao!
>
>Gordon Moat
>Alliance Graphique Studio
>

Bad samples do happen (my first Nikkor 28mm was
the original f3.5, new, and it was sharp in the center
and out to the corners on the left side, but the
right side was somewhat soft; the replacement was
sharp in the center, but somewhat soft toward the
corners, which was not fully improved even at f16
[this was typical for the several other used 28mm
early f3.5's I've seen...]). The late f3.5, though,
is fairly sharp in the corners wide-open, with a tad
lower resolution at the far edges; the 28mm f2.8 AIS
shows slightly better far edges at f2.8 (which are
very good!), but the extreme corners (that about fit
under a slide mount, or get cut by a film-holder)
are soft - these improve with stopping down quite
a bit (but which is therefore the better lens...?
[the "average" performance is about the same for
both, with the "details" different...;-]).