On the same day, at the same time, and with the same seller that I broke my self-imposed Lens Budget Cap of 50Euros when I purchased the Nikon Nikkor 85mm f/2 Ai, I purchased a second lens.
The other lens was the worst condition lens that I think I've bought in nearly 30 years. The first bad condition optic purchased lo those many years ago was a Zeiss Tessar 15cm that had come with a 4x5 view camera and who's front element was severely scratched. The lens was so badly damaged there was no contrast in an image. To help myself "feel" better about that transaction I rationalized by saying I received a pretty nice camera for little money and a junk lens for free.
In the case of the Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/4 Ai my rationalization for the purchase was a bit different. Indeed, the exterior of the lens looks terrible. Even that old 15cm Tessar looked better on the outside than this thing does. There is so much "brassing" ("aluminuming"?) on the Micro-Nikkor that I might be able to use it as a reflector to bounce light into shadows. I exaggerate, but not by much.
What separated my money from the wallet was something that I'd considered when looking at the out of focus rendition of the Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 pre-Ai and f/2.8 Ai lenses. These lenses were my first encounter with nearly neutral spherical aberration control behind (and, of course in this case, in front) of the point of focus. Hoping that Nikon had designed all it's Micro-Nikkor lenses this way led me to think the 105mm f/4 could be a natural compliment to the shorter focal length macro lenses.
I should stop here for a moment and explain why neutrally controlled spherical aberration in the out of focus areas is important to me. Cars. Motorcycles.
While for some subject matter I absolutely love the under-corrected spherical aberration out of focus rendition of both the 105mm f/2.5 and 85mm f/1.8 K, when photographing machinery I feel distracted by the "softness" and highlight "pop" I many times get when using those lenses. They "feel" like outstanding portrait lenses more than they feel like the best tools to document machines.
After getting the Bruised Beast home I took a look at its "resolution" and its out of focus rendition. Yes, the Micro- Nikkor is as sharp as I expected it to be. Yes, the Micro-Nikkor has a flatter field from wide open than my other 105mm lenses. But... Surprise! Surprise!! The out of focus rendition is closer to the performance of the 105mm f/2.5 P and updated design Ai lenses than to the neutral spherical aberration corrections of the Micro-Nikkor 55mm lenses.
So... now what to do...?
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