135 f/2.8 Elmarit, 200mm f/4 AIS, 80-200 f/4 AIS, 80-200 f/4 EDIF
Modern, professional zoom lenses are big. I own a Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 EDIF AF lens that weighs 45.9 ounces — nearly three pounds. It’s 7.4 inches long and 3.4 in diameter. It’s beautiful, tough and produces wonderful, sharp pictures. I use it for jobs. But its bulk makes traveling a chore (and Nikon’s newer telephoto zooms are bigger, thanks to AFS and VR features). So I’ve been looking for smaller alternatives that also would not cost me hundreds of dollars. The prospects I found after trolling various Nikon lens rating sites were the old, manual focus 80-200mm f/4 and the 200mm manual focus f/4. The 80-200 f/4 cost me about $100 and the 200 f/4 just a little more. Both were graded as bargains because of some marks on the barrels. Since I use these things and I’m not interested in collecting pristine examples the marks don’t bug me at all. The glass is clean and mechanically the lenses are solid. You can often find the 80-200 and the 200 used at various vendors including Adorama and eBay.
So how do they compare? After my first try at shooting them side by side I was shocked: The shots with the 80-200 AF lens looked ridiculously soft compared to the older, manual focus lenses. First the scene as shot with the 200 f/4:
Nikon AIS 200mm f/4 at f/5.6
Here’s a 100% crop of part of the tugboat:
Nikon AIS 200mm f/4 at f/5.6 100%
Now the 80-200AF equivalent:
After scratching my head a few minutes I realized it must be focus error. The AF lens needed fine-tuning to the D700 body. The D700 has a feature that takes care of this — I’d never used it before but it seemed to do the trick.
So I went out and the did tests again, this time also throwing in a Leica lens. The Tele-Elmarit 135mm f/2.8 isn’t made anymore and I bought mine used a few years ago. It’s an ungainly thing with magnifiers attached to the top of the lens so you can focus more easily through the rangefinder. With the M8’s 1.333 crop factor it’s roughly the equivalent of a 180mm lens on 35mm film.
For the comparison I tried each lens at f/4, f/5.6 and f/8. I framed the image to put the tugboat near the edge of the frame. If you look at my work you’ll see I often put important elements well off-center, so lens sharpness out there is a significant factor when I buy a lens. The D700 was set on aperture priority using matrix metering, at ISO 800. The M8 was set on aperture priority at ISO 320. I had an IR cut filter on the 135 but no filters on the Nikon lenses. I used RAW files so there would be no significant sharpening applied. They are straight out of the camera. Here’s the scene:
Nikon EDIF 80-200mm AF f/2.8 at f/4 and 200mm
Now the crops:
Tele-Elmarit 135mm f/2.8 at f/4 (100%)
Nikon AIS 80-200 f/4 at f/4 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon EDIF 80-200mm f/2.8 AF at f/4 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon AIS 200mm f/4 at f/4 (100%)
It shouldn’t be surprising that the Leica lens lags here — the M8 has 10 megapixels to the D700’s 12 and the 135mm lens doesn’t quite have the reach of the others. And it doesn’t have a great reputation for sharpness within the sharpness-crazy Leica world. Still, it’s not bad for a lens that’s over 30 years old. The M8 overexposed the boat, however, which gives the crop a washed-out look and that adds to the illusion of softness. To my eyes, the two zooms are basically on par here. The 200 f/4, however, is clearly a bit sharper.
Stopping down to f/5.6:
Tele-Elmarit 135mm f/2.8 at f/5.6 (100%)
Nikon AIS 80-200 f/4 at f/5.6 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon EDIF 80-200mm f/2.8 AF at f/5.6 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon AIS 80-200mm f/4 at f/5.6 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon AIS 200mm f/4 at f/5.6 (100%)
At f/5.6 the 200mm f/4 is still sharpest but I think I see the AF zoom slightly surpassing the manual focus version and the Leica is considerably better at f/5.6 than f/4.
Finally, f/8:
Tele-Elmarit 135mm f/2.8 at f/8 (100%)
Nikon AIS 80-200mm f/4 at f/8 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon EDIF 80-200mm f/2.8 AF at f/8 and 200mm (100%)
Nikon AIS 200mm f/4 at f/8 (100%)
At f/8 the 200mm f/4 still seems slightly sharper than the zooms, but not by much. And I can’t tell the results of the zooms apart. The Leica has improved but still seems soft, possibly because of the overexposure. Here’s a version of the Leica at f/8 with some contrast added by converting the file to LAB and making a simple move on the lightness channel:
Tele-Elmarit 135 f/2.8 at f/8 w/contrast adjustment
In the lower right of each frame you can see the name of the tugboat, “Heron.” I can’t quite make out the letters in any of the Leica shots, I can just distinguish some of them in the zoom shots and the whole name is just readable in the pictures taken with the 200mm f/4.
So where does that leave me and my aching shoulder? The 200mm f/4, which is about 25 years old, is definitely the sharpest based on my experience here. The zooms are a toss-up. Until the AFS and VR versions came out the EDIF AF 80-200 was Nikon’s top-of-line pro tele-zoom. I’ve never seen any complaints about its optics. So when I travel I’ll feel perfectly comfortable taking either the 200 f/4 or the 80-200 f/4 to save space and weight. The choice comes down to the slight inconvenience of a prime versus the modest extra weight of the manual focus zoom. The zoom weighs 28 ounces and is 6.3 inches long with a diameter of 2.8 inches. The prime weighs 18 ounces, is 4.8 inches long and 2.6 inches in diameter. The only reason to go with the “modern” lens is auto-focus. Since I’m not shooting sports or other action, there’s really no reason for it. The D700’s AF rangefinder operates just the same whether you have an auto-focus lens or MF lens on the camera. So given the great MF optics and the price, you can’t beat the old Nikkors. The current AF zooms in this range go for over $800 for the EDIF version or over $1700 for the VR. You can pick up a MF 80-200 f/4 for $100 or a MF 200 f/4 for a bit more. In an era when companies try to persuade us that digital cameras go obsolete within a year or two, these old MF lenses are a reminder that old does not equal useless. In fact, old can equal great.
The 80-200 is available through Amazon. For the others you’ll have to poke around used sources such as (but not limited to) B&H, Adorama and eBay.
SHAMELESS PLUG:
I’ve set up a new site to collect Leica-related links. Two things led me to start it: The surprising amount of web traffic on this blog after I wrote about the announcement of Leica’s M9 on 9/9/9, and the difficulty I had finding information back in 2002 when I decided to get into rangefinder photography. There was a lot of knowledge out there but no one good roundup. I’m hoping leicalinks.com will grow and become that source.
