In Camera stabiliser systems

One thing I admire about Pentax  cameras is the excellent in camera stabiliser system.  This allows all those ancient, but excellent Takumar lenses to know be stabilised!  Very cool!  My Dad bought a classic 55mm f1.8 and a 35mm f3.5 new in 1960 with his Pentax S3, and they are now stabilised on his K7 DSLR!  Sure Sony D-SRLs do this too, but the oldest lens you can put on it dates from the late 1980’s.

I really wish Nikon followed this system, as it would have allowed stabilisation on this shot that I took with a 1960’s Nikkor 200mm f4.

Nice, but why?

In the “Nice, but why?” category are the following manual focus lenses:

Nikkor 20mm f2.8

Nikkor 28mm f2.8

Nikkor 35mm f2

Nikkor 50mm f1.8 / f2

Nikkor 85mm f1.4

All these lenses are great, but you can buy the AF versions with full electronic metering for not a lot more than the MF ones on the used market.  The optical formulas in 4 of the lenses are the same or better in the AF versions, so unless you stumble upon a bargain, hold out for the AF lenses.  

Interestingly though, the manual focus Nikkor 85mm f1.4 is sharper than the auto focus version, though some would argue that the trade off for AF is probably worthwhile for a lens capable of such shallow depth of field.  The expensive new AF-S version however, beats both by a mile.  

Nikon D90 with Nikkor 200mm f4 manual focus