Nikon 28 f/1.4

Nikon 28 f/1.4 This is a lens you might not even be aware Nikon made (it’s now discontinued). The 28f1.4 is an “older” AF lens, originally released in 1994 but because of its price tag ($1700) and not being a zoom, it pretty much went unnoticed. Few photographers had a need for ultra fast wide angle, still don’t. I have to admit that while I thought it is a sexy lens (it’s a meety sucker) the price scared me off as well.

That’s until I started to explore techniques to do star trails with digital. In pursuing that end, the 28f1.4 came back on my radar screen but I was too late, the used price for the lens often is higher than the old, new price. I lucked out, first by having one loaned to me by my friend Joe McNally and than finding one for sale by an old friend. And as so often happens with me and photography, I started on one journey and photography took me another.

When I get a “new” lens, I tend to wed myself to it, shoot with it continually until I know it inside and out. That’s what I did with the 28f1.4 and in that process, fell in love with its f1.4. I don’t know if I’ve ever shoot with it closed down, it just sings so at f1.4 that I can’t get past that f/stop. Yeah, I shoot with the 28f1.4 all the time, not just for star trails and I really love what it does. The way it isolates the subject yet lets a little of the world in makes this a marvelous tool.

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Nikon 28f1.4