Taking Apart the New Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S
We recently tested the Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S lens and were mightily impressed. Optically it was better than I’d ever expected. We had idly talked about doing a teardown when stock allowed, but we got an unexpected opportunity yesterday: one of our week-old copies had some significant dust in both the front and rear lens groups. We know (like hopefully you know) that some dust doesn’t affect images, but our customers like their lenses dust-free, so we decided to open this one up and clean the dust out of it and to take a few pictures while we were doing it.
I try to identify where my head is whenever I write about anything, so you’ll understand when I go all fan-boy or all snarky. Like everyone else, my expectations going in have a lot to do with my impressions coming out. In this case, I told Aaron before we started that given how awesome this lens was optically that I expected Nikon’s optomechanics were going to modernize, too. Unlike previous Nikon lenses, I thought this lens would have nice, modular construction, no soldered wires running hither and yon, not so much Kapton tape holding stuff down, and maybe even some curved circuit boards. You know, like a lens from the 21st century, not like one from the 1980’s. Aaron didn’t think so.
Well, I was a little bit right but mostly wrong. There is some real modularity and superb construction to this lens. There were also big chunky square circuit boards and wires soldered hither and yon held down with Kapton tape. None of which has anything to do with making a lens take better pictures or making it last longer, but it does make it a pain to take apart and work on.
Oh, and we have a special bonus in this teardown. I thought Nikon’s marketing for this lens got a little nauseating with stuff like “pushes boundaries of imaging possibility, one that can take your photography and videography to a thrilling new level.” I figured with all the workforce reduction they’d been making; they’d started borrowing Leica’s copy writers or something. But in this case, they take stretching the bounds of reality a bit far, and I’ll go all snarky about that later in the teardown. So you’ve got that to look forward to.
So Let’s Take Out Screws and Stuff!
Since we’d never taken one of these apart, Aaron decided to start with the back, because that way he could set it on the front while he worked. The bayonet mount comes off in the usual fashion; easier now that Nikon has gone to electronic aperture controls. There is a nice, thick weather seal around the bayonet mount and it fit very snugly in the lens.
With the bayonet off, we can look into the rear barrel. It’s nice and clean, with a couple of flexes just visible up by the electronic connector.
Four large screws held the rear barrel in place. For those of you following along at home by disassembling your own copy, make sure you remove the screws holding the flexes in place and disconnect them, otherwise you’ll rip them out of the switches on the rear barrel. With that done, the rear barrel slides right off. Notice the thick layer of felt sealing at the bottom of the picture where the barrels attach.
Here’s the inside of the rear barrel, with the switch flexes I spoke of above. Soldered, not plug-ins, but after some argument Aaron agreed this didn’t count as a real solder. Does it matter? Not much, except if you break a switch it’s may be simpler for the repair shop to just replace the rear barrel instead of the broken switch. On the other hand, some might argue that soldered switches are stronger and less likely to break. Some might.
With the rear barrel off, we get to look at the inner mechanics a bit. This is where I lost my bet with Aaron that the lens would be more modern. This would also be where I’d say I lost respect for Nikon’s marketing department, but that would be silly since I have no respect for any marketing department. Here’s a quick tour as we rotate around the inside of the lens.
First is the GMR unit (the silver thingie held on with two screws), which is pretty much like every other GMR unit. If you take a lens apart and see this, don’t touch it, don’t breathe on it, don’t even stare at it for very long. It’s the lens repair version of crossing the streams.
Rotating the lens just a bit we get to see those nice, chunky, flat, old-fashioned circuit boards Nikon loves to use; and yes, the soldered wires. Look, these work just fine, apparently, since Nikon has been using them since about 1965. It’s like my mom’s pink wired wall phone in her kitchen – it works great, so why change? At least they don’t run hither and yon; there are some nice plastic clips holding the wires in place. Sorry, I’m just bitter because I lost my bet with Aaron.
Looking at the other side of the lens we see wires and flexes are held in place with Kapton tape, as is traditional with Nikon lenses. This doesn’t amount to anything as far as how the lens functions. But I’m a geek, which is why I like taking things apart, and the geek appeal here is low.
This view also exposes Nikon’s ongoing creative marketing. Many of you probably think the designation of SWM on this lens, which stands for Silent Wave Motor, means you get an expensive ring ultrasonic motor. Not so much. That’s the focusing motor there with the green band around it. Fanboys are going to scream that I’m splitting hairs trashing Nikon’s marketing about SWM, since this is technically an ultrasonic motor (although other manufacturers have the decency to call them micro-ultrasonic to differentiate them from ring-ultrasonic). Let’s look at a screen grab from the Nikon page for the 105mm f/1.4E ED AF-S lens:
Note Nikon’s text says “–rather than a gear system–to focus the lens”. If you look at the motor, what do you see? Correct. A gear system to focus the lens. The lens still focuses just fine and while it’s not silent, it is very quiet. But please don’t tell me it’s “better than a lens with a gear system” when it has a gear system, OK? Y’all must think nobody’s ever going to open up your lenses and see you’re blowing smoke up our internet.
OK, now that I’ve calmed down we’ll take a look at that rear group from above. (Remember, part of why we’re here was to get the dust out of the rear group.) The rear group is in a housing that mounts to the lens on three arms at 10, 2, and 6 o’clock.
Each arm is held in place with a screw and then covered with white glue. Looking closely showed the legs were shimmed and that this is also a centering element.
Now we don’t mind recentering an element or correcting its tilt, but when the manufacturer goes to the trouble of glueing the screws in place, and the optics are fine, we tend to go with the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ principle, which is what we did here.
The very rear element in this group appears to be held down by a screw-on locking ring, but again it was heavily glued, so we left it alone. (The dust you see in the picture is on the surface of that element, not inside. The dust inside was minor enough that we decided it could stay rather than ungluing and recentering everything.)
Since we decided to leave the rear group alone, we took off the rear assembly in one piece.
Other than the glass elements we described above, this assembly contains the diaphragm unit and flexes connecting the electrical contacts to the rest of the lens.
With that assembly out of the way, we’re looking at the next element. It’s also held in a plastic mount with three arms screwed into the mid barrel, but this time it’s neither a centering or a shimmed element, so it’s coming out.
It’s a pretty impressive chunk of glass,
rather thick and strongly curved.
Looking back in the rear of the barrel, we can now see the focusing group down inside the motor ring.
This motor ring comes off easily as a single unit. I made fun of Nikon’s old-fashioned electrics and mechanics earlier, but they’ve designed a much more modular and simple disassembly with this lens than most of their older lenses.
As long as the motor ring is off, I’ll go back to my natural sarcastic state, and we’ll take another look at that Silent Wave Motor that’s ‘better than one with a gear system.’
My snarky comments are reserved for the marketing department. The engineers did a very nice job making the focusing system in this lens work quite well. The gears I showed above are flexible nylon-like material, so they’re quiet. The focus rollers you see below are large, heavy duty, and secured into large brass inserts.
There’s even a nice tensioner to keep even pressure on the focusing ring, so it has smooth, mild resistance.
Next, we turned our attention to the front of the lens. The filter barrel removes easily after taking out three screws reached through slots in the focus ring. Again, there is thick felt sealing where the filter barrel joins the focus barrel.
Removing a set of thick screws and inserts lets us then slide the focus barrel assembly off of the back of the lens.
The focus barrel assembly is quite complex, and again we get to see some careful, thoughtful engineering goes in to making the focus movement so smooth and constant on this lens. Once it’s removed a nest of rings comes out of the barrel.
Laid out you see there are two smooth friction rings with a ring tensioning spring between them, the distance scale ring, and on the far right the geared ring that the focusing motor gear train actually turns.
Inside the focusing ring is an electronic sensor that goes over a brush assembly on the lens barrel. This isn’t an absolute position sensor; it seems to measure rate and distance turning of the focus ring.
With the filter barrel off, we can take a look at the actual optical focusing mechanism. In this lens, the focusing group has a very long travel which should allow very precise focusing; a good thing with a wide-aperture 105mm lens. The two images below show the movement at the two focusing extremes.
Finally, we turned our attention to the front group. Remember getting dust out from under the front element was another excuse for this exercise. The front element is held in place by three pairs of screws. There’s no centering here, but there are shims under each pair of screws so this element is adjusted for spacing, or perhaps spacing and tilt.
It came off quickly enough, and when we examined the shims they were of different thickness, so both spacing and tilt are being adjusted here. For this particular copy, it wasn’t a big tilt, with a thickness ranging from 0.4mm to 0.44mm.
The bad news for us is the dust we saw isn’t under the front element, it is within that front group of two elements, which is sealed. For those of you with enquiring minds, it probably is not environmental dust, but a crumbled piece of cement within the group, so the group will have to be replaced. If this were my personal lens, of course, I’d leave it alone, but it’s a rental, and someone will lose their mind when they see a dust flake in their rental lens.
Since we’d come this far, we went ahead and took out the second group.
With the second group removed, are left with just the focusing element in the lens barrel.
Because everyone asks, yes we put it back together. Yes, it works perfectly fine and is optically unchanged. And since we can’t buy replacement front groups we’ll have to send it to the Service Center to get the front group replaced. The smaller amount of dust in the rear group could probably have been removed but would have required optical readjustment after it was done. Since it’s going to the service center anyway, we’ll see if they’ll take care of that too.
Impressions
I always hope to see engineering elegance in a disassembled lens, and this lens has some of that. The construction is very solid. There are heavy duty rollers, cams, and bearings and the standard ‘polycarbonate shell over metal core’ construction that most high-quality lenses have theses days. The care taken to engineer a smooth, accurate focusing feel is very evident. The weather resistant seals are thorough, even if not dramatically over-engineered. (If you consider asking if it is weatherproof, I will, of course, refer you to the warranty which reads ‘void for moisture damage’).
There is some engineering lack of elegance, too. I poke a little fun at the solders, wires, and tape that we only see in Nikon lenses these days, but they work just fine, and the end result is good. The throwback lens construction is becoming kind of endearing to me, in a nostalgic kind of way. There’s not a real downside to it that I can tell; Nikon lenses are just as reliable as anyone else’s.
While I’m never surprised when a new lens gets some dust in it early on, I’m disappointed that it’s occurring in sealed elements in this lens and will require element replacement. But this is just one copy; that doesn’t mean it’s going to be an ongoing problem. It might. It might not. Time will tell. Since few of you are ever going to clean dust out of your lenses it probably won’t matter to you at all.
The focus motor marketing bothers me a lot, although I realize it won’t bother many of you. I’ve long been sick of marketing departments hiding all facts and telling me to trust them, this new lens will make me a dramatically better photographer. But in this case, they’re pretty dishonest in telling me this lens has an advantage because it has a gearless system when it actually has a geared system.
Does it make the Nikon 105mm f/1.4E ED anything other than a great lens? Nope, it’s a great lens and solidly constructed. Its focusing system is still excellent and accurate, no matter what kind of motor is driving it. It’s just my personal battle, charging the cloudy darkness created by the giant windmills of marketing.
Roger Cicala and Aaron Closz
Lensrentals.com
December, 2016
Addendum: about 24 hours after this post was referenced by DP Review, Nikon changed the wording describing the SWM motor in this lens, removing any reference to gears. Their description is factually correct now.
141 Comments
sala.nimi ·
One question. What is the GMR unit.
Roger Cicala ·
It stands for Giant Magneto Resistor. It’s a focus position / movement sensor.
Nobody Knows ·
Enough of the babbling above let’s get down to serious stuff , why is it called “Giant” when it is so bloody small lol
King of Swaziland ·
Because the sensors are made by giants. Only giants can make such an extraordinarily small and sensitive sensor.
Seriously, because the size of the effect is “Giant” compared to ordinary magnetoresistance. Later they found an even bigger, different effect, and called it Colossal Magnetoresistance. And when they subsequently found a still larger, completely different effect, they ran out of superlatives and were reduced to calling it merely “Extraordinary” Magnetoresistance. I suppose the next effect found will be merely “fine,” unless they pull out the thesaurus and go for “incredible.”
l_d_allan ·
Am I the only one who found it unexpected / disconcerting to see “Made In China” on the 4th image?
Mike Aubrey ·
You’re probably not the only one, but there’s no reason to be disconcerted. Not all Chinese factories are created equal.
Photographer100 ·
an accurate generalization is still a Truism
youwritenonsense ·
It might be, but repeating something 100 times doesn’t make it true. I eagerly await you proving some of your statements true.
Gearsau ·
That may have been true many years ago, but, China has changed.I used to go there a lot on engineering business , and have seen the changes. We could have made a similar comment about Japanese products 50 years ago.
Photographer100 ·
that partially true, but still palpably invalid
Mark Rustad ·
China has changed. The Dictorship is challenging our Right to Freedom of Navigation throughout the South China and East China Seas. Any and all companies that set up production in China have any and all tech reverse engineered and stolen on a scope and scale that defies easy description. Suffice to say the thoroughness of their efforts makes these teardowns look amateurish by way of comparison. CHEAP HAS A COST–And the Price will be High. Especially when the seller’s finest lens is focused on Single Party Rule and Unfettered Power.
decentrist ·
China is not and never will be an alpha society. The Japanese have a sense of honor about their workmanship unrivaled by anyone. It’s fanatical. The Chinese are making these lenses because of labor costs,period.
nonono ·
“The Japanese have a sense of honor about their workmanship unrivaled by anyone.”
Is this a joke? They stole a lot of their design language from American and European cars not that long ago; where’s the honour in that? lol. The Datsun 510 looked very similar to the BMW 2002.
Gearsau ·
So, Nikon goes there because of labor costs. Not the only company doing that . However, China isn’t ” cheap ” any more.
Photographer100 ·
no just labor costs, China also has hardcore currency manipulation, making it EXTRA sweet to build in china
johann jensson ·
Anecdotal, but here’s my 2 cents: I had quite a few Made in Japan products that had defects because of poor quality control (LCD monitors, lenses, etc). After exchanging the problematic product for a comparable one that was Made in China, the quality was flawless. The takeaway? Times change.
Photographer100 ·
its not only chinese, but doesnt have a true SWM motor in it, also it has NASTY bokeh, poor microcontrast, its flat and nasty
one of Nikons worst failures
Borka Grön ·
Sounds to me you’re just parroting what a certain Youtube user keeps saying. The bokeh and microcontrast is absolutely fine and the deal with “3D pop” is largely a psychological phenomenon that largely doesn’t seem to be testable in a scientific way.
If this is one of Nikons worst failures it only speaks for a good track record from Nikon.
Edit: Reading your other comments it’s so pathetically obvious you’re the same Youtube user I first had in mind.
Photographer100 ·
100% wrong, its got swirly NASTY bokeh, its flat, and it DOES have horrific microcontrast, period.
“Psychological”???? Delusional insane statement, microcontrast is both real and existentially valid.
ignorant statement, congrats
youwritenonsense ·
Please use an objective method to prove to me that the bokeh is bad. Good luck.
Photographer100 ·
sorry you dont know what a great lens is, maybe someday youll learn
sample shot i took:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/02cf39ade13a3cc6883f713db415d16a4c36b32705775085b108ed5d2fe09ac8.jpg
Brandon Dube ·
If the MTF is as high as it is on-axis at full aperture, the lens must by definition be very well corrected for spherical aberration. Spherical and axial color are the only field constant aberrations. If in a rotationally symmetric system like a camera lens the MTF is high near the optical axis, these aberrations must be small.
youwritenonsense ·
http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/comment/169232/#Comment_169232
A worthwhile read regarding this lens.
Photographer100 ·
The whole part about “Photography….ART” passed you by
The lens has horrible output, both bokeh and microcontrast
youwritenonsense ·
http://forum.nikonrumors.com/discussion/5130/low-element-lenses-do-not-necessarily-have-high-micro-contrast-response-to-theoria-apophasis
I suggest people read this before listening to the angry photographer.
Gearsau ·
Does anyone even listen that that persons ” ramblings ” ?
Roger Cicala ·
Enough of this! We discuss things here, like grown-ups. We don’t name call, thump our chests, see who can scream the loudest, and think we’ve accomplished something because we won an internet argument. I’ve yet to ever delete comments on this blog, but I’m about to.
Roger
Photographer100 ·
since i posted a test picture below proving same, …..i fail to see what youre trying to say.
Apparently you dont want to discuss anything rather as you say “delete things”.
Do you have SAMPLE IMAGES that invalidate my statement (from shots I took myself with the lens)..? I posted an image below…..can you post one proving im incorrect?
thereshegoes ·
Straight Nylon 6 is rarely used for mechanisms like this, and you’ll find polyamide 66 and nylon 6 are often infused with molybdenum disulfide to lower wear resistance and friction. Such infusion isn’t necessarily required if you plan to use silicone grease. Grease can attract grit, so depending on the application you might find self lubricating nylon (polyamide 66 with molybdenum disulfide infusion) or even teflon, more wear resistant than metal with lubrication or straight plastic with lubrication. While not all metals rust, they oxidise and this can be problematic, moreover, metal can in fact shatter. I do not believe you know the torque required to move the mechanism and in one of your videos, I believe you made the claim or you insinuated metal gears would be superior. I don’t agree with this claim and you certainly did not prove it to be so. The burden of proof doesn’t lie on me to prove you wrong, it lies on you to prove your claim is factual.
Shifting the burden of proof or writing fallacious nonsense and then insinuating others cannot debate properly is humorous and paradoxically sad.
In regards to your claims about the sample photographs you provided, they were proven to be misleading and your conclusions were proven to be illogical. You responded with argumentum ad hominem and referred to people as “cockroaches.”
“can you post one proving im incorrect”
This is shifting the burden of proof. It’s unreasonable for you to expect us to sift through 3,000+ videos (or however many videos you have uploaded. I’m guessing 10 more will be uploaded by the time I’ve finished this post) to prove your statements incorrect, when you haven’t proven anything to begin with.
Nonetheless, I will give you something to think about.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/134746128@N05/29862664812/in/dateposted/
Here is a photograph you uploaded. The left is a different size, taken at a different angle with a different exposure. If you crop them to be the same size, you have something like this — https://imgur.com/a/YwWFW.
If we look at the histograms, we can objectively see the exposure is not the same, and if we raise the exposure by 0.33+ in photoshop, we get something similar — https://imgur.com/lzap5UJ. If you place the photographs (once cropped, to be the same size) over each other and you use a “difference” layer in photoshop, it objectively proves the shots were not taken at the same angle — https://i.imgur.com/vjrW58B.jpg.
If you don’t know how to set the exposure the same for two photographs or how to use a tripod, and you’re so dishonest to argue these shots were taken with the same exposure, then why do you think so many people should waste their time discussing this with you? Especially when in most cases, the only response they’ll get from you is a bunch of personal attacks.
On a subjective and somewhat personal note, you spend so much time telling people about all the experience you’ve had instead of simply showing it. Some of us have had the misfortune of watching you make light modifiers and we can certainly see you’re no expert when it comes to making or repairing things, so why not use the energy wasted on bragging towards actually improving?
Please stop telling people what an expert you are when you cannot even cut a piece of velcro straight (not that you should be using velcro to begin with), please stop making claims when you aren’t capable of being logical, and please stop publicly damning other photographers such as Tony Northrup, Jason Lanier and so on.
Lastly… You stated you’re a chess champion. Would you like a game with a $10,000 wager? We can do a best of 5 if you’d like. I looked through the US champions list and like most of your claims, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Chess_Championship no evidence could be found to support your claim.
decentrist ·
Roger, You are the man, but here’s the energy. Let it flow.
Harold Mayo ·
For some reason I read this article in the voice of “Captain Slow” James May. Anyone else?
Roger Cicala ·
It was the ‘hither and yon’ that did it, wasn’t it? 🙂
DB ·
LOL!!!!!!!!!!!
Darin ·
Love the closing line!
Lee ·
Thanks! These are always fun
Claudia Muster ·
There’s one question I’ve wanted to ask for a long time: What are you doing with all those leftover screws which must have accumulated over the years with all those dis- and reassemblies?
On a more serious note: I know you hate it when people ask you whether you could do this or that, but I’d be very interested to take a look into one of those Olympus Pro lenses.
A-Sign ·
There don’t need to be leftovers if you take a snapshot photo for each disassembly step. Playback in reverse and you get it back together.
Hank Roest ·
There is a beautiful report of a tear-down of the Olympus 75mm f1.8. Look it up. It is, of course, famously, a very sweet lens.
Thinkinginpictures ·
Love these blogs. Educating the masses.
Kers ·
what an exciting teardown… ! 🙂 it is also in the writing of course
i can imagine it could be even more exiting to make a review of putting the parts together that in the end looks like some sort of a lens… very nice read!
As i understand Nikon makes solid stuff but is not the most modern company…
Canon is.. ?
Pieter Kers
Marc ·
Ken, we know this is you. Behave yourself. lol
Photographer100 ·
obviously it is…..and stop telling others what to speak (fascism, cough*) 🙂
Boudewijn J.M. Kegels ·
I live in the country he comes from 😉
Borka Grön ·
Nobody is telling you what you can or cannot say, Ken. Marc gave you an advice – not an order.
youwritenonsense ·
Not only is this hypocritical because you seem to block anyone on YouTube that proves you wrong, it’s also somewhat amusing.
http://photochirp.com/information/mirrorless-cameras/#comment-181
It’s pretty obvious you resort to fallacious, fictitious, insulting drivel when you cannot prove your point.
decentrist ·
good god!!!~ no ring motor…China? what’s next…Nikon ships this in a ziplock bag?
youwritenonsense ·
CNC machines don’t care whether they’re in China or Japan, but the person paying the electricity bill does.
decentrist ·
CNC machines don’t assemble the lens. CNC machines don’t lie about the absence of a ring motor. This is a downward arc with Nikon. Once trust is lost, how do you get it back?
thereshegoes ·
Can you link me to an article proving these lenses are poorly assembled? I think you might be confusing motor with servomechanism.
“Once trust is lost, how do you get it back?”
No idea. I never trusted nikon to begin with.
decentrist ·
The thrust of this post is that Nikon lied about the ring motor. There is no proof that the lenses are poorly assembled….yet. Time will tell, but my money would be on Japanese construction,ring motor, not the plastic gear/micro motor construction. This overpriced lens has been served up to us with a big, fat juicy lie. Nikon has a great legacy that is being eroded by it’s own internal decisions.The comparison of this 105 E with the 105 DC is shameful indeed.
nonono ·
“There is no proof”
Without proof, a claim is pretty weak.
decentrist ·
The 105 E will not last given it’s construction. The focus motor arrangement has cost driving it’s implementation. I’m glad to see you have discovered Wikipedia.
nonono ·
“The 105 E will not last given it’s construction.”
Proof?
“I’m glad to see you have discovered Wikipedia.”
I wish you would read it–perhaps you’d learn “its” is possessive.
disqus_aYDAJxlXsR ·
My pleasure: https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2016/12/taking-apart-the-new-nikon-105mm-f1-4e-ed-af-s/
Notice in that article that they had to disassemble a brand new lens because it had dust inside. Shipping a lens with dust can be considered a result of poor assembly QA (probably not done in a sufficiently clean room).
nono ·
“lenses”, not one specific lens. every company has the odd failure.
Photographer100 ·
you forgot all the DUST in this “sealed” lens, and that lenses are already reporting for service that are rattling due to broken glue “welds”
Astro Landscapes ·
Canon *has* started shipping some non-L lenses in bubble-wrap instead of form-fitting foam / cardboard carriers.
dslater ·
I’m pretty sure that when Nikon says “better than a lens with a gear system” they’re referring to the old screw-driver driven AF lenses which are slower and nosier than the newer AF-S lenses.
fanboy fagz ·
actually the newer g lenses are half as fast as the D lenses.
D lenses are easily twice as fast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ataDgMph_wI
Astro Landscapes ·
SO, the question is, are they trying to say that the 105 f/1.4 is going to buck this trend of D autofocus having higher torque than SWM lenses? Because if that is the case, then nomenclature is just pedantic, I wanna eat some proof-pudding!
fanboy fagz ·
Ive shot with the 105 at weddings matt. The focus is smooth. But not fast at all. Its pretty accurate. But then again so is my 85 1.8d on the d5.
Kaouthia ·
The problem is that regular AF lens speed is dependent upon the body being used. Some will AF much faster or slower than others. I notice a definite difference in the focus speed of my AF lenses with my 14 year old D100 bodies vs more recent bodies like the D810.
AF-S lenses, however, are the same speed on all bodies, regardless.
Also, the D designation does not mean it doesn’t contain an AF motor. I have a 300mm f/4D AF-S lens here that has both a built in AF motor and an aperture ring (it focuses just fine on bodies like the D3200 which don’t contain an AF motor).
D just means it has the distance chip. G means it has the distance chip and no aperture ring. There are also G type lenses out there that require bodies with a built in AF motor as they don’t have one built into the lens.
fanboy fagz ·
absolutely the 300 has a motor inside. I bet you that lens has a nice ultrasonic motor. first gen.
Im not certain the speed is the same on all bodies. maybe @Thom Hogan
can chime in.
some are more responsive and the tracking and low light ability is different on bodies. the speed it moves from close to far is the same. the speed it locks is body dependent. my 28-70 AFS 2.8d is also motor inside and a d lens. the G means the newer gilded lenses with no aperture ring.
curious why there is 10 pins on the lens and 8 int he camera. not sure. too lazy to take my gear out.
but the d prime lenses are much faster then the g primes even twice as fast. the 70-200 2.8s have the ultrasonic motor inside. the g primes have the cheap slow geared af motors.
Kaouthia ·
Let me rephrase, the lens is supposed to spin around at the same speed regardless of body, because all it basically requires is the voltage and to be told “start looking”. Some bodies take longer to actually hit their target, but that’s mostly due to crappy AF modules in the bodies themselves. But, the lenses still adjust at the same speed.
With regular AF lenses, it’s dependent upon the speed of the motor inside the camera (whereas AF-S lenses use the same motor regardless of which body they’re on).
If I get time later, I’ll charge up one of my old D100 batteries and see how it compares.
Photographer100 ·
speed AF isnt important on a PORTRAIT lens. *rolls eyes
fanboy fagz ·
why do you think I use my 85 for portraits only?
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0809db75186225430234770564223af2ac5686684dd4ccbbbe36a8f3559acd71.jpg
appliance5000 ·
I have always found Nikons to be good glass but large and inelegant. For all their bulk, I’m not sure about their durability over time. This based on experience with the manual focus lenses – probably not relevant today.
Going back in time (which given the mirrorless world is pretty relevant now) two lines of lenses stand out to me :
Pentax Takumars: If you want mechanical nirvana, these are beautiful to look at, and turning the focus ring is strangely magical. They’re also the birthplace of multi-coating. They’re largish, and the ones I had were not optically great, but I’m sure some are. If I was the type of person, I’d own one just to manipulate it while meditating on the state of man.
Olympus Zuiko OM: These are the sweet spot for me. Coming from scientific devices, Olympus brought this to their lenses: They’re compact and mechanically precise. Once again, the focusing mechanism is lovely forty years on. My 50 3.5 macro is like a razor, and the 24 2.8 is a tiny jewel. They make the world a better place.
Maybe this apropos of nothing, but ….
kbb ·
Slight correction: Pentax was the birthplace of the marketing of multi-coating.
appliance5000 ·
well I was waxing romantic, but the answer is probably more nuanced. They weren’t just marketing, they were developing and implementing. These lenses were made to compete with zeiss, Zeiss is a very conservative company and were not sure that MC was a good idea. I think Asahi proved that wrong with the Taks. and drove further development in the industry.
bdbender4 ·
Once upon a time, when the world was young and all, I used Nikon cameras and lenses. The cameras had film in them. When digital arrived I used Nikon DX stuff for several years until I got frustrated for reasons that Thom Hogan expresses very well (buzz buzz) and switched to another system. As Thom says, it seems that Nikon management and engineering decisions are taken looking more internally than externally at “who are your customers and what do they want”.
So here is a lens that is brilliant optically, constructed well-but-very-conservatively, and marketed by buffoons.
Roger, if you follow USA politics at all you better get used to fact-free marketing buffoonery or you will give yourself a mental hernia. All marketing, all the time! This is one area where Nikon is right up to date. And if you give yourself that mental hernia you won’t be able to do these tear-downs that are one of the very best things on the internet.
Roger Cicala ·
Yeah, but sometimes the situation requires a futile and stupid gesture be made 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4DZeBleLs
youwritenonsense ·
Motors don’t strictly have gears, the entire servo mechanism might have. I think someone would have a hard job winning a court case against false advertising. That said, I’m in favour of nylon gears when they require this little torque. Nonetheless, I do agree with you that it’s dodgy marketing. I’m not defending Nikon for poor advertising, I just don’t think this lens is as bad as people make it out to be.
I’m glad I shoot Sony mirrorless. In my opinion, the lenses available that I’m interested in, are better engineered.
decentrist ·
Sony Mirrorless the redefinition of the word depreciation and home heating….Nylon gears? It’s not poor advertising. It’s lying. How about the 16-80 SWM…see a pattern?
nonono ·
The Sony a7rII I bought has increased in price and I’ve owned it since release. I wish my other electronic items would depreciate like that ;). Obviously we buy into a system and not just a camera, and the Zeiss lenses I own seem to hold their price better than my Canon glass did. Having said that, Canon glass seems to hold its value quite well so I’m certainly not complaining there. I’m putting in a large order for some broncolor equipment, and I expect that will hold its price as good as you can expect.
In regards to the heating issue, it is not something I have experienced myself but I do believe it is a problem for some people in specific climates (I say specific climates because I haven’t personally witnessed a single photographer with this problem and I can only assume ambient temperature makes a difference).
I get the impression I could have said I shoot with Leica and you would have had a problem with it. Canon sensors have had a recent recall. Nikon had a recall with oil problems from what I remember. There’s problems with every manufacturer, but I’m happy with my equipment.
I can honestly say I’ve had more problems with Canon cameras and Canon customer service than I have with Sony. But I am by no means a fan of Sony. I’m sure I’ll have problems with them one day.
Horshack ·
Those PCBs look like my $10 Arduino board 🙂
revaaron ·
PCBs do tend to look alike. There’s no reason to believe that Nikon would have used some special type of PCB – sparkly with Teflon-coated dust – just because it’s an expensive lens.
Terry ·
I really enjoyed LensRental’s blog sharing. Very in-depth, lots of technical knowledge, and analysis based on facts, eg. ”
but this is just one copy; that doesn’t mean it’s going to be an ongoing problem. It might. It might not. Time will tell. ”
Being cautious and objective is good!
youwritenonsense ·
Occasionally you hit upon truths, but 99% of your verbal diarrhoea is in fact fictitious drivel. Your book on magnetism is fictitious drivel, for example, one question alone refutes your 20 years of “wisdom”, “if blood is ferromagnetic, why don’t MRI scanners instantly kill us?”
Your theories about lenses are utter gibberish, and similarly to magnetism, simple rhetorical questions refute your theory, “if chromatic aberration is the lens rendering depth correctly, then how come it exists when you photograph a black and white subject on a flat plane? Are you telling me that the print in a book is actually in an entirely different dimension we cannot see, feel or be aware of but somehow the lens is aware of it and can show it to us?”
Your lens comparisons comparing this lens to another were disingenuous, for example, the angle of the shot and the exposure were not the same (this was proven at the Nikon rumors forum). By “raising the exposure” in photoshop and by using a difference layer, we can easily see your results were useless data points.
Your appeal to authority, “i still repair lenses” doesn’t mean anything. Some brick layers spend 20 years laying bricks and they’re bad at it, but you can find some brick layers that’re good at it after 5. I’ve yet to see you show skill in anything. I’ve seen some of your modifiers, you use duck tape, velcro and string. Those are hardly the signs of a superior craftsman.
Everything about you is messy, your look is messy, your video set is messy, your tools are the wrong tools for the job, your photographs are of low quality, your websites look like trash, your book is a complete mess, etc. but somehow, you expect us to pay attention to your predominantly fictitious claims because you “repaired lenses.”
You haven’t commented on the molecular structure of nylon or the amount of torque it can provide with that amount of teeth at that angle and with a cog of that dimension. You simply make simplistic blanket statements that’re often misinterpretations of someone else’s argument, as a means to make yourself sound knowledgeable. FYI, the DS160 servo has a coreless motor, but the servo has gears. Servos aren’t strictly the motor alone. At the kind of torques required, metal gears aren’t necessary and it’s not a bad design decision to have nylon gears. If a gas turbine jet engine RC helicopter can use nylon gears, I’m sure a lens can too.
Nylon is self lubricating. FYI I’ve used nylon geared servos on a 100mph+ helicopter + nylon main gear + nylon tail gears and never once had a gear failure.
Mark Rustad ·
And the customer service at Lens Rentals is totally so rock solid that I know Roger designed it. Simply flawlessly. Definitely not self lubricating, never disingenuous. Real people running a real business well, treating me in a manner commensurate with my rather high expections and not once failing. Take your Prozac, its simple.
nono ·
One looks self lubricating to me. The gears are different colours. I’d bet one is infused with something.
decentrist ·
Nylon gears won’t stand the test of time, and you know it. No one is saying they don’t work. If you want to judge others, show us your body of work. You are a poop flinger making personal attacks. That is the realm of roaches. Stay on topic, and stay away from roach tactics. Nikon’s approach with the 105E is how they are approaching the majority of their consumer lenses. Sharper optics,lighter, cheaper construction.The lying is egregious, at any price point.
nono ·
https://youtu.be/dvZOxumbmB0?t=232
In this video, you can clearly see the quality of his workmanship. If this video isn’t good enough, check out these —
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD9EMENmEQQ
https://youtu.be/pGdxAgn5JRQ?t=322
“If you want to judge others, show us your body of work.”
Personally I believe an argument is either accurate or it isn’t. Requesting to see someone’s experience makes you run the risk of stepping into an appeal to authority debate in addition to the tu quoque fallacy. I’m surprised someone who quotes the Angry Photographer wants to see proof; I mean, he’s all about not showing proof. However, I don’t mind sharing some stuff.
In regards to the quality of my workmanship, here’s a wing I made from a modified plan (the original plan was someone else’s design) when I was about 13 years old — http://imgur.com/3RwQlCc.
http://imgur.com/lCYM8Oi here’s some carbon fibre stuff I recently made.
In regards to nylon gears, here’s a 6 foot, 100+ mph helicopter with nylon main gears that I assembled (some parts I made myself) http://imgur.com/gDn56UN & nylon geared servos that can pull 15KG / 60 degrees (semi home-made servos using pre-made casings).
http://imgur.com/XkEwCNV
Another helicopter with nylon servos & custom nylon main gear.
http://imgur.com/TKf7d1h
The nylon main gear is easier to see in this photograph.
http://imgur.com/3xXpghi
Both with nylon skids (I changed the molecular structure slightly but it’s essentially nylon 6). The smaller helicopter wasn’t hand-painted (I can’t take credit for that), the helicopter on the right was (I take credit for that).
http://imgur.com/8TwPx42
Blades set to 1650 RPM in slow mode. About 1900RPM in idle up. So to give you a rough idea of the torque, imagine large blades spinning at around 1900RPM and completely changing their pitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN5Xgy1o9AY
This gives you an idea as to how fast they have to change pitch.
FYI, I’ve never had a nylon gear fail even in helicopters with engine’s that’re 16,000 RPM & tuned lean. So somehow you expect me to believe that a helicopter can go from 100mph to -30mph (i.e. reverse its pitch and fly upside down) in less than a second, and all the nylon components are fine, but a low torque lens requires a metal servo. I’ve heard some nonsense in my time but that beats the biscuit.
Perhaps you can point me to any evidence to support your claim, “Nylon gears won’t stand the test of time, and you know it.” It completely depends on the application, tooth, torque, friction coefficients, etc.
“Stay on topic, and stay away from roach tactics.”
The post was on topic and relevant to what was said, but his post has since been deleted.
“You are a poop flinger making personal attacks.”
Argumentum ad hominem.
decentrist ·
Nylon gears will not stand the test of time as a ring motor. You are expelling so much verbosity with personal attacks, you come off as shrill and uniformed. These are simple concepts. Inferior construction combined with a marketing narrative that is not true. What about this idea gets you so aggressive? Did you buy one?
nonono ·
I won’t touch Nikon with a barge pole. I’m not aggressive. Asking you to prove your claim is not aggression, it’s simple argumentation theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_burden_of_proof
Please provide proof with your claims.
“Nylon gears will not stand the test of time as a ring motor.”
Explain why. Prove why.
Argumentum ad nauseam & argumentum ad hominem…
Thinkinginpictures ·
What’s wrong with Nikon?
A-Sign ·
It is quite disappointing to me to see plastics gear driven motors on a 2.000 € lens. I would expect better build quality from Nikon just like Canon is able to deliver with it’s 35mm F1.4 II USM. If Nikon is printing SWM on it i would expect a ring motor for this price point. I am not so sure anymore if i would invest in expensive Nikkor lenses anymore – my trust in Nikon is definitely a bit broken.
Marc P. ·
…and i wouldn’t bet that this fragile gear mechanism would last >= a decade, let’s say for a working pro, wedding photographer, or portrait shooter…i am just a amateur, but handle my (cheaper) lenses way carefully.
akkual ·
Seems to me that the motor in that lense is SWM. There are different kind of SWM motors, the ring motor is not the only way to do it. This one just uses two gears to transfer the power to focusing elemnt with two gears. However, this can be as fast and even more precise in AF as ring motor, because the motor uses same piezoelectronic crystal defining stepping + gears. The AF system you do not want, is servomotor/traditional stepper motor + gears.
Adam Fo ·
The Nikon Japan website never claimed the lens had a ring type silent wave motor, just that it had a SWM, which indeed it does. The no gears spiel seems to exist only in the minds of Gaijin marketing types !
Omesh Singh ·
Uncle Roger,
I have a very difficult question…
How does one optically test a Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L USM Fisheye lens?
Brandon Dube ·
An MTF bench doesn’t care if the mapping between object space is rectilinear or curvilinear. A nromal lens conforms to ImageHeight=-FocalLength*tan(ObjectAngle). Fisheyes can conform to a few functions, but the most common is ImageHeight=’FocalLength*ObjectAngle.
The 8-15 in particular may have too extreme a chief ray angle in the image plane to be measured on a normal MTF bench, I am not sure.
Omesh Singh ·
So have I discovered a way to defeat OLAF?
Brandon Dube ·
Olaf uses objectives with a wide FoV compared to an MTF bench (since it needs to see multiple pinholes, instead of one). This makes it more tolerant to steep chief ray angles.
The MTF bench will have artificial vignetting, or an apparent drop in MTF if the chief ray angle becomes too extreme to fit into the microscope objective properly. It will still make a measurement, with no indication that anything could be wrong. If the chief ray angle is very large, you can only test with accuracy at small apertures.
This problem is alleviated by a telecentric design. The 8-15 has a quite small rear element, so it likely is not very telecentric at all.
Omesh Singh ·
Thanks for the feedback Brandon. This is all very interesting. I have not found much info online regarding fisheye lenses beyond the theoretical MTFs from manufacturers. Most designs have been around for a while.
I haven’t yet found a review specifically testing fisheye lenses on the new high resolution bodies like the 5Ds-R or A7R-II, I suppose it’s because gear reviewers generally are shooting flat test charts. Would be interesting to see which lenses would hold up on the bodies of tomorrow.
nonono ·
The rear nodal point can be closer to the sensor with mirrorless cameras (there’s not a physical obstruction in the way i.e. a mirror), so mirrorless cameras do not need to invoke a retrofocus lens element group to extend the back focal distance of the lens. In other words, DSLR ultra-wide angle lenses have to have an extra element (sometimes elements) to circumvent an inherent flaw.
Manufacturers design different lenses with different optical qualities, so it’s always difficult to make meaningful comparisons. However, from a purist point of view, on an ultra-wide angle lens (which obviously a fisheye is), the mirrorless camera is the better choice.
In my opinion, the best review is to rent the lens yourself and try it on the equipment you plan to use it with. If you want future proofing, I would say the future is with mirrorless simply because they’re less flawed from an optical standpoint.
Brandon Dube ·
The rear nodal point of a lens is *always* one focal length from the sensor if the lens is used in air. A 21mm wide-angle for full-frame mirrorless and a 21mm wide-angle for a DSLR or even medium format have the same rear nodal point.
There is no such thing as a “retrofocus group,” though this statement is frequently parroted among internet photographers (similarly, that “coma” is the limiting aberration of ultrawide angle large aperture lenses — it is astigmatism).
A retrofocus lens is named because the “front chunk” has a negative focal length, which for a very distant object effectively pulls the object closer. The “rear chunk” has a positive focal length. A lens imaging an object closer than infinity will always put the image further back. The “retro” in retrofocus is for the refocusing of the image from the “front chunk” by the “rear chunk.”
A fisheye lens, because the first few elements have enormous negative power, will forever and always be retrofocus. The back of the lens is usually a large number of thick doublets. The doublet part fixes color (the limiting aberration of fisheyes) while the thickness flattens the field.
The move to a mirrorless camera will never make any other design form capable of being a fisheye, but will do some extent allow a better fisheye.
Marc P. ·
Very well executed – as always, and a interesting blog article to read, like always here. For technical, geek stuff & also lens teardowns, i do enjoy much reading this blog for years here It’s way great to have you here, and -into this case- that Nikon marketing BS about their SVM drive is being debunked…a sad they for Nikons marketing department. 😉
Even the Optics is world-class, shouldn’t the AF drive mechanism for >2 grand not being designed better, i mean…gears made out of brass, or other metal…but perhaps it’d then being much louder, and there is possible more wear over time..well, perhaps…but these kind of plastics gear…i don’t trust them much, especially not into a high end prime lens like this Nikon here…the whole mechanism looks somehow fragile for my eyes, won’t last decades, i’d think…
akkual ·
Plastic gears hold well. Take apart some heavy use CD-player from 80s and be amazed, or some photocopier from an office with heavy use. It’s very rare that the gears are the wrong goers.
Photographer100 ·
things hold well,…until they DONT
Go google “NIKKOR … GEAR GRINDING” see what you get
Daniel Nugent ·
Nikon needs to see this article if they already haven’t. I am seriously pissed off that they would even think to pull a fast one on their customers. ‘Ongoing creative marketing’ my rear end! Nikon is guilty of lying. Glad I never bought this lens because {{{You Don’t Need}}} a fast SWM motor lens for 105mm portraiture!
nono ·
I don’t want to blindly defend them, but he didn’t disassemble the motor. We can see the entire servomechanism from the outside, but on the Nikon UK site, it says silent wave motor. It doesn’t say silent wave servomechanism. Servomechanism != motor.
Don’t get me wrong, I think they’re being a bit crafty but I wouldn’t like to bet on who’d win a court case.
The gears also look to be different colours which would indicate very deliberate usage of specific types of nylon. That takes quite a lot of knowledge to get that right. I’m guessing they’ve said what they have in reference to previous screw drive lenses.
Nick Jones ·
what about focus breathing ….. 70-200 // 65-165 wtf ..
Veselin Gramatikov ·
Not true ring motor? 🙂 So sad for that expensive lens. Canon put true ring motors in every heavy lens they made.
So far Nikon shows much and much more technical weakness these days. But there is a good news. When they send you new sealed lens block they can upgrade it with snapbridge :))) haha
Tord55 ·
A delightful read, Roger, and one I totally enjoyed, from the first letter, to the last.
Been around cameras over 50 years (my first SLR was an Edixa Reflex, a nowadays forgotten West-German camera manufacturer), and now I mainly surround myself with Nikon stuff (I was a Pentax enthusiast for many years). Naturally, Nikon’s lenses comes in all kinds of sizes, and prices, but those I have have (most of them G versions, and N1) have worked flawlessly from the day go! Pretty sharp, too!
We, the wife and I, were not quite as lucky with the Pentax DA* lenses and their SDM focusing motors, as so many others. Some has been forced to switch the motor many times in the very same lens, as the replacement motors haven’t been better than the old!
Little did I know that there are people who reprogram (a.k.a. hack) their DA* lenses so that they revert to screw drive focusing, to avoid this recurring, infamous, SDM debacle!
But I am now a happy Nikon camper!
Shimon Mor ·
What’s the rational for blacking out the serial number? Do lenses fear having their identity stolen?
Always enjoy these blog posts. Kudos to the Lensrentals team.
Roger Cicala ·
I’m not sure there’s a reason other than general paranoia.
Frank Fremerey ·
I just want to say thank you. I read a lot of your posts and I enjoy them very much. Thank you!
Mike ·
Very cool to see this lens torn down. I’ve had it since day one and it, shockingly, made my 85 1.4G expendible. I think if we took many modern things apart, their construction would bother the geeks among us. $1 saved on a million units is $1 million earned, right? Personally, I don’t care as long as it works. I’ve only had one issue with any Nikon lens I’ve ever owned (that wasn’t user induced) and that was a fried circuit board on my, then, 7 month old 85 1.4G. Got it repaired and used it with zero issues for another 6 years. Let us not forget that the D800 (with its left side AF issue) was made in Japan. The 50 1.8G is made in China. The 105 VR macro initially was made in Japan and now is made in China. Apple is made in China. Samsung and their exploding batteries, Korea. Country of origin doesn’t bother me. QC does. And QC can fail or succeed in any country. But I digress. Love this lens. Nikon hit a grand slam with this one.
Photographer100 ·
Many ‘lurkers’ on photo-boards are saying “so what” about the micro-motor being used, pointing out that nylon gears are self-lubing and “tough”, which is true, however what they forget is that a hard knock of “soft drop” (onto carpet etc) can and does cause the gears to MISALIGN leading to the famous Nikkor “Grrrr” syndrome where the lens in AF goes “grrrrrrrrrrr” from slipping gears
and this is impossible with the ring ultrasonic
nono ·
It’s got a bolt going through it and a plate on the top for alignment. I can’t see how they’re any more or less likely to suffer misalignment than a metal gear. I’ve seen RC planes crash into the dirt at 180MPH and nylon geared servos didn’t suffer misalignment, so I have to question the accuracy of your claim.
Perhaps you are right. Perhaps a couple of videos out of your many thousands are accurate. It’s possible, but until you start providing proof to your claims, I’m going to assume it’s incorrect (simply because you’re known to repeat illogical, fictitious, fallacious, incoherent drivel).
Random fabricated quote usage isn’t the same as providing proof. Please provide proof.
“Many ‘lurkers’ on photo-boards are saying “so what””
The very definition of “lurker” is someone who does not participate, but you are claiming they say “so what.” How about instead of typing vague passive aggressive drivel, you quote people directly and debate appropriately.
P.S “Chess champion”, why aren’t you listed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Chess_Championship here?
Photographer100 ·
the PLATE that pin sits on, is attached to plastic, after wear the plate loosens and then the gear becomes askew and then the gears SLIP “grrrrrrrrr” noise.
Seen it over 100 times in many years on nikkor lenses.
Ring ultrasonics cannot “go bad” like that
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/fb2d8a28f736e212fdd2f555e9246847e6a0f6f5561d3d36083ab2d6f057d746.jpg
nonono ·
Another fabricated quote and more claims. You were never asked to repeat your verbal diarrhoea. You were simply asked to provide proof with your claim(s).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/134746128@N05/29862664812/in/dateposted/
Here is a photograph you uploaded. The left is a different size, taken at a different angle with a different exposure. If you crop them to be the same size, you have something like this — https://imgur.com/a/YwWFW.
If we look at the histograms, we can objectively see the exposure is not the same, and if we raise the exposure by 0.33+ in photoshop, we get something similar — https://imgur.com/lzap5UJ. If you place the photographs (once cropped, to be the same size) over each other and you use a “difference” layer in photoshop, it objectively proves the shots were not taken at the same angle.
https://i.imgur.com/vjrW58B.jpg
Yet you were quite emphatic in that they were taken with the same exposure. If you lied about that or you’re so incompetent to not know what the hell you’re doing, why should we trust you on this?
Please provide proof to your claims. Perhaps they are accurate. I suspect not, but who knows. I’m not claiming it’s impossible you’re correct (I suspect it’s false because I’ve made high torque applications with nylon gears and have not once had a gear failure; in my experience, the motor will fail before the gear will), I’m simply asking you to provide proof.
“Seen it over 100 times in many years on nikkor lenses.”
Then why do you find it so difficult to provide proof?
“after wear the plate loosens and then the gear becomes askew”
So the plate loosens, you drop the lens, the stars all align, the temperature is perfect, and everything just happens to all break simultaneously. Ok, fair enough, lol, but why can’t the plate loosen on the metal gear as well? Or is your new claim not about nylon gears being at fault, but the plastic housing (which I’m guessing isn’t even nylon to begin with)?
Since you’ve examined so many lenses, perhaps you can tell me how much torque is required to move the mechanism from the smaller pinion.
thxforinsults ·
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOPQ-cLpdW4
In this video of yours, you mention helicopters within the first minute or so. I was the only person to post a link to my helicopter I had built (https://imgur.com/gDn56UN), so I can only assume you’re referring to me as a “pseudo intellectual knuckle dragging unintelligent” whatever. Then you go on to say the Nylon gear in the helicopter is “heavily reinforced.” You’re wrong.
https://i.imgur.com/oXT2t5f.jpg
No reinforcements to the nylon gear. None were necessary.
The only infusion is molybdenum disulfide to reduce the friction coefficient but there’s no kevlar weave or other such reinforcements in the gear. I know, because I MADE IT MYSELF. Not assembled, but actually made the gear (it’s a custom gear; I wanted to make my helicopter more powerful so it can tick-tock better.) I also made the servos (I used premade casings though.) I changed the molecular structure of the undercarriage so I could land it more harshly for autos (for the uninformed, it’s when you cut your engine at high altitude and land without power), but no reinforcements were needed for the gear.
In regards to intelligence.
If you want to bet $10,000 for a game of chess (you claim you’re a champion right?), BO1 or BO5 (I don’t mind) or bet $10,000 that your I.Q is greater than mine, be my guest. I’ll happily set that up with you but calling me an unintelligent whatever on the internet seems rather pointless.
Quite frankly, it disgusts me that you berate others non stop, you literally beg for donations yet criticise others for receiving “kick backs.” You go on lengthy rants about Jason Lanier, Tony Northrup, Matt Granger, etc. all of which are helpful, decent people. You’re not only a disgrace to the online community but I think you’re a disgrace to yourself.
I wouldn’t mind if you actually knew something about anything, but apparently that’s too much to ask for.
Photographer100 ·
ad hominem and off topic.
None of this has any bearing on the 100s of lenses passing thru my hands that grind from slipping GEARS.
OF WHICH cannot happen on a ring ultrasonic
……which would only cost nikon about $12 more per lens to integrate.
Go google “NIKKOR … GEAR GRINDING” see what you get
chrisgull ·
Roger – curious on your stance re dust inside lens. I just sold my 135/2 DC lens on the auction site, I mentioned in description that there were “a few dust specks” inside the lens, buyer now wants to return the lens as defective as there are “at least 20 dust particles”. What’s to be expected when buying an 18 year old used lens?
Roger Cicala ·
Chris, my stance has always been if you can show me it affects a picture it’s a problem. So far no one ever has. We only go to this trouble because it’s easier to remove it on the front end than to have a customer disappointed because they think the dust will ruin their pictures. If it was my personal lens I don’t bother.
Omesh Singh ·
A wise man once said: “The customer is always right, except when they are completely wrong.”
TwoStrayCats ·
And then I would take all those parts and mail them back to Nikon and ask them to reconstruct my, err, lens.
akkual ·
Huge internet rumble over two gears. Let’s approach that first on engineering wise:
1) The gears seem to be there just to transfer the movement of the motor on the ring. It’s pretty much physical necessity, if no ring motor is used. The gear ratios seem to be 1:1, so they don’t seem really comparable to e.g. Canon Micro USM gear systems.
2) In general, the accuracy of the AF motor system is based on the steps it can take. With the ring motor (SWM ultransonic vibration basically is just highly elegant stepper motor) the dictating factor is the piezoelectric crystals of the ring. With similar separate micro SWM motor + gear(s) + teethed ring the dictating factors are the piezoelectric crystals of the motor and the teethed ring -ratio. So with this organization there is better refinement of the points available to focus the lense as one step on over these piezoelectrical crystals may translate to less travel than in the ring equivalent. Thus, in this kind of lense I understand the selection of gear + teethed ring.
3) Plastic gears are strong enough to provide tens of years of use. I have disassembled several devices with such gears that have daily use of over 20 years and the gears are like new.
In marketing wise looks to me, that Nikon marketing just copy-pastes that SWM text all over every lense. In this case they are on grey are, though. Typical cheap AF motor + gears use either stepper motor or DC motor and position sensor (aka. servomotor). These systems are bad. The gears have some high transfer ratio, because stepper motor nor servomotor cannot have very precise refinement. Thus, these mechanisms produce poor AF accuracy and lot of trial and error during focusing, because miniscule refinements are impossible close to the focus point.
However, Silent Wave Motor (or pietzoelectric ultrasonic wave motor) has very refined stepping by its own design, which accuracy is dictated by the piezoelectric crystals, not because of gears. In this lens, Nikon uses same kind of very refined motor, but also clearly uses gears, hence marketing arguably is misleading. But the gears are probably there also to produce even more refinement in the AF accuracy or making the lens manageable in size. And even if those gears are not making it more refined, they are not making it worse either in comparison to those more traditional stepper/servo motor + many gears -systems.
But bottomline: I think people overreact on this “ring motor is much better” -thing. What you want is the piezoelectric ultrasonic wave motor in one format or another.
Photographer100 ·
sorry you dont know about gear slippage
Astro Landscapes ·
I’ve had some Nikon flagship pro glass that required $600 worth of work after just a small bump, (ummm, aluminum shavings coming out of the zoom barrel casing?) …and I’ve had some Nikon “prosumer” glass that took an absolutely brutal beating and yet kept working like a charm, and stayed optically perfect.
Similarly, there are a handful of all-metal Canon L lenses that are utterly pathetic and prone to de-centering so badly that they might as well be a tilt-shift Instagram filter.
At this point, I don’t judge a lens until the serious abuse reports start coming in. I don’t care which parts are plastic or metal, I trust the engineer to *try* to pick the right materials for the job. Its the design itself (and QC) that makes or breaks equipment in the long run.
Ray ·
My EF 70-200 f/2.8 L fell out of my camera bag, 1,2 meter down onto the concrete floor, while I’m on standing position (lens caps and lens hood attached) months ago. I’m so lucky there’s no scratch no damage. Until know I still don’t know how this heavy lens could survive this ‘torture’. While I’m writing this I’ve checked its mechanism again, Confirmed it’s still ok. Maybe I was lucky.
Astro Landscapes ·
Yep, it all depends on the angle of impact. Sometimes even a slight bump can cause a metal ring to completely jam, or ta stabilization unit to break, and sometimes a “perfect impact” that is even slightly cushioned by a lens cap or hood can totally save a lens from a ~5 ft fall on concrete. I’ve had camera bodies that survived ~7 ft falls onto concrete, LOL.
John Koerner ·
So basically, it’s a great lens, with unrivaled optics at its focal length, unless you spend 2-3x the money and give up AF. Speaking of AF, the 105’s is blazing fast, it’s built very solidly overall, but you try to cast doubt on it because the description of the motor (you feel) may have been inaccurate … on which point, ultimately, you might have been mistaken. Your “personal battle” smacks more of “self-flagellation” to me.
Roger Cicala ·
I don’t disagree with you in general, John, but on what point was I mistaken about the description of the motor? If I was mistaken, why did Nikon change their description? In all seriousness, I have no problem with the motor in this lens, it works well, there’s no reason it shouldn’t be reliable. I simply think it should be factually described in the marketing material.
Roger Cicala ·
Excellent! And to add my $0.02, I don’t have any issue with the use of this motor on this lens. It’s the tool for the task and works well. I will add that ring USM motors fail regularly and can become unstacked with impact damage, we see it all the time. So I did not (as others seem to want to claim) make any statement regarding reliability.
My issue was only with marketing making an incorrect statement, which they have since taken down and corrected.
nononononono ·
I agree with what you’ve written, and to clarify, my issue isn’t with your article or anything you’ve said; it’s a great article (as are all your articles that I’ve seen so far.)
My issue is with the Angry Photographer and his disciples. I apologise for the drama here; it is often difficult to be heard publicly.
Normally I don’t care about such things, but he’s acquired a large enough following to cause a financial problem to various companies and photographers on YouTube. He’s the equivalent of having the town’s drunk sit outside your shop 24/7 warning people not to buy your product. While Sony (and Nikon in this case, although it seems like Sony’s the company he targets the most) can obviously handle losing a few sales due to his venomous tongue, it still doesn’t make it right. It is sad he and others have taken what you’ve said out of context.
I appreciate you publishing articles like this. They’re very objective and helpful.
Photographer100 ·
its not the NYLON gears are inherently bad (you dont listen obviously)….rather that the AXLE of the main gear rests on a plate bolted to plastic, a hard knock or minor drop and then the gear is ASKEW
even tungsten carbine gears are USELESS if theyre ASKEW and SLIP
theres the PROOF, that and 20 years repairing lenses under my belt.
ultrasonic ring motors DONT do this..
Go google “NIKKOR … GEAR GRINDING” see what you get
You said “so I’ve gone out of my way to reassure people.”…….yes youve gone out of your way to tell HALF THE STORY on the matter
Photographer100 ·
1.My claim is that 100s of gear grinding nikkors have passed thru my hands.
2. My claim is that ring ultrasonics cannot FAIL that way
BOTH those claims are 100% TRUE and Irrefutable
Here ended the lesson .
Photographer100 ·
im afraid youre off topic, as per nikkor lenses af drive motor systems.
1.My claim is that 100s of gear grinding nikkors have passed thru my hands.
2. My claim is that ring ultrasonics cannot FAIL that way
both 1 and 2 are true, and regardless of #1, #2 is absolutely true
……In intelligent debates, its important to stay on topic, on the facts. (user blocked)
Thinkinginpictures ·
I hope Sony hires Roger to build the 135mm 1.8 ZA FE we all know is coming. The holy grail of all lenses. It must be perfect!!!
Adam Fo ·
Roger, I’d like to see what type of SWM motor the remarkable cheap Nikkor 200-500 f5.6 uses.
KidCrystal ·
I was about to buy this lens then I saw made in China! Forget it!
Claudia Muster ·
This article has been very educative in many ways. First, of course, technically, als always. But then, it also has demonstrated exemplarily how the internet works. Roger states very clearly and emphasizes more than once that the lens design is, while not “elegant”, very solid, and that the focus mechanism, while not gearless, is perfectly adequate. And then he pokes a bit fun at Nikons marketing department. And the Internet? Goes crazy all over the place, calls the lens crap and the focus mechanism crap and made in China is crap anyway and Nikon has become crap and whatnot. A textbook example how the Internet works.
Dudley Hollister ·
Boy, am I freaking thrilled that I own six Nikon lenses not to mention three Nikon Cameras….a D500, Df “and just for the crazy lens” the Coolpix P900. I wonder what they lied about with my very expensive gear.
jonathanpulliam ·
“…much more modular and simple disassembly with this lens than most of their older lenses.”
Note also that the so-called Rohs-compliant “lead-free solder” presumably utilized in the post-2006 era PCB assemblies’ solder joints is known to court “tin whisker” formations, past a decade’s elapsed time, which may promote resistive shorts near the fine-pitch 8-pin SMT parts, which in turn may lead to failure of circuit function.
Frank O'brien ·
Honestly despite by change I got Nikon I feel all the time be ripped off. This lens there is no way to be purchased at that price without a proper AF system of ultimate generation, like the REAL SWM. I do not know in some how they think people are idiots? for 2000€ what cost to make a real SWM in a top lens? Fuck off Nikon. Let’s see know which surprise they reserve for the Mirrorless. I came into Nikon world by chance and about image quality ok… fine but these things really piss me off and it is not tolerable in a brand like this. ahah micromotor wave.. yeah.. the dynamic range and color depth does not worth enough if the brand steel you money giving false information but what I most do not understand is WHY WHY WHY IN A TOP LENS THEY USE THIS? it is the ultimate lens, the ultimate technology and why they use this crap?
Luka Koprivica ·
Gears in AF system are shameless example of corporate misleading marketing… I’d never buy this fraudulent lens. Very, very disappointing… No matter the performance, it’s just that one doesn’t pay for that!
M T. ·
Hello,
i got Nikkor 70-200 VR II which was dropped. i tearing it down an i have couple questions.
1. Why SWM motor fail when lens is dropped, it looks solid thing, why it is the first thing that breaks?
2. I disassembled the lens and i see that SWM is quite hard to turn (haw to push hard to turn with one finger). and it is not smooth, i have nothing to compare but should it be smooth and easy to turn like MF?
3. I see there is a very small gap in one place between the stator and the rotor, i guess it should not be like this. I have no clue how but looks like rotor (part without teeth) was slightly dent when lens was dropped. How is that possible, that part has no mass and it is made of Al?
Pedro Lauridsen Ribeiro ·
Sorry for the late post… I have a question: to remove the filter barrel and access the front element of the lens, is it necessary to disassemble the back? I have some fungus spots on the inner side of the front element and don’t want to go through a full disassembly if I can help it. Thanks in advance!
Pedro Lauridsen Ribeiro ·
In due time: no, it’s not necessary. The thing is, after you remove the three screws through the slots in the focus ring, you must also remove the three recessed white spacers held by these screws, otherwise the filter barrel won’t come off. These spacers look similar to the ones in the focus barrel assembly. The best tool to get them loose if they refuse to fall off is an unfolded paper clip or one of those pin tools used to remove SIM chip trays in smartphones.
Fortunately, the fungus spots in the front elements were indeed accessible from the front after removing the filter barrel (those shims are a pain, though…) and wiping them off afterwards was straightforward. Unfortunately, on the other hand, I’ve just spotted another, smaller fungus spot in the rear element and this one is not accessible to me since the latter is glued. I was afraid of that – the last quote I got for servicing this lens was about one third of the price I paid for it…