Lens Test Glossary     About these reviews

get it used here or buy mine.

get it used here

INTRODUCTION

This is a great little lens. It's sharp, fast, and tiny. You can buy one used for about $100 and its optical and mechanical performance is superior in several ways to the fantastic $1,800 80-200 f/2.8 AF-S.

If you can do without autofocus and the ability to zoom you can get better performance in a smaller, tougher, lighter package, for 5% of the cost of the new AFS.

Don't confuse this with the classic 105mm f/2.5 AI-s Nikkor. The 105 is a much better lens mechanically, and includes a built-in telescoping hood.

This Series E lens is mechanically sturdier than most modern AF Nikkor lenses. It has a solid metal 52mm filter thread. The $1,800 AF-S zoom's filter thread, as well as much of its outer barrel and focus, zoom and aperture rings, are made of plastic, making the AF-S easy to cross-thread and damage when changing filters in a hurry. Supposedly the Series E may have a plastic focus helicoid, which you aren't likely to wear out since you can't cross-thread it. Just try to avoid dropping your camera on the Series E lens, since that may break the helicoid.

There are two versions of this lens, both with the same optics. The newest version looks very similar to more expensive Nikkor AI and AI-s lenses. The older version had no silver grab ring around its middle and had uglier shaped rubber nubbins on the focus ring.

SPECIFICATIONS

It has 4 elements in 4 groups.

It focusses to 1m or 3.5.'

It takes the Nikon HR-5 screw-in rubber hood and weighs only 7.6 oz. (215g). It measures 63.0mm (2.5") around by 58mm (2.3") long and takes 52mm filters

It is single-coated, which is all it's simple design needs to give better flare and ghosting performance than the 80-200 AF-S.

It stops down to f/22 with its seven-bladed diaphragm.

PERFORMANCE

For those of us who actually shoot with an open eye, the 100mm Series E is a great lens. It's far better then the disrespect the geeky collectors give it. They don't shoot..

Unlike the zooms, the 100mm Series E has no linear distortion.

It has very good ghost and flare performance, also better than the 80-200/2.8 AF-S

The main performance limitation is secondary chromatic aberration, which is minor.

Here's how it performs with aperture:

f/2.8: sharp all over, some light falloff
f/4: sharp all over, negligible light falloff
f/5.6: no light fall off and as sharp as it gets. Stop down further only for depth of field; for aerial photography this is your optimum aperture.

In direct comparison tests at infinity at f/2.8 this lens was a tiny bit sharper than my 85mm f/2 AI-s, 80-200 AF-S and my AF 105mm f/2.8D micro. So there.

RECOMMENDATIONS

On my smooth FA camera it is often sharp handheld at 1/30. I have not tried it on the more vibration prone F100. Unfortunately on the EM camera with which it was often sold it's pretty bad at most speeds because the EM has a lot of mirror slap and this is a very light lens.

This often poo-pooed lens can make great images, and is the lightest telephoto Nikon has ever made. Get one and make fun of guys like me with their fancy AFS zooms.