Nikon "G" 1.4 primes, a mini review...

[Nathaniel Kramer]

ive been shooting on my nikon glass since 87 when i was shooting stills for Elle, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Marie Claire and a host of others. And Im still shooting on them.. all manual aperture... I tend to migrate the most to my 58 1.2, 85 1.4 and 200 2.0 ( which back in the day was 10g). AND I still love them! The Optitek mount is great, and although I love my Illumina and Zeiss glass, there are times I just want my Nikon glass.. And I find the "reverse focus" is actually more intuitive than the "standard". I think of my ff knob like this - roll it back (clockwise as subject gets closer and roll it out vice versa. My ac actually swithches the gearing on my arri ff for all my other lenses to match the nikon!)

[Evin Grant]

I am going to be testing the Nikon Gs but it'll be the first time I've had a chance to try them on Epic too. As for build quality they are really tough, although they do have more plastic than previous "Pro" Nikkors that doesn't seem to affect their quality feel.

I haven't had too much chance to punish them since I mainly shoot with my Optimos on the Epic, but so far they have made it though Yosemite and White Sands natl. monuments on the D3 with no issues.

Here is a photo of upper Yosemite falls taken on the 35mm 1.4G, 1/2 hour exposure with the moon rising and creating the rainbow in the falls...

[Steve Sherrick]

Nice photo Evin! How is the focus mechanisms on them? I'm a manual focus guy (until RED or someone else perfects auto focus for professional motion pictures) so that's what I'm most interested in with these lenses. I figured the optical quality was amazing and the build itself was probably pretty good. But the focus (degree of rotation, smoothness, and hard stops) is what I'm most interested in. Although the old primes are not perfect for video/cinema they are decent, enough to let me get by on some projects. Very short focus throws can be a deal breaker, too much room for error.

[Evin Grant]

Steve, don't expect any stock AF lens, Nikon, Canon or otherwise to give you the same focus throw as a manual Nikkor, Leica R or ZF.
The G primes are no better than an other short throw AF lens, I figure they're for nature/landscape/static objects until the Redmote Pro and Nikon electronic mount is available.

[Rob Castiglione]

Hi Nathaniel. I too find the focus direction on the nikons more intuitive. Could I ask what Arri follow focus you are using?

[Steve Sherrick]

Steve, don't expect any stock AF lens, Nikon, Canon or otherwise to give you the same focus throw as a manual Nikkor, Leica R or ZF.
The G primes are no better than an other short throw AF lens, I figure they're for nature/landscape/static objects until the Redmote Pro and Nikon electronic mount is available.

Cool, that's what I figured due to the AF priority. Much better for the lens to have shorter distance to travel when it's autofocusing. I will keep shooting my old Nikons on the small projects, and cine lenses on the big projects. :-)

[Vino Harris]

Question if they make a nikon mount for the scarlet will it be able to take nikon F & G lenses?

[Evin Grant]

Yes, but only "G" series lenses will allow for electronic focus control.

[Trevor Emmerson]

I'm thinking the 1.8 range of G's is starting to look real interesting. You can pick up now a 28, 50, and 85 set at 1.8 for less than one of most of the 1.4's. Slightly slower but optically pretty much as good. Nikon also has patents filed for 18, 20 and 135's at 1.8 which could make it even more interesting.

Quite a lot of bang for the buck with the Red Aluminium mount @ $700, 28 1.8 $699, 50 1.8 $220, 85 1.8 $499 for $2120