 The elusive 50-135/3.5 AI-s in its natural habitat: attached to an F3 With only a two-and-a-half-year market life (Spring 1983 - Winter 1985), it might seem that the Zoom-Nikkor 50-135/3.5 AI-s was a failure (just over 31,000 produced) for Nikon. Adding to this perception is the fact that it never made the transition to auto focus (AF), as did its pseudo-successor, the much longer-lived AI-s 35-135/3.5-4.5 (almost 92,000 produced from 1984 - 98 in MF and over 282,000 produced from 1986 - 98 in AF form). But when we dig a little deeper, a fascinating (for a lens geek, anyways ;-)) tale emerges. What were the real reasons for the 50-135's untimely demise? Here is the story of a sleeper Nikkor lens...one that still performs surprisingly well in the current digital age.
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C.J. OdenbachSuffers from a two-decade and counting film and manual focus SLR addiction. Has recently expanded into 1980's AF point and shoots, and (gack!) '90s SLRs. He even mixes in some digital. Definitely a sick man. Categories
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