Nikon AIS 45mm f/2.8P

Nikon 45mm

Once in a while, I buy lenses purely for pleasure. That is, without any real need for them concerning work whatsoever and so it goes, one day in 2004 I walked into Grays of Westminster and walked out with a very cool Nikon pancake 45mm lens.

While I may not have had a work reason to buy it, that does not mean that it never gets used. In this case, quite the contrary as I always have a camera with me no matter where I go and fairly often I want it to be as light and inconspicuous as possible which plays right into this

lenses design. And what a design, it is a special version of a Nikon AIS lens. It contains a cpu which enables it to send the camera information about focal distance and as such, works fantastically on the D200/300 and S5 Pro.

The stand out optical quality of this particular lens is its low level of distortion which lends itself to shooting interiors, buildings or anything else where having straight lines remain straight is advantageous. Whilst it may not be very fast aperture wise for a standard prime, it does manage to produce wonderful out of focus blur. The bokeh in fact is really quite lovely, so it adds to its usability as it makes a very decent short portrait lens with the cropped sensor length of 67.5mm. It may not be the sharpest lens I own, but its certainly no slouch.

Build quality is very good, I have no complaints as the manual focus ring is very easy to work with and with the lens being made out of metal, it gives you a feeling of quality craftsmanship. I like the fact that the lens cap can be attached to the top of the lens hood, which while cool looking is of questionable use due to its very short length. I have the satin colored version of the lens, which I’m told can look odd on my camera, but to be honest I like the look quite a bit.

It is a great lens to put on the camera when walking around a new city exploring. It produces wonderful images and looks the part while doing it. I can’t say its a must have lens, as in all honesty I could quite easily go on without it, but I wouldn’t want to sell it as I just enjoy using this little manual focus gem so very much.