So, you want to buy a used lens…part one

Phil Rhodes set out to write a brief piece on the stills photography lenses that everyone likes to buy on eBay, but then it became clear that things in the used lens market have changed a bit in the last few years, with large numbers of inexpensive PL-mount movie lenses available.

When it comes to the used lens market, sensible word count limits tend to get busted through fairly quickly. So, we’re publishing this as a two-parter with the next piece coming tomorrow. Look out for it.

Recently, we established that even fairly mediocre and dated lenses built for stills photography can now go for as much as black-market internal organs. The golden years of building a whole set of cheap, long-ignored stills photography lenses for the price of a day’s wages have been ended, mainly by hipsters in search of something appropriately retro to fill the hole on the front of their mid-century status cameras. Is there anything left?

The new low end of cinema glass

Before we go picking among the crumbs, let’s consider what we’re really looking for when we consider stills primes, because the other thing that’s changed the equation is the availability of very affordable options that are actually built for cinema. SLR Magic’s Microprime series, for instance, covers full-frame sensors and comes in a four-lens set including a 25/1.5, 35/1.3, 50/1.2 and 75/1.5 for around £3000. The set lacks anything longer than the 75 and while they’re fast and tiny, they require a short mount. The huge desirability of cameras with short mounts is a topic for another day, but massively improved lens performance is the main reason they’re a good idea.

Even if we restrict the choice to more compatible designs built for deeper mounts, inflation in M42, Pentax and Nikon lenses might even have matched the deflation in cinema types. Samyang sells its five-lens VDSLR Mk. 2 set, including 14/3.5, 24/1.5, 35/1.5, 50/1.5 and 85/1.5, for under £2500. The Rokinon Cines are the same glass for similar money. Somehow, that’s the price for lenses covering full frame sensors on a variety of mounts, with niceties such as unified gear positioning. There’s even a 135mm option. While certain stills mounts might not be the sturdiest choice for lenses being pushed around by motors, the feature list is hard to beat.

Since it’s absolutely possible to spend five figures on a set of stills lenses, let’s continue up the ambition tree of cine glass a bit further. Irix launched its Entry set in February, with 21, 30 and 45mm lenses in full frame and T/1.5, in about any mount you like, for about £3500. Inexpensive compared to the greats, but on a per-lens basis, that’s encroaching on the territory of better-known names, especially if we’re willing to look at the used market. Sony’s CineAlta 4K series is perhaps something of a secret champion, if the rumours are to be believed, and used sets of six often go for well under £10k. Tempting, so long as you don’t need full frame coverage, but spend barely five figures and things like used CP.2s, which handle big chips, become an option.

The stills choices

So that’s the state of the cine lens market. What this tells us is that, for stills lenses to be a meaningful choice, they need to be absolute pocket money, or they need offer us something else that’s difficult to get elsewhere.

Nikon’s AI-s range is probably the best known stills option for cash-strapped moviemakers, and that’s made them expensive, especially after Zero Optik started rehousing them. Costs still generally average around £200 a lens if we don’t demand the latest, fastest designs. For instance, the 85mm f/2 has been seen for under £200;  the f/1.4 version, which is an extremely useful device, now regularly approaches £700 a copy, which feel like a lot of money for a stop more light. The lack of a faster 105mm is a shame; the options are 2.5, or 2.8 for the macro-capable version.

The real upside of the Nikkor range is the fast extremes; f/1.4 is exceedingly fast for a 35mm lens, although they do tend to cost £400, and the still-speedy f/2.0 version is more affordable at a quarter the price. The existence of a rectilinear 20mm f/2.8 is mildly shocking, and even in the context of pocket-money glass, £330-ish for such a rare beast doesn’t seem outrageous. Neither does £275 or so for the 180mm… wait for it… f/2.8? The value of Nikon’s AIs Nikkors, then, is bounteous variety, not so much affordability. The fast ones are generally at about as expensive and barely as fast as the cheapest dedicated movie lenses, so they’re not a solution for the entry level, but there are still options for many pockets.

Anyone who has an attachment to the Nikkor brand might look for things like Nikkor-H and Nikkor -S lenses, in the pre-1974 guise with scalloped grips (the H stands for “hex,” for six groups; the “S” presumably for “sept,” as in the seven-group 35mm 2.8). Sometimes called “pre-AI,” given the differing provisions for aperture indexing on these early designs, the 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor-H is probably the cheapest classic 85mm stills prime, and fast to boot. 

Caveat emptor

Let’s be clear, though: these lenses are old, predating Nikon’s 1974 redesign which created the styling that persisted until the early 2000s. These were professional tools and many will have had a rough life. Examples of these veteran lenses demand a close eye on the photos and the eBay description in order to avoid purchasing something that’s got mushrooms inside or pieces missing.

At least some of them have the same optical layout as later AI-s lenses, although the more modern coatings on more recent designs make for rather better performance. Items with the .C suffix, as “Nikkor-H.C” or “Nikkor S.C” may have somewhat better coatings in the older housing style, with the 50mm f/1.4 a good example. In general these lenses get you a brand name for a price and may work beautifully for, say, a gentle costume drama, but don’t buy them expecting modernistic precision at maximum aperture, because you won’t get it.

Tomorrow? The Nikon Series E, Pentacon, Chinon, and more…Read part two here.