Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G

Nikon D700 and Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 AF-G lens. Camera at 400 ISO and 1/640th. Lens at 28mm and f/3.3. The Nikon 28-80mm G lens weighs seven ounces (190g) and is a testament to what can be done with 21st century plastics technology and sticky tape. It boasts a compound aspherical element. I don’t know what that is, but it seems to work nicely. I bought this lens two-and-a-half years ago for £39 with a guarantee from a dealer. They probably go cheaper on internet auction sites despite Ken Rockwell inflating their value by revealing their optical capability. Think how much better the photograph above might have been if I'd concentrated on what I was doing and stopped the aperture down a couple of f/stops.

I used a 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 Nikkor G lens on a Nikon D700 to photograph this domestic scene. I set the aperture at f/8. That is where the lens performs best. This lens weighs a bit less than all the coffee granules in a 200g jar. I drink Nescafe Gold Blend if that helps you visualise it. Just the contents - not the jar. So this lens weighs about the same as a dozen mice, give or take a mouse, if you can round them up and keep them on the kitchen scales for long enough. This lens isn't at its best indoors in poor light. Recommendation 1: Use this lens out of doors on a nice day. There are approximately 1,700,000 of these lenses. This was the kit lens for the Nikon F55, F60, and F65 cameras around the turn of the millennium. It comes in black and silver finishes. I have used both. Currently I have black. Oddly, I prefer silver. Recommendation 2: Buy the colour you like, not the colour the merchant has available. I have sold two previous copies of this lens, believing its cheapness and poor construction quality to be unrepresentative of who I am. Recommendation 3: Know who and what you are. This lens will focus as close as 14 inches. That's about a little finger longer than a 12 inch ruler. That is quite close by ordinary lens standards. Good for pretty flowers in the garden, or a close-up of your cat's nostrils. Ken Rockwell always photographs his expensive wrist watch to demonstrate close focus. But he is wealthy and I am not. If you break this lens, it doesn't really matter. You can probably get a replacement for less than 50 (dollars, euros, pounds). But it's unlikely you'll break it because photographers are mostly careful with their equipment. Recommendation 4: Continue being careful.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. Nikon D700. Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens at 50mm and f/5. Needs to be at least f/8 to get a decent image. 1/50th - needs to be at least 1/125th to get a sharp image. ISO is already at 800. You begin to see what photographers were up against when these kit lenses were provided with the last ever consumer grade film cameras. For all practical purposes 800 ISO was the limit in those times. So: bright sunny day; tripod; or flashgun. I don't fancy the last two much.

Lacock Abbey; one of the chambers accessed via the cloisters. The cloisters survived the building of a new house by Sir William Sharington, its new owner following the dissolution of the monasteries: he simply built on top of them. Not so fortunate was the abbey church; he demolished it for use as building materials. Many visitors to Lacock Abbey have been inspired to come as a result of seeing movies about J. K.Rowling's Harry Potter character. I don't know if the lady in the picture and her family were there because of that, but they were very cheerful and tolerant of photographers in their way. This photo was taken using a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G lens. I am on my third copy of this lens, having sold the earlier two, mostly out of photo-snobbishness that they weren't pro grade optics. However, they have other virtues, chief among them of being astoundingly light in weight for a camera lens.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. Nikon D700. Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens at 28mm and f/8.

Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire. Nikon D700. Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens at 28mm and f/8. There's nothing wrong with this lens that a good f/8 won't cure. But don't drop it or look at it hard. It's flimsy. Part of its charm.

This was photographed with an AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens, a kit lens of unexpected optical ability, and inexpensive as well.

A photograph taken in February, 2018, and edited afresh. What prompted me to do this was catching a glimpse of the picture whilst organising an album for photographs made using a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G lens.

The narrowboat 'Hyldagarde' moored on the Kennet and Avon Canal in Sydney Gardens, Bath. AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G.

Tor Street, Wells, Somerset. So named presumably because of the view of Glastonbury Tor from this locality.

Do you require proof of postage? Nikon D700 + AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens.

Andre's Cafe, Wells, Somerset. I asked the couple if they would mind my photographing them and I was so intent on making a good job of it that I was unaware of the Ray Winstone lookalike character crossing the street behind them. Serendipitously, he completes the picture nicely.

The preceding nine photographs in this series aren't all as horribly blurred as this one. In fact, one of them is quite sharp. This is the result of using too slow a shutter speed. It's not entirely motion blur because there wasn't an earth tremor at that moment. I ought to have used a camera capable of higher ISO, or a fast lens, or both. But I didn't have those options so I used a Nikon D50 with a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 AF G lens whilst waiting to meet the 16.23 at Westbury station. Claude Monet noticed that slow shutter speed blurred moving figures and was inspired deliberately to smudge his painting to achieve this blurry effect. Bravo M. Monet! And Bravo The Limbo Connection!

A Victorian railway station, built to last. Attractive, in a utilitarian way. Yet like so many things in Declining Britain, it presents an air of defeat and neglect. Nikon D50 + AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens.

A cold afternoon in February with the light fading and occasional flurries of snow. Waiting to meet the 16.23 with a Nikon D50 and a Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 AF G lens.

I come here once a year to record the decline of these doors. Photographed with a Nikon D50 and an AF Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6 G lens.

The camera bag is a Billingham 550 model. The Billingham 550 camera bag was introduced in 1983 as a reworking of the 1979 System 1 bag, the first soft camera bag manufactured in Britain. It has remained in continuous production. It is a bag much favoured by professional photographers. The bag is made of canvas and leather, and internally there is nylon covered padding. It is spacious enough to hold at least two camera bodies with a full load of lenses and other accessories. Doing that would, of course, be a mistake. You would end up with an over-stuffed bag which was too heavy to carry and too full to find what you wanted. The bag alone weighs over two and a half kilos. It’s a specialised, well-made and stylish piece of luggage. You can attach additional pockets at either end. I prefer to leave my pair at home. They make the bag look too long. One reason professional photographers like it is its internal height of 10 inches which allows tall lenses and hammerhead flashguns to be stowed upright. Another reason might be the fairly slim profile compared, for example, to a box-like Billingham 555, or indeed any of the Billingham five series which tend to hang from the shoulder four-square like wooden cabinets (and they’ll always do this if they’re filled to capacity). Many camera bags are built square and get in everybody’s way. The 550 will get in everybody’s way anyhow, despite not being square. It’s just generally big. Access is a bit awkward but in my experience that is a general criticism of Billingham bags and a concomitant of high standards of gear-protection. To carry it by hand you have to do up the straps which secure the cover to the bag, which is a nuisance. The only other criticism is the price. Mine is second-hand, with plenty of wear left in it, yet it cost more than many new bags. If you want a real fright, look up the cost of a new one. Don’t confuse it with the 555. Google ‘Billingham 550’. Be sure you’re sitting down when you do this. The camera is a Nikon D700 and the lens is a Tamron AF 70-210mm f/2.8 SP LD. This lens was in production from 1992 to 2003. The photograph was made using some quite cheap second-hand kit: an AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens on a Nikon D50.