This article was originally posted in 2015, but this update reflects the fact that I recently purchased another Reflex-Nikkor 500mm f/8 lens.

In the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, I had a Reflex-Nikkor 500mm f/8 lens. The optical formula is known as a catadioptric, or mirror, lens. Astronomers know about this type of optic, but despite being a relatively cheap way to own a long-focal-length, lightweight lens, this design has fallen very much out of vogue with photographers because of a several significant shortcomings…

• The maximum aperture is small, typically around f/8, and because of the optical design is the only aperture available.
• Significant vignetting – darkening at the edges, so the f/8 is only f/8 in the center of the image, and the corners are more like f/16.
• The “bokeh,” or quality of the background, isn’t just ratty or ugly, it can be, in some circumstances, downright unacceptable.

I found that in the years that I owned it the first time, my 500mm sat at the bottom of a bag of “extra” lenses I kept in the trunk of my car, and I seldom got it out and used it. By 1997, I had the magnificent Nikkor 400mm f/3.5 ED-IF, which combined with a teleconverter to form a 560mm that was very sharp.

However, like a lot of Nikon lenses I sold, I started missing the 500mm, so I kept tabs on them on Ebay. For a long time, they were commanding a very high price. But with the development of cheap superzoom lenses for the ever-growing mirrorless camera market, prices finally fell, so I grabbed one. I got it from a seller in Japan, and this particular one is in almost perfect condition.

I put it into service the next day, and it was everything I remember: a sharp, lightweight, manual-focus lens.

Being able to focus a lens is a dying skill, but one I personally keep alive. This lens is among the more challenging to focus because the depth-of-field is razor-thin, and the focus throw, the amount you have to turn the ring to focus, is very long. It needs to be, since long focus throws let us carefully fine tune our focus spot.

Of course, we come back to the idea that mirror lenses produce those obvious doughnut-shaped out-of-focus areas, often called, correctly so (for a change), doughnut bokeh. It can work against you, but if your backgrounds are less cluttered and darker, it’s less of an issue.

One thing that makes this 500mm better today than in the film days is that you can amp the ISO on digital cameras so you can marry the constant f/8 with a fast shutter speed.

I can’t truthfully say I recommend this lens, since there are many better options today, but buying it and using it again after all these years scratched a bit of nostalgia itch. I’m glad I got it.

Photography is both a fickle mistress and a moving target. One day pictures of models atop mountains are the big thing, then the next big thing is a picture of grass on your knees. Social trends have always been like this, but the speed of the webscape tends to amplify it.

I happen to think there is still room for the classics, and one of those is a basic wide angle lens. In fact, I talked about my favorite wide angle lens just last week.

In the middle of this conversation, a fellow photographer excitedly told me on the phone that he’d just bought a 28mm f/2.8 lens for his Nikon Z5. The Z5 has a 24mm x 36mm sensor, so 28mm is right in the middle of the standard wide angle range. He sent me a couple of photos of him unboxing it, with pictures of the lens itself.

The most obvious difference on the outside of the new Nikon lenses for their Z series mirrorless cameras is their austerity. There are few controls on these lenses, as almost all the functions are controlled by camera buttons and dials, or camera menus. It makes them look a little bland and blank, but also slick and post-modern.

Also oddly un-lenslike for us old timers is the design that front element very small compared to the overall size of the lens. We grew up admiring and owning lenses that sported very large front elements, and believed they were the hallmark of a great lens, and make the lens look more capable and commanding.

I expect the tiny front elements are a result of design efforts for lenses in smartphones, and the computer designs for making very small lenses translated well to photographic lenses in general.

Finally, my friend sent a photo he made within an hour of getting the lens, an image of a friendly bulldog on a sidewalk, and the image is flawless.

A buddy of mine recently dropped and destroyed one of his favorite wide angle lenses, an AF-S Nikkor 35mm f/1.4G, which he called his “butter 35.” The nickname described the way this remarkable lens rendered out-of-focus areas.

It got me thinking about my own wide angle lenses over the years, how I use them, why I like them, and which ones have emerged as my favorites over the years.

In the film era, I shot a lot with the Nikkor 24mm f/2.0, which was the staple of most of us news photographers. It was one of those lenses that I literally used up and sold almost as scrap, which I think is the perfect fate for a truly great piece of artistic equipment.

Also in my bag during most of my film-era photography was a Nikkor 35mm f/2.0. It was also a staple of news photography back then, serving as a more popular and versatile “normal” lens than the ubiquitous 50mm. I used it up as well.

As the digital era has matured, very wide angle lenses have taken over, made possible by computer aided design and manufacturing. An impossible-to-build lens in 1985 is in everyone’s bag by 2023. I have several that I love, including a very lightweight, very affordable 10-20mm for my Nikon APC-sensor (24x15mm) cameras.

But I am also a lover of the classics, and as larger imaging sensors (36x24mm) have made their way into my workflow, so have a couple of classic ultra-wide-angle lenses: the AF Nikkor 20mm f/2.8, and the AF 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5.

You will usually find one or the other of these classics parked on my Nikon D700, usually as my second camera at events like news conferences and football games. They are very capable. The 18-35mm is more versatile, while the 20mm is more compact, yet has a larger maximum aperture. The 20mm also has the advantage of creating very smart 14-point sunstars with its 1990s-standard seven straight aperture blades.

Oddly, the bigger 18-35mm is noticeably lighter than the 20mm, since it was produced using a plastic barrel, focus, and zoom rings, while the 20mm is all-metal.

The use of these lenses can be a bit tricky, since using a wide angle to “get it all in the frame” usually results in an image that bores the viewer. The best way to use these lenses is in creation of a narrative that leads the viewers into the scene with near-far relationships and leading lines. That means using a wide angle involves movement – up, down, looking up, looking down, crowding in and, honestly, having fun bringing new perspectives to old subjects.

If I had to nail it down, I’d say the 20mm is my very favorite wide angle lens.

As the sole news and sports photographer at my newspaper, a lot of disparate duties come my way. I shoot sports action, spot news, feature photos (to go with my stories), head shots, group photos, ribbon cutting photos, illustrations, and, in the next few weeks, a ton of what we call “media days.”

They can be a grind, since I am called upon to make team photos, head shots, and feature photos of hundreds of kids at the high school and college level.

For a while I was working these assignments with a Tamron 18-250mm “super zoom” lens, an optically mediocre but functionally versatile lens. But, since Tamron lenses aren’t the toughest in the world, this one quit on me, specifically, it quit zooming. The tiny plasticky parts in the zoom mechanism broke and seized up, making it a heavy, un-special 18mm.

That left me in my fallback position, a wide angle on one camera and a telephoto on the other; one for teams and groups, the other for head shots and features. It worked pretty well, but that combination slows down my workflow, and, as many older photographers will tell you, make my neck and shoulders pay by the end of each session.

I looked at some options, but none were really right. I have a couple of 18-55mm lenses sitting around, which I can kind of make work, but the 55mm end of the zoom isn’t quite enough. I have a 2005-era 18-70mm that was sold as a kit lens with the Nikon D70S back then. It’s got a bit more reach, but is optically disappointing, and the zoom ring is rough and uneven, so I really don’t like using it.

A third option was pressing my beloved AF-S Nikkor 18-200mm into service, but part of me wants to hold close to it both because it has been one of my favorite travel lenses, but also because it was quite expensive, and I have no desire to watch it get crunched by a pile of football players.

I thought about it for a while, and decided to look into a used (I know, I love used lenses) zoom in the 16-85mm through maybe 18-140mm range. A bit of shopping on Ebay and I found a good-condition AF-S Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G DX at a surprisingly low price, and it arrived today.

I like this lens already, for a couple of huge reasons: it is sharp (so far), it is very lightweight, the zoom ring is huge and smooth, and it fits the “media day” requirements perfectly. And while it lacks the glamour of the D700 with my 20mm f/2.8 on one shoulder, and the D3 with the 70-200mm f/2.8 on the other, I think it might be just the right lens for the job.

I’ll be pressing into service right away.

With what seems like the wettest summer in decades, my garden is giving me a beautiful harvest of tomatoes, peppers and, cucumbers, almost every day. But because of that very wetness, I am losing as much as I am keeping because of rot. There is some kind of white fungus that appears on the lowest fruit on the vines, I guess because it’s so close to the moist soil.

It turns out that this isn’t the first time this month I’ve been visited by fungus.

A very thoughtful friend gave me a camera bag and a cardboard box full of camera gear, including two film cameras, five lenses, and a dozen or more filters. Wow, that’s so fun, and I’m so grateful when my readers and neighbors think of me like that.

As I began to look over this gear, I discovered that all the lenses had a common malady of many older lenses: fungus growth inside the optical elements of the lenses.

Fungus growth inside lenses happens when lenses are stored with neglect. I expect that these lenses were stored in an attic, garage, or shed where rainwater or wet soil is present.

The problem with lens fungus isn’t that it’s present on the surface of a lens element, but that it is usually present on lens elements that you can’t easily reach.

Also, while fungus isn’t “contagious,” if it is alive inside your lens, it will continue to grow. To kill the fungus, just leave your lens in open sunlight for an hour or two, preferably not when it’s too hot outside. The ultraviolet part of the sunlight spectrum (which is also the part that gives you a sunburn) will kill the fungus. It won’t, however, remove the damage.

If you see a teeny amount of fungus damage at the edge of a lens, and you have decided you can’t get to it to clean it, don’t worry too much. If there is a lot of fungus damage, it might be reparable, but weigh the actual value of a lens against the cost of repairing it, which involves a professional repair place, and it won’t be cheap. It’s one thing to repair a $3000 lens, but entirely another to repair a $300 lens.