I bought my 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor in January 1980, the first shipment from Japan. I used it exclusively for the next three years as it was the only Nikon lens I owned. Later on I started to amass a plethora of Nikon lenses.
My lens has had a very hard life, I travelled exclusively on motorcycles everywhere, including trips to Europe, New Zealand and parts of Asia with this lens always in the thick of things. It lived in my tank bag so was subject to extreme heat and cold.
In the early 2000's I did quite a lot of portraiture with this lens, especially close portraiture work, which, due to the floating elements (CRC, Close Range Correction, in Nikon language) is about as good as it can be.
One extremely hot day in our backyard doing a water based theme of portraiture, my Micro Nikkor started playing up. At first I noticed that whenever I did a portrait frame, the camera sounds were not quite correct. Switching to landscape mode everything was hunky dory. The camera had at one stage been sitting in direct sunlight for about an hour in portrait mode while we worked on the backdrop, the ambient temperature was north of 40ºC, so things were really hot. I remember going back to the camera and found it too hot to touch, so I covered it for a short time then we started exposing film.
I ended up switching to my 85 f/1.4 Nikkor as the 55mm became stroppy. Eventually I realised there was something wrong with the aperture blades, some kind of goo. I took it to a camera repair shop and the first question he asked me was, "have you had this in direct sunlight in the recent really hot weather?" He had over the years had the odd 55 f/2.8 Micro Nikkor come in after super hot weather.
He pulled it apart, cleaned the melted blade lubricant away and re-lubricated the aperture blades with something that should be alright, according to him. He also re-collimated the optics. It is still as spectacular as ever.
So yes, this is an issue, but I would suggest it isn't an issue if you are able to ensure the lens works perfectly when you purchase it and don't subject it to extremes of heat.
When in use the camera slowed down somewhat. I was using an F3 with an MD4 drive attached. After taking an exposure, instead of quickly winding on, the whole lot paused a bit and after this small pause, the motor drive then wound on to the next frame. This is how I found the issue in the first place.
This is the 85mm f/1.4 version of what I was trying to do with the 55 Micro Nikkor. Extremely hot weather and after a few failed attempts with the 55 Micro Nikkor I switched to the 85mm lens to finish the job. And if the subject looks hot, it is because she was! We literally turned the garden hose onto ourselves a few minutes after I had this frame and if I remember correctly, we then had some ice cream.
Taken in the backyard on an extremely hot day, it was the subjects idea to try a shawl. The warm tone of the image doesn't show on the screen, which is a pity.
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