Nikkor 50mm 1.8 "E" or "D" serie

I'm about to buy some fixed 50mm lens for Nikon FM-2 analog camera. So i got this two lens for buying :

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 "E" (40-50 euro)
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 "D" (50 euro)
(The autofocus wouldn't work on the film camera)

And also there are Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 E serie too. Both lens form E serie for 80 euro.

Here are some my opinions:

the E serie: the lens looks OK on the pictures, it's manual lens, as I see there are not many lens with the "E" serie and i don't know much about that serie, but as i read it seams to be OK lens.
Here's a nice review for the 28/50mm E serie http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/emfgfg20/eserieslenses/htmls/283550mm.htm

About 50mm f/1.8 D serie. I haven't picture from the lens yet, but the seller told me that's it's OK. New lens in Macedonia are for 140 euro (with little usage is about 50-100 euro). It has aperture ring, it is almost plastic which i dont' like much.

Since 50mm f/1.4 is pretty expensive and hard to find some second hand lens on cheap price i'm about to buy some 1.8.

What do you recommend? Have you used these lens? Suggestions?
thank you.

If you don't need the AF I would go for a manual 1.8 but try to find an ordinary one instead of the E. In my experience the short versions of the 1.8 is difficult to focus since the focus ring is too narrow.
The older 50/1.8 Ai(s) is sharper than both the 50/1.4 and 50/1.2 (I have tried a bunch of them).
I hear that the 50/2 Ais is just as good as the 1.8 but this one I haven't tried.

The 28/2.8E is OK. Not as good as the 28/2.8Ais but not a bad lens.

As I said, if you don't need the AF skip the plastic and go for the metal versions, and if you don't really need the speed you are better off with the 1.8 than the 1.4 or 1.2.

An E-Series fifty would certainly be more stylish paired with an FM2, match its decor and have a much better focus ring for manual use. Nikon's E-Series was marketed as their economy line back in the day and the didn't do well at the time, but since then the E's have been largely vindicated as excellent bargains not far behind their Nikkor brothers.

The 50mm 1.8D, while excellent optically, doesn't have a damped focus ring meant for human hands. It's very loose-feeling and yes, the whole body is very plastic. Not the finest choice to pair with a manual focus body where you'd have to deal with the focus ring all the time.

I have and use them all with my FM2n. The E-series lenses are optically almost up to normal Nikkor standards. They are a bit more plasticky, more plastic parts are used and they feel lighter than "normal" AI or AI-S lenses. If you can find a good clean example of 28mm/2.8 you should take it. It is particularly good value I think. The 50mm/1.8 E-series is a pancake style lens which I don't like. It makes a small body+lens combo when that is needed though. The 50mm/1.8 AF-D is actually the most plastic feeling lens of this trio but I use it more than the older pancake. Being AF lens its manual focus ring is really just an afterthought but I'll manage with it quite fine. It is reasonably good wide open too.

I think this was taken wide open: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2622/4155636923_3fb9e4f5d5_b.jpg

My choice would be to pick up the 28mm/2.8 first and the 50mm/1.8 AF-D second - but the E-series 50mm/1.8 has its merits too and it doesn't usually cost very much. So why not take them all!

thank you for the answers.
I don't want to make some huge investments for this film camera so if the 50mm 1.8 E gives nice results i guess it's nice deal. The Nikon FM-2 costs almost 70 euro, and both "E" lens are 80 euro. What do you think of th price?

If the price is €80 for both the 50 and 28 I think it is OK but if you have time to wait and look around you can propably find them cheaper.
It is not a bad price if they both work smoothly and the glass is fine.

If you can live with the narrow focus rings I would say go for it.

Jesper said:

If the price is €80 for both the 50 and 28 I think it is OK but if you have time to wait and look around you can propably find them cheaper.
It is not a bad price if they both work smoothly and the glass is fine.

If you can live with the narrow focus rings I would say go for it.

Click to expand...

What you mean by "narrow focus ring"? The focusing ring might be difficult to use? would be a problem?

The 50 is a physically short lens (some call it a pancake lens) which means that the aperture ring and the focus ring is close together. Also the the focus ring is narrow and not as wide as on the metal 50/1.8.
This can be a problem if you got big hands or if you focus with gloves, but it doesn't have to be a problem. It is all about your personal preferences.
Some people like the 50E just because it makes the kit smaller.

Jesper, thank you very much.

These images tells the tale

http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/e5018.jpg
http://www.photosynthesis.co.nz/nikon/ais5018.jpg

I wouldn't be too worried about the D being made of plastic. I dropped mine by about 5 feet onto concrete. Then it rolled down the hill. It still works beautifully, AF and all. The manual focus is a bit looser than on other D lenses (the 20 2.8D feels great), so in that respect I'd probably look for an AIS. The focus on the 50 D doesn't "creep" at all, it just doesn't feel as tight as other lenses. It's easy enough for me to manually focus, but I can see how it can be a little difficult for others.

If you buy the New version of the 50mm 1.8D you'll find it as tight as the Manual ones, The one I had was way tighter than my 28mm AI-s , some of the manual lens loosen up too after prolonged use!
Q: E or D! I'd choose the D as I do believe the D is multi-coated while the E is single coated! (plus the D has AF incase you ever invest in a AF Nikon!)

Both the D and E lenses use plastic focusing helicals, The AIx use brass/aluminum and will be longer lived and more rugged. The D's as mentioned above are poorly damped for the AF motor to be able to turn them.
The Series E are an inexpensive alternative if your on a budget. An after market manual focus lens would probably be more rugged than the E. I would most likely wait & look for one of the AIx lenses.

You don't say where you are

Most autofocus lenses aren't designed for everyday use as a manual focus lens.

I would get the E series lens for your FILM camera (not analog camera). It's a film camera. It uses film -- not analog.

The E series lenses are generally very good lenses. When they were first released in the last 1970s and early 1980s, there were a lot of concerns that Nikon was lowering its standards to Canon with its prolific use of plastic in the Nikon EM camera system.

I think that Nikon went to extra lengths to ensure that the lenses were of a high quality optically and mechanically. Even so, I believe that pros and knowledgeable amateurs shunned the E lenses at that time.

I've got one each of the 50 mm f/1.8 AIS, AF-D, and E-series. In general picture taking, you can't tell which is which from the prints. Maybe if you blew them up to gigantic size and examined the prints very closely with a magnifier you might, but let's be realistic. In practice, other variables will easily cancel out any slight differences among them.

The 50 mm E-series lens is perfectly fine. I have no problems with the narrow focus ring. I'm told that the optical formula is the same as the AIS version of the lens and that the differences lie in the the manufacture of the barrel and the coating. It appears to be a bit less resistant to flare that the other two version I have, no doubt due to the fact that the front element is not deeply recessed. This is easily fixed by attaching a cheap rubber lens hood to the lens.

The AIS version of the lens is my favorite of the bunch, and I tend to use it the most on my manual focus bodies. It delivers the goods every time. 'Nuff said.

The AF-D version's optical quality is just as good as the AIS version, but I am not at all thrilled with the ergonomics of the thing when used as a manual focus lens. The lack of dampening on the focus ring is annoying and there is less travel from lock to lock. It takes relatively little movement of the ring to affect a big change in focus. It works really well in AF mode on my F100 and N90, and makes for fast street shooting on those cameras when they are set to one of the available AE modes. It also works great with TTL flash on the cameras that support it. You will be able to exploit none of these feature with the FM, so I'd skip it unless you plan to add a Nikon body that will be able to use them in future.