Nikon FM2n & 35mm lens problem

[ajmiller]

Recently returned from holiday and found the following problem with my photographs. It isn't on all the photos and can be to a greater or lesser degree.
The only thing I can think of is the aperture wasn't set correctly - it has a tendency to be loose on the aperture ring, but I've not had this problem before. Anyone else seen this, or offer any suggestions as to what causes it?

Thanks for any help.

- Tony

 

[Lee L]

Can you be very specific on the lens, and on lens shades, filters, etc? I can't think of any way the aperture itself would do this vignetting.

Lee

 

[ajmiller]

I'm going to kick myself here - thanks Lee - I had a rubber lens shade on the lens, must be that. The lens is a Nikkor 35mm f2 and I also had a UV filter on to protect it.
thanks for your quick reply.

- Tony

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Vignetting for sure.
Been there,done it,still bare the scars.

Mike

 

[Lee L]

I had a rubber lens shade on the lens, must be that

Almost certainly. As I'm sure you know, they do make wide angle versions of rubber and rigid shades, so I'd go with a dedicated shade to keep on that lens. The filter bumps the shade out a tiny bit to make it narrower, but that's unlikely with a proper wide angle shade. In the meantime, just tell everyone that these are little vignettes from your recent vacation.

Lee

 

[ajmiller]

I feel so damn stupid, thankfully it wasn't all the photographs (phew!!).
Thanks for the (sympathetic!) replies both.

- Tony

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Tony,a great way to check if your lens is vignetting is to attach the lens hood then open it up to the largest f/stop and view a white piece of paper under bright light.Look at all 4 corners of the immage through your viewfinder.
Are any of them dark? That's Vignetting.

 

[ajmiller]

Thanks Mike, useful tip. I've now done some research and found the Nikon HN-3 lens hood is for the 35mm lens. I have a HK-2 which I left at home but I think that's for use with my 24mm lens.
Still learning.......

thanks again

- Tony

 

[Stephanie Brim]

That doesn't really look like vignetting to me. I could get my Nikkor 50 to do that without a hood in the right conditions. What it looks like here, actually, is that the hood is too narrow for the wideness of the lens and the hood is getting in the way of the photographs.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Hood too narrow for wideness of lens= Vignetting.

 

[Shawn Rahman]

That doesn't really look like vignetting to me...What it looks like here, actually, is that the hood is too narrow for the wideness of the lens and the hood is getting in the way of the photographs.

Stephanie,

Isn't what you described one of the classic definitions of vignetting?

 

[Stan160]

Thanks Mike, useful tip. I've now done some research and found the Nikon HN-3 lens hood is for the 35mm lens. I have a HK-2 which I left at home but I think that's for use with my 24mm lens.

I have the HN-3 which I use with a Nikkor 35mm f/2.8 AI, works fine with no vignetting even stacked on top of a non-slim filter. The HN-1 is the hood you want for a 24mm lens, again, no vignetting with a non-slim filter on a Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI. I assume that there's an HN-2, probably for 28mm, but I don't have one of those.

Ian

 

[fschifano]

Tony,a great way to check if your lens is vignetting is to attach the lens hood then open it up to the largest f/stop and view a white piece of paper under bright light.Look at all 4 corners of the immage through your viewfinder.
Are any of them dark? That's Vignetting.

Yeah, that pretty much works, but you need to be careful. I've made the same mistake myself, and with the FM2, you don't always notice that the corners are dark, because the viewfinder already crops the image. On the F, F2, F3, F4, and F5, you have a 100% finder view, so the vignetting is very noticeable. I'm not sure about the F6, and the d*****l cameras, because of the smaller sized sensor, would not have been affected at all.

 

[ajmiller]

Thanks Frank - makes me feel a little better knowing I'm not the only one who's done this.
And it won't be happening again - I've certainly learnt a lesson there.
thanks for the replies everyone

- Tony