>>4515964
>>4515592

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>>4515964
55mm f/1.2 AI is good. Personally I prefer wider so my fav is the 20mm f/4 AI. They're really small and really cheap right now, and super sharp. Also u should get a grip for that bad boy. They make really nice metal/wood ones in china that screw into the tripod socket, they look good and make them handle so much better. Most of them have an arca swiss plate built in too. The one I have for my F2's even has spare battery storage inside.

>>4515964
>the only lens I've got is a crappy Series E
A scrub blames his tools

>>4515964
>What are the absolute best lenses I can put on this thing
If money is no object, go Zeiss. The ZF.2 manual focus zeiss lenses are probably the best thing you can get on Nikon F, but the native glass is good enough for film. They have normal AI-S support and a physical aperture ring so they work fine. Only thing that sucks is they don't have bunny ears, so you can't use them with the non-ai finders, which is shame because the AI info display fucking sucks. That little window that shows your f stop via the lens, that shit sucks. Because the non-ai finders like the DP-1 have an actual control arm that couples and adds resistance to your aperture ring, theres a display wheel inside the finder that is turned similar to the shutter speed display. The AI aperture display seemed like such an afterthought.

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>>4515985
>The ZF.2 manual focus zeiss lenses are probably the best thing you can get on Nikon F
Voigtlander SL series was as good if not better unironically other than the wide angle lenses in which Zeiss was superior. Also some telephotos have the Nikkor lenses being better.
Zeiss is the 21mm f2.8 Distagon (Nikkor 20mm f1.8 is head to head), 35mm f2 Distagon, perhaps the 15mm f2.8 (too much vignetting).
Maybe the 50mm f1.4 Planar but that gets into a direct competition against the Voigtlander 58mm f1.4 and the Zeiss loses against sharpness and actual transmission. The 100mm Makro is fast but gets beaten by both the Tokina 100mm f2.8 Macro and the Laowa 105mm f2, the former in sharpness and CA and the latter in everything although the Makro is an awesome portrait lens.
In the 75/90mm range the Nikkor 85mm f2 and f1.4 while we are at it, former is sharp as hell and latter is a portrait classic. Tokina 90mm f2.5 is a good mention, 1:2 Macro and also pops as a Zeiss.
The venerable 135mm f2 APO is a great lens but it has very stiff competition in a lens also by Cosina that was discontinued to make the Zeiss sell, the Voigtlander 125mm f2.8 APO, which corrects CA better and was also a 1:1 Macro lens, also sharper. And if you wanted speed the native Nikkor 135mm f2 DC had a bokeh ring, isn't as contrasty tho.
In long tele you had the Nikkor 180mm f2.8 and the Micro 200mm f4, plus the 200mm f2 AF-S.

The elephant in the room is the "Zeiss Pop" and in that regard only the 100mm Makro has the slight upper hand in direct comparisons but all those monsters come close, maybe the 135mm in terms of contrast and speed but after editing the Nikkor one is as good. Zeiss does have something special but more often than not some other lens beats them, particularly their own little bro company.

>>4515964

If it's the 50 Series E, those were not crappy.

>>4516131
It's not, it's a 28. I want to replace it because it's stiff and the focus grip is loose

>>4516205

Those were crappy. I don't understand why Nikon bothered releasing it. Any 3rd party lens from the period stomps it, my favorites were the JCPenney 28/2.8 MC and the Quantaray models.

My favorites were the Noritar 17/4, 50/1.2 AI-s, 28/2.8 8-element, 105/1.4 and the 300/2.8 AI-s. I traded the 105 for an 85/1.4 but that is pretty much my AI/AI-s setup for my F3HP with motor drive.

>>4516206
>I don't understand why Nikon bothered releasing i
You could say the same about their whole range of DSLRs.

>>4516206
>Those were crappy
>Any 3rd party lens from the period stomps it
They were as cheap as the 3rd party ones and came bundled with new cameras
Plus like you said some E Series ones are good, namely the pancake 50mm f1.8 and the 105 f2.8

>>4516214
The F4 and F5 were top-tier, same with half the screwdrive ones albeit years late considering Canon was releasing big internal drive lenses which were also with bigger apertures

>>4516240
>The F4 and F5 were top-tier
Those are SLRs. And I don't know of many that would call the F4 a great camera in its day, considering the EOS-1 was significantly cheaper and better in every way.

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I have a voigtlander 55mm 1.2 for my F3 and i love it

Yeah i misread, still the D700 and D3/D4 are great machines, i do not know how you would dislike them aside from the cheap grip material. D850 is also good but they chassis doesn't feel as good.

>>4516214

D700 and D800 were GOATed, I shoot on both and people are still using them

>>4515986
are you ai