What To Do With Old Slr Cameras And Lenses

A 45-year-old 135mm telephoto lens mounted on a Nikon D700. Y'all can apply matrix metering and aperture priority mode as well!

Using older lenses on your Nikon DSLR

Jan i, 2012

Updated, see beneath.

Yous desire to buy an older - pregnant manual focus without CPU - lens for your Nikon DSLR (or newer SLR)? First of all you should have a look at the manual of your camera trunk. Make sure that the lens you are interested in is not on the listing of incompatible lenses or serial numbers.

If it is a lens without an automated diaphragm (due east. 1000. a "Reflex-Nikkor" or a shift lens / PC-Nikkor) yous tin use it.

For an automated lens you lot take to have a closer look at the aperture ring. If it has two scales with f-stop numbers, a larger one towards the front of the lens and a smaller i towards the photographic camera, then you accept an AI, AI-s, Serial Due east or manufacturing plant AI'd lens. Y'all can utilize it on your DSLR (or modern SLR). Relish it!

All these lenses are perfectly usable on every Nikon DSLR: in the first row on the left a Nikon Serial Due east lens and on the right an AI lens, backside on the left a mill AI-modified lens and on the right an AI-S lens. A Nikon DSLR does non distinguish between dissimilar kinds of non-CPU manual focus lenses!

Do not apply non-AI lenses! The discontinuity ring of such a lens builds a ridge around the complete mount. This ridge can destroy coupling elements of your camera torso! The only exception amid the DSLRs is the Df, run across beneath..

On the left there is a non-AI lens (significant a lens build before 1977 in original condition). For comparison on the right there is a lens of the same age, merely factory AI'd.

In 1977 Nikon fabricated an important alter in the way the camera gets the discontinuity value from the lens. They introduced the Automatic Indexing (AI). It was no longer necessary to movement the discontinuity ring back and along to transfer the lens speed to the photographic camera torso, as Nikon photographers were used to do for more than 10 years.

AI-coupling. A Nikon DSLR either has an AI and a CPU interface (like the D700 shown hither) or a CPU interface merely (similar the D70 shown beneath).

The mount of an AI lens. You lot tin can see the AI coupling ridge (blue arrow) and the EE servo coupling post (green arrow)

A modern camera torso without an AI interface (CPU interface only). The minor switch the arrow points to is the counterpart of the EE servo coupling post of the lens. The camera needs this switch in conjunction with AF oder AF-D lenses: if it is pushed, the body knows that the lens is ready to the minimum aperture (greatest number).

The sometime lenses were usable without any modification in conjunction with the new AI cameras in cease downwardly metering. That was possible, only because the first generation of AI cameras (Nikkormat FT3, Nikon F2A, F2AS, EL2, FM, Iron) offered the possibility to fold upward the AI coupling unit. The professional F3, F4, F5 and F6 allow information technology too (only F5 and F6 only afterwards modification through the nikon service). Other newer SLRs and all DSLRs with AI coupling (e. yard. FA, F-801, F100, D1, D2, D3, D200, D300, D700, D7000) do not offer this. Thus non-modified lenses cannot exist mounted on those cameras! If you try you risk the damage of the AI coupling of your camera!

Simply fifty-fifty cameras without AI coupling (with CPU interface only, e. m. F-401, F50, F80, D100, D70, D40, D90, D5100) use a communication chemical element of AI lenses: the "EE servo coupling post" which was originally designed for the aperture control attachment DS-12. With the DS-12 attached the F2AS offered shutter priority mode - the postal service was used by the DS-12 for turning the aperture band mechanically! DSLRs with CPU interface only accept a pocket-sized switch which indicates that a CPU lens with discontinuity ring is set to the minimum discontinuity. The switch is released by the higher up-mentioned mail service. By mounting a non-Ai lens you may destroy this switch.

Nikon itself offered the modifying of sometime lenses as a service, where the original aperture ring was replaced by an AI type ring. These and so chosen 'factory AI modified' or 'factory AI'd' lenses are perfectly usable on about every Nikon body (y'all can place them through the 2d aperture scale, see above). If you take the need to change a lens you should first inquire the Nikon service. Maybe they still have parts for doing that.

Only non every lens was (or is) mill-modifiable. And then tertiary party repair services offered an AI conversion as well. All the same today you notice such a service, search the web for 'Ai modification' or 'Ai conversion'. Or you may do the modification yourself too - for well-nigh lenses y'all just need a file.

If y'all want to buy a non-factory-modified lens, the trouble is to discover a proper modification. It's not possible to give you rules for that! But I will show you examples of modified lenses beneath.

The style to modify a lens is to remove the aperture ring and to file away the ridge except for the bit you need for the AI coupling. I never saw a modification including the EE servo coupling post. Earlier 1987 this was a very exotic mail, only needed for the DS-12, which was used merely past a couple of professional photographers at the cease of the 70s. Merely with the annunciation of the F-401 things changed. That was the first photographic camera body with a CPU interface but. With an exemplar of that class of cameras you accept only manual mode and no metering if a non-CPU lens is mounted. The EE servo coupling post is not needed for that, simply to avoid clashes, the ridge of the discontinuity ring must be filed complete around the mount (autonomously from the flake for the AI-coupling). Considering most AI conversions were made in the showtime 10 years subsequently the introduction of the AI technique, only most threescore to fourscore degrees of the ridge were filed in most cases. That is plenty for a trunk with AI coupling (except for the F2AS in conjunction with the DS-12, of course). But these modifications are not usuable for CPU interface simply cameras!

Case 1 shows a Nikkor 200mm f/4 from the first of the 60s, AI-modified by myself (admire my perfect workmanship ;). It works fine on my D700 and on my D70 as well. Merely even this modification is not perfect. The original ridge around the mountain of the erstwhile lenses differs in size from lens to lens. The 200mm has but a very pocket-sized ridge. It touches the AI coupling of my D700 by merely a fraction of a millimetre, only narrowly misses the coupling of a F2AS. A mode to solve this could be to make the cease of the ridge a chip bigger (as it was fabricated with instance 3). The comparing beneath shows the trouble of the ridge size.

The size and form of the AI coupling ridge is a disquisitional point. The rigde of the DIY modified lens on the left is too modest compared to a factory modified lens. Because the AI couplings of the cameras differ in size from model to model, yous should advisedly try whether a particular combination works.

What is the reason why I do such things? The coating of the erstwhile lenses is significantly worse to the ane of modern lenses. That is good for UV photography. And the Nikkor 200mm has a very proficient reputation for the utilise in UV light. I payed only 20 euros for this lens, but I had to modify it for the use on my D70 UVIR. And here comes the second problem of this modification: UV photography with natural light means I stand up in the blazing dominicus, my D70 UVIR is mounted on a tripod, on the lens there are a couple of filters for eliminating visible and IR light and i have to expose around 15 seconds at F11. Under such conditions my 200mm lens produces a kind of brume on one half of the frame. I found out that it is caused by devious calorie-free coming through somewhere at the mountain. I guess that is a result of my modification. I help myself by wrapping a piece of aluminium foil around the bayonet mount.

The second example shows a 50mm f/ane.4 Nikkor from the middle of the 60s. As explained above, this modification does not piece of work on a CPU interface merely camera. On every AI camera I tried it works fine. Yous tin see that the modification was done without removing the aperture ring. I can sympathize that, because the way to remove the band differs from lens to lens. And if you lot exercise not have repair documentation for the lens it can drive y'all crazy!

Case 3, an old Nikkor 35mm f/ii.8, shows a very well done modification. Just even this lens is not usable on a CPU interface only camera.

At last a word nearly the position of the AI coupling ridge for the case that you want to make a modification by yourself: If yous set an AI lens to its maximum discontinuity (meaning smallest number) earlier yous mount it to the camera, you volition encounter that the AI coupling of the camera trunk is moved merely very slightly. Practically, that is the same for every AI lens, independent of the lens speed. Thus for determining the correct position of the AI ridge y'all can use any lens with an AI interface as a model!

If you don't have a model, you tin can use the photograph on the correct for determining the correct position. As y'all can see, there are slight differences in the exact position of the ridge. Perhaps that was a way for Nikon to invoke a lens specific exposure correction. For orientation you lot tin utilise the smaller aperture ring. On the front lens, the ridge begins at near 2/3 stops over F8; on the lens behind at about ane/3 stop over F8. That is between 4 2/3 and 5 stops over the lens speed. If your modification is within this range everything should work fine. I tried the lenses shown hither on my D700 by setting the card to a F1.8 lens - then, if I fix the aperture band to 1.8 the D700 shows 'F1.eight' in the brandish for both lenses. If I lie and gear up the camera menu to a F1.2 lens, both lenses starting time in the display at 'F1.two'. The same behaviour occured for F5.half dozen.

Update April 21, 2014:

In November 2013 Nikon presented a new full-frame DSLR from their model kit: the Df. Except for it's lightheaded retro-style design the Df has another unusual and for a DSLR unique particular: information technology allows to fold up the AI coupling unit. The cameras of the first AI generation (and also later professional person models) have the same feature. It allows mounting of not-AI lenses (if the coupling unit of measurement is upwards).

A non-AI lens mounted on a Nikon Fe. You have to push the little button the cerise arrow points to in guild to release the AI coupling for folding up.

The problem is that the camera doesn't know the current aperture value the lens is set to. In the earlier models information technology was therefore necessary to use stop-downwards metering. For the Df Nikon's engineers take had a tricky idea: in the lens data you have to state that a non-CPU lens is a non-AI lens. If you then mount that lens, you lot must use the front end command dial for telling the camera the aperture value you have selected on the lens. That means the photographer is the coupling between camera and lens. Matrix-metering, manual manner and aperture priority mode are available with such combinations.

I am agape it was only a gag exclusively for the Df. The simply announced D4s doesn't offer it. Too bad!

Source: http://www.throughthefmount.com/articles_back_olderlenses_dslr.html

Posted by: graysthativess.blogspot.com

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