General > General Technical Chat
Nikon lens compatibility (non-electronic)
jpanhalt:
My very old Canon SX100 had a quick death recently and was replaced with a Nikon Z30 -- a bottom of the line mirrorless body made in Thailand. Nikkor macro lenses cost far more than the body. In the early 1970's, I had a Nikon F with several lenses including its Nikkor-P 55mm f/3.5 micro lens that I used in research and rarely took off the camera. I gave everything to one of my children who lives 1000 miles away a few years ago, and she is willing to loan it back.
I am wondering about compatibility of that lens with the Z body. This source suggests it wight work in manual mode and still provide exposure determination: https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/55f35ai.htm (see also the link to "compatibility" therin). Of course, an FTZ adapter would be needed, and the ones without electronic connections are <$20.
I am asking for actual experience adapting older, mechanical F lenses to the Z (DX) bodies. Experience with Z50 and Z30 is most relevant, but experience with any Z-body would be appreciated.
1) Some blogs mention compatibility but add that there may be mechanical interference with some lenses. Is that problem with the Z30 and such an old, relatively small macro lens?
2) Is electronic exposure really enabled?
3) Can 1:2 or better magnification be obtained?
Regards, John
TimNJ:
Metering is all TTL, right? So I don’t see why metering wouldn’t work, though you’d probably have to shoot in manual or maybe aperture priority. Are you asking whether aperture priority will work? Sounds like “no” because FTZ does not seem to have mechanical aperture indexing, only electronic communication.
(I don’t have an FTZ as I switched to Fujifilm, although I still have a 3 AI / AI-S lenses which I use with an adapter.)
I think the possible compatibility/interference issue is not really anything new. It sounds like the old issue of trying to mount non-AI lenses on an AI body. The ring (not sure the right word for it) extends towards the body too much, so that the “threads” on lens and body cannot engage correctly, without interference. At least, that’s what I remember. The lens you linked to is AI, so it seems like this shouldn’t be an issue?
jpanhalt:
Thanks for responding. As I recall, the lens I gave my daughter is AI. I'll have to research the AI issue and thread/cam mount depth.
nightfire:
In short (I could elaborate on Nikkor compatibility longer, but actually suffer from a broken wrist)
The old AI mount issue was caused by the aperture ring close to the body where the more modern camera bodies had their coupling lever, therefore pressing and damaging it.
When adapting an old manual lens to a mirrorless body (regardless of manufacturer), you do that via a mechanical adaptor, so no problem.
Quality of the setup of course relies to a significant part of the precision the adaptor is manifactured.
Mechanical interference with lenses can stem from attachments, like the tripod hook for longer 70-200mm lenses, that would collide with the FTZ adapter, as I might recall, or similar obstacles. Also the AI "rabbit ears" that allowed coupling to earlier camery bodies could in some cases scratch the lower range bodies of the F-mount DSLR at the posithion of the flash housing.
(Scratches myself a D5000 with that)
Good news here, that you could unscrew those because they are not needed on a digital body except for nostalgic purposes.
Metering: Here it gets tricky: An AI lens (or AI converted by exchanging or modifying the aperture ring) transmits the f/stop position to the body via a mechanical lever.
Due to marketing decisions, the entry-Level F-mount cameras (D3xxx, D5xxx, and older D50/D60 etc) did not receive that. Those bodies which did receive that, were usually able to do measuring in "A" mode, sometimes restricted by firmware to some simple metering modes. (Matrix metering etc. did also require the distance being transmitted from the lens), which only was avaliable ffrom the AF-D lens and later, the D stands for disctance)
I have no hands-on experience on the Z platform, as my Zfc still is at the retailer ;-)
But I adapted lots of glass to my D7100. In a nutshell, metering is a thing of the firmware. It needs to get the f/stop position somehow and its value (could be entered in the F-Mount bodies) and the metering in "A" mode was possible.
Therefore it boild down to two things:
a) does the mechanical adapter you use transmits the f/stop position to the body?
b) Is the firmware willing to take it into account and allow measuring in the "A" mode? (here the manufacturer could have made some dedisiions to omit such functions in the firmware)
From what I know (and did not see on photos), the Nikon FTZ gen1 does not have the AI lever to transmit Aperture positions to the Nikon Z body.
In this case, it boils down to using the old F-mount lens in Manual mode, which is also in most cases the preferred mode for macro shots.
jpanhalt:
As I understand it, the adapter I am considering ($14) takes virtually any Nikon F lens, including AI and non-AI, and adapts them physically to the Z body, including Z30 and Z50. There are no electrical connections. For the macro stuff I might do, it will be tripod mounted and manual doesn't bother me.
As for whether the Z30 " allow measuring in the "A" mode?" I don't know. The manual is very small print, and I need to study it more. The used manual Nikon F lenses are really quite affordable on eBay. It may not be even worth bothering my daughter to send my old one.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version