There are many advantages to this of course, any lens made since 1956 or so can be used on modern cameras wich means the used lens market is huge. You might not get metering or autofocus but if you are prepared to do some of these things in manual mode then this is for you.

Canon changed their mount with the introduction of the digital cameras to their EF mount. There are even two types of EF mounts, one for the small APS-C sized digital cameras and one for their “full frame” counterpart, the reason being that because of the tightness between the lens aft parts and the mirror some lenses designed for the 1,5 crop format would actually touch the mirror when it flips up if mounted on full frame cameras.

I have used older lenses with mechanical autofocus on my Nikon D70s and D300 cameras and both makes great use of them. I have even tested fully manual lenses and they work pretty well if you take the time to focus properly or use a sufficient large DOF of course

The drawback is that the standard F-mount puts the lens a bit further from the focal plane than Canon and some other makers does, this means that it is not possible to use say Canon lenses on Nikon bodies while the reverse can be done with some success.

So happy birthday F-mount!

Full designation: Nikkor AF-S VR 70-300mm f / 4.5-5.6 G ED-IF

Technical

• Focal length: 70-300 mm (on a DX body this corresponds to 105-450)
• Low dispersion glass for increased optical abilities
• Internal focus means it does not move, rotate or extend in any way when the autofocus is working.
• Maximum aperture: f / 4.5 @ 70 mm to f / 5.6 @ 300 mm
• Focus motor built in: YES
• Works equally well with DX and FX bodies.
• MA/M Switch to select manual focus quickly. Or you can just grap the focus ring and twist.
• Vibration Reduction VR-II is built in. Allows up to four EV’s of longer shutter time and still produce handsome pictures.
• Hyperfocal scale: NO
• Infrared focus indicator: NO
• Aperture Ring: NO

Experience

I really like it. It is sturdy although I would not call it built like a tank but perhaps as a good Volkswagen car perhaps. It is also surprisingly light and the VR really makes a huge difference. I love the wide zoom ring, you just want to grab it and keep turning to zoom in, the focus ring is smooth and easy to locate.

Fully extended with the HB-20 bayonet lens hood mounted.

The VR makes a noisier sound in this lens than my other ones. I am not certain why this is but a quick google on the subjects and it turns out that I am far from the only one and it does not seem to be a problem with the lens. It makes a little “clunk” when it starts or stops, that’s about it.

I love this lens as a walk-around lens for taking candid shots of people doing things in the city. It is great this way, you can keep quite a bit of distance between yourself and the subject and you may zoom in and get pretty close.

It measures 20 cm when the hood is off.

I would probably not combine this with a tele-converter unless I was shooting manually on a tripod. I am told that autofocus stops working somewhere beyond f / 5.6 and a TCx2 would drop the lens two stops which would be too much. WIth the D300 you can however always use mirror up and contrast focusing instead of the optical focusing sensors, that should work if you are on a tripod at least.

Optical

It’s sharp and it has no vignetting what so ever on a DX body. I am told there is very little on FX bodies as well. Flare and ghosting seems to be minimal and it performs excellent all the way from 70 to 300 mm in focal length.

Features

This lens is suitable for ALL Nikon digital cameras. Even full format FX bodies and those who do not have a focus motor built in to the body can use this equally well. The focus is smooth and although I have seen faster focusing lenses this one is not bad at all.

This lens has the fantastic focus ring of most modern Nikkor lenses, no need to flip a switch to go manual, just grap the focus ring (the inner ring) and twist until you achieve focus manually. There is a switch to switch AM/M from auto + manual to manual only if you prefer that.

It comes with the HB-20 lens bayonet hood, it works well to protect it from glare but it makes it very difficult to use a polarizing filter on the front of it when the hood it on, you can barely reach around and touch it. That solution could be better in my opinion.

VR controls

The vibration reduction works excellent. You can set it to active or normal mode as with all modern VR lenses and there is another switch to turn it off completely which you should do when you are using the lens on a tripod, otherwise you can get very blurry pictures when the compensation gyros does not work well when it is very still.

Summary

Get it. It is a great telephoto lens. Especially if you already have the 18-70 or 18-55 lens in your kit and you are looking for something longer. If you have the 18-200 you might live without it, but this baby takes better pictures, no doubt about that in my mind.

Positive

• Light, bring it everywhere!
• Has VR-II vibration reduction.
• Price is affordable.
• Great build quality and feel.
• No vignetting on DX body and minimal on FX bodies.
• Works on all Nikon digital bodies, FX as well as DX and the D40 and others that lack built-in focusing motor in the camera body.

Negative

• f / 4.5-5.6 it’s what you expect in this price range but still the f / 2.8 are nice…
• Not good with TC unless you know what you are doing.
• No IR index or hyperfocal scales.
• The HB-20 hood makes it difficult to use with filters if you need to adjust them, such as circular polarizing filters.

Example Shots

Full lens designation: Nikkor AF-S DX VR 16-85 f/3,5-5,6G ED-IF

Features

This lens uses the Nikon silent autofocus motor so it works on all digital bodies, even those without focussing motor built in. It has low-dispersion glass and internal focusing meaning there is no rotating of the front lens (great if you use polarizer).

Distortion

The lens have a very obvious barrel distortion at 16 mm which is normal for this wide angles, but I was surprised how much more distortion it had compared to the 18-200 mm lens or the old trusty 18-70 kit lens that used to be delivered with many cameras in the past. The distortion is kind of fun and can be used in interesting ways but when shooting straight lines such as buildings you have to be careful how you point the camera or it looks like the buildings are leaning back (or forth).

This type of distortion is not difficult to correct in photoshop, GIMP or some other editing software but I feel it is a little more than what I had expected at these focal lengths. Once zoomed out to 25 mm and beyond the distortion is much more normal and actually becomes more of a pincushion distortion than a barrel type.

Vibration Reduction

The Vibration Reduction (VR-II) works great. I hardly ever think of it any more but it is there and I have done some serious long exposure time shots hand held with it and there is never a problem. Turn it off when you use it on a tripod however, it can sometimes act really weird when you have a tripod fixed camera and happen to forget to turn VR off.

Sharpness

The sharpness of this lens is good in the middle and average in the corners. It is however better than the 18-200 in almost all comparable focal settings and I have to give it a pretty decent rating because of this. I always considered the 18-200 very soft and the 18-70 is good but this lens is even better. The sharpest setting for this lens are apetures centered around f/8. Fully open it gets a little soft in the corners but stay remarkably sharp in the center. It is also extremely sharp on the smaller apertures, up to f/20 or so it is still really good and this is unexpectedly well performed by a lens in this cost range!

Sharpness is better than the famous 18-70 and much better than the 18-200 lens which is well known to be quite soft at any aperture outside its sweet spot around f/8-f/11. If you are looking for sharpness then this is your lens.

Vignetting

This lens have a easily seen vignetting. Fully open at f/3,5 and focal length of 16 mm the corners are at leas one full EV darker than the center section of the lens. When stopped down 1 stop it is much better alright and two stops down it is not noticeable any more. The vignetting is worst at 16 mm and becomes better the further along to 85 mm you zoom. I guess this is the price to pay for the excellent sharpness of this piece of glass.

Chromatic aberration, flaring and ghosting

I have not seen any problems with this, I would say it is better than average.

Build quality and feel

Excellent. It feels like the much more expensive pro lenses would. The zoom will not “creep” like the 18-200 would do and all movements are nice and smooth and precise.

The lens takes 67Ø filters so this is fairly standard and the same thread diameter as the 70-300 which is a gread second lens to this one. I still favour the 18-200/3.5-5.6 lens because of less distortion as a walk-around lens but the added wide angle of 16 mm is great sometimes.

Positive sides:

• Light
• Very sharp for a zoom, comparable to a prime in some aspects!
• Same filter diameter as the 70-300 which is a great companion lens
• You get VR with it!

Negative sides:

• Vignetting is strong when fully open on the widest angles
• It’s not a really cheap lens
• The distortion could be better actually, compared with the 18-200 or the 18-70 it is much more pronounced at the wide angles.

t = 1/f

t is your exposure time (shutter speed) and f is the focal length you are currently shooting with.

Some people also say there should be a 1.5 factor here because of the crop factor of the APS-C sensor in most digital cameras. That’s not my experience and I believe the explanation is that the smaller the sensor, the less the camera shake is noticeable. Anyway, I have never had a problem shooting handheld with this formula.

This means that for a 200 mm lens you need 1/200s in order to shoot sharply handheld. This is a good aim but sometimes you can not get that because the light is not goot enough and you don’t want to bump that ISO setting because it produces far more noise in your pictures.

On a 50mm it says you should be able to take sharp pictures handheld down to about 1/50s which is a pretty low shutter speed. This is definitely possible but for the best result you can practice the McNally Grip, also known simply as “Da Grip”. This requires you to be a left-eye shooter and is easier for right-handed people.

It’s not always practical to carry or even use a tripod. If you are doing street photography with a tripod in certain places you know the police may take an active interest in what about you are up to. Basically this is the same technique as when firing a rifle, you keep it well tucked in, steady and squeeze the trigger as you slowly exhale. Same thing here, just a camera trigger.

Using this technique most people can shoot about 1-2 EV lower than they would otherwise. This means that if you can just about do 1/50s with a 50 mm you may be able to get tack sharp pictures down to 1/25s or even 1/10s which is really really good!

This is handheld only in lamp light in the metro line of stockholm city (focus is deliberately on the Ubunty cola poster to the right hand side):

The reason I took this is because Ubuntu is also a Linux distribution.

I happen to be both so I love this.

McNallys blog post here >>>

Or you can watch his video here directly if you like.

A great lens for macro photography that doubles as a good portrait lens as well when you need it. A little long to use as a walk-around but can sure capture some interesting angles.

Technical

• Focal length: 90mm
• Maximum aperture: f/2.8
• Macro with 1:1 reproduction
• Di: Lens is made for DX sensor cameras and not suited for FX type cameras
• AF: Lens is autofocusing but require camera to have focus motor
• Sliding swtich between manual focus and autofocus
• Hyperfocal scale: YES
• Infrared focus indicator: NO
• Apeture ring
• Limiter for focus

Experience

This was my second DX type lens that I bought. I have used it for many years now and I really like it. When I put it on the camera a new world appears. The ability to focus very very close to your subjects are so fun it is crazy. And it is also a very sharp lens that gives you much more reach than a “normal” 50mm lens does. Perhaps it is not very suiteable as a walk-around lens due to the focal length of 90 mm, you wont get that much landscape in it, but for getting certain details it is great.

I have also used it to make pretty good portraits. For this purpose the lens is very good. The 90mm focal length allows you to get a slight compression of your subjects when shooting, this is generally adding to the aesthetical especially when doing close framed head-shots. Compared with a 50mm I would say I prefer this one when it comes to doing portrait work.

All in all it is a brilliant lens that I love using and when working with macro shots it is a joy to work with! I just wish my viewfinder on the D70 was a bit better so I could use manual focus more than I use today!

Optical

It is a well built little lens optically. The front element is very well recessed and well protected and the hood is normally not really used. It does look cool with the hood on though.

Very little chromatic aberration all over.

Good sharpness from about f/4 to f/16 more than f/16 and there is some diffusing.

Short DOF, crazy short if you are working at close focus in f/2.8 mode! Put that to good use!

Features

There is a focus limit switch on the side of the lens. The purpose of this is to lock the focus so that it can either go betwen infinity down to a couple of meters or from a couple of meters down to the close range focus. The idea here is that when using autofocus and the focus function “miss” the focus and keeps “hunting” for focus you loose a lot of time if the lens has to go all the way. By using the limiter you can lock it down in macro mode or in normal mode and use it as it is. Great feature really.

There is a hyperfocal scale on the lens showing HF for f/16 and f/32 which is excellent i macro mode! This means you can prefocus just on distance and then shoot sharp pictures it is a really good feature. The way it works is that you have the focal point in the middle telling at which distance the focus plane is. Then if your aperture is set to f/16 you can read from the markings on the hyperfocal scale where things come into focus and where they go ot of focus again. This way you may also pre-focus for infinity and have great control over the field of depth.

Summary

Positive

• Sharpness is very good
• Very little chromatic aberration
• Wide aperture range from 2.8 to 32 and more when focused closer
• Hyperfocal scale printed on
• Very good c ontrol of manual focus in macro mode
• Limiter for the focus to avoid long times when “hunting” for focus in AF-mode
• Recessed front element, don’t need the hood normally
• Doubles well as a portrait lens
• Resonable price

Negative

• Focusing extends or contract the lens, easy to hit things with it when working.
• It seems to generally produce a bit of a blue cast at times, easily corrected in WB settings.
• Focusing can be slow, mechanical focus
• A little noisy perhaps

Shots taken with this lens

Click on the pictures for more options or to view larger versions!

Looking for a cheap, really sharp wonderful normal lens then this 50mm is for you (if you have a Nikon or Fuji camera body). I love this little piece of glass!

Technical

• AF: Lens is autofocus. It does not have a built-in focus motor so on bodies without this option you have to manual focus. However, this lens is very easy to use in manual focus mode so that should not be a problem really.
• D: Means the lens will transmit data to the body about the focus distance.
• Focal length: 50mm
• Maximum aperture: f/1.8 (great for low light situations or extremely shallow focus depth)
• Infrared focus mark: YES
• Hyperfocal chart: YES

Experience

My experience with this lens is brilliant. I have never fallen in love so fast and so completely in a lens before. I use it everywhere. I love the results of it even if the lack of zoom means you have to move around yourself a bit to find optimum viewing angles.

But there is such a difference in the quality of the pictures compared to the glass I normally keep on the body for covering most situations, the 18-200/3.5-5.6 lens. It just can’t compare in sharpness and reproduction with zoom lenses it beats them all.

There is also a f/1.4 version of this lens which I have been told is perhaps a little less sharp but has even better qualities in low light conditions. However it is more than three times more expensive than this little gem. I picked it up new, never used in unopened boxfrom Tradera/Ebay for 800 SEK (€90, $115) and for this price is is definitely a bargain! Even from the store it is not more than about 1200 SEK (€130, $170) here in Sweden, probably cheaper in the US.

Exciting features

Like many older lenses it also has a “hyperfocal chart” stamped on the focus indicator. This is really excellent even though the grading is only for f/11 and f/22. But this shows where your picture is sharp. Check the picture out:

If the aperture is set to f/22 is means that everything between about 7 ft. (2 meters) and infinity is sharp! You can immediately see this on the hyperfocal, everything between the two numbers 22 will be sharp for the selected focus.

If the aperture on the other hand was f/11 then you would instead have focus between about 3 meters to 20 meters and objects closer or beyond this distance would appear out of focus! Neat, isn’t it? If you are using a different aperture than these two then you will have to estimate where the hyperfocal would be.

See that little white dot to the left if the focus indicator? Lots of people don’t know what this is but that is the focus equivalent for the lens in infrared. This is excellent if you wish to shoot IR pictures because in IR lenses focus differently compared to in visible light. The way to use this is that first you focus without the IR filter. Let’s assume the normal focus indicator then aligns with the 3 meter mark. Then you put the filter on, twist the focus ring so that the little dot aligns instead with the 3 meter mark and then you can take your picture.

This means you can acually use shallow DOF even in infrared with this lens!

Optical

This is some excellent glass here! The lens is razor sharp and produces stunning results even on my old D70s body. I really really recommend this lens both for price and for the sharpness. It is a joy to work with outdoors and is quite useful indoors as well.

A little bit of blooming as been noticed when you are shooting against the sun. Perhaps an additional lens hood would help for this.

Chromatic aberration is negligent.

Sharpness is wonderfull all over but gets a little softer beyon f/11 and f/2.8 For razor sharp pictures I recommend shooting between f/5.6-11 but don’t forget to play with shallow DOF as well, the sharpness is never bad and always better than any zoom lens I have used so far!

Vignetting is non-existant on DX framed bodies. I have not tested it on FX bodies but from what I hear it is not something people make a notice of.

On a FX (full frame) body I don’t think you would ever want to take it off again. On DX it is a bit “long” indoors when shooting party pictures or similar, you want a little wider field of view and therefore perhaps something around 28-30mm would be better.

The good and bad

Positive

• Price
• Sharpness
• Can be used with both FX and DX cameras
• Focuses fast and accurately
• Very light weight
• Very useful in low light conditions
• Excellent for close portrait work

Negative

• No autofocus on bodies lacking focus motor (D40 etc.)
• During some extreme light conditions a bit of blooming
• May feel a little “long” for a normal on DX body, generally not a problem outdoor but may limit use indoor.

Pictures taken with this lens

This is what the lens looks like half-extended.

This lens is usually bought as a step-up lens from the kit lens with the entry-level digital SLR cameras from Nikon. I got one as well before my first trip to Öland because I was still waiting for my 18-200/3.5-5.6 lens to arrive in the mail. As it turned out I would have to wait for more than six months for that beauty so I had some time to use the 55-200 and get aquainted with it.

Technical information

• DX: Suiteable for digital cameras with APS-C size sensor (DX size). Cameras like D700 and D3 that use FX sensors should not use this lens, there may be extreme vignetting.
• AF-S: The new Nikon silent focus system works well with the cameras who do not have a focusing motor built in their bodies
• G: Means the lens has no aperture ring, aperture is controlled from the body
• ED: Low dispersion glass
• Filter ø: 52 mm
• Focusing scale: No
• Internal focusing: No
• Macro mode focusing: No
• Infrared mark: No
• Vibration reduction: No (there is a model with VR, about 50% more expensive)
• Similar products: Nikkon AF-S VR 55-200/4-5.6G ED

Experiences

This is not a lens I would recommend. It is a cheap lens however and might make it possible if you are low on cash to start taking telephoto shots.

It is probably thought of as a mate for the people who bought entry-level Nikon bodies with the 18-55mm kit lens (which was an acceptable lens for the price) and for its price this lens is in the same league. It is however not in the same league as the 18-70 kit lens that was also equally popular and if you have this lens and want something to match it I think you should save your money and get the Nikkor AF-S VR 70-300/4.5-5.6 G ED-IF instead which is a much more solid lens.

The lens has a button on the side to release autofocus into manual focus. The focus ring is absolutely awful, it is very small, located at the very front of the lens. Unless you have the hood mounted you are likely to touch the front lens or filter with your fingers if you are trying to focus this lens manually. This is a really bad construction.

The lack of VR in the original was an immediate problem when shooting hand-held and the light conditions were not optimal. It was difficult at 200/5.6 to get steady shots handheld when it was cloudy and I needed something to lean against to do this. However there are also now a VR version of this lens, about 50% up in price, that should solve this problem. Without VR you want a shutter time faster than about 1/320s to get away from motion blurr because you are shaking.

There is one advantage of this lens and that is the price. It is actually very cheap, comparable with the low end Sigma lenses of similar focal length and you still get the silent wave motor which is great. If you really really are on a budget then perhaps this is the only way for you to get those long shots. But if you can save up a little bit more, avoid this lens. You get very much what you pay for here.

Optics

The photos it produces was a disappointment. It lacks something in terms of clarity and sharpness all over and it gets very bad in the contrast around the long end from say 135-200mm focal length. The colours are acceptable, the chromatic aberration is noticeable in some cases and to get those vivid colours you have to come to expect from your Nikon (or Fuji).

The vignetting is visible over the whole focal range but gets a little worse with the longer focal lengths. This is usually not so difficult to compensate for in post processing and a lot of people like vignetting in their photos but I prefer to have the choice.

This lens is not suiteable for use on cameras with “full sensor” i.e. D700 and D3 cameras because it is optimized for DX size sensorts and would likely produce extreme vignetting on these cameras.

Summary

Positive

• The price is very affordable
• It is light and easy to carry (great for hiking)

Negative

• The optics are not very good, chromatic aberration, vignetting and sharpness is hardly average
• The lack of VR in the early model is a disadvantage
• Manual focus is hopeless, placement of focus ring a disaster
• Even if it is AF-S you can not focus manually unless you disengage the M/A focus button

• 4.5 frames per second shooting speed
• 12 megapixel resolution sensor
• live view with video recording capability (and thus the camera is fitted with a microphone as well)!
• a new kit lens, 18-105/3.5-5.6G with VR-II vibration reduction capability

I am sure that more information will be hitting the presses soon…

There is a lot of confusion among people on the net who recently bought a Nikon digital camera. So I was trying to clear up this concept once and for all. Please link to this site if you run a mailing list or similar where this question comes up now and then.

Nikkor is the brand of lenses produced by Nikon corporations. A lot of people refer to them simply as Nikon brand lenses or Nikon lenses. Don’t get confused, the trading name these lenses are sold under are Nikkor.

Over the years Nikon have mande many different types of lenses, some are compatible with your digital DSLR, some can be used with some effort and a few are not useable or is painful to adapt to the DSLR.

Nikon is however the camera manufacturer with the best compatibility of old lenses on new cameras. Most of the lenses since the fifties and forward can actually be used on a modern Nikon DSLR, I am talking about the D70(s), D50, D100, D1x and such cameras. I personally own a D70s and I am very happy with this camera, it is a great photographic instrument. Perhaps matrix light metering may not work or you have to focus manually but the lenses would actually fit with a few exceptions that you can find in the table below.

I will skip some historical lenses from the eighties in this article, because you will most likely never have to deal with them, and if you do you can always check this article out where the author discusses this problem in more detail. This article is just to give you a quick summary and help at a glance.

Nikkor lenses have a lot of different designation letters to tell the user what type of lens it is, what kind of glass, type of focus and so on and pretty much any other feature. I will try here in a form of a table just very briefly try to describe the different versions and I will not go into too much detail. After all this page is just trying to answer questions like “Will my lens of type <insert type here> work with my Nikon DSLR” and “I have this Nikkor 35-70 mm AF-S ED lens from my old Nikon F-series camera, can I use it with my new D70?”. So here we go.

Lenses and Mechanics

These describes the mechanical differences between the lenses made by Nikon over the years. Almost all lenses can be used with a modern digital body, however you really want the autofocus lenses with built-in motors. They are great in the field and manual focus lenses is only really practical in a studio environment because they do not give you proper metering cababilities with the camera.

Optical differences

These should not impact the compatibility on your lens, they are mainly to do with the optics itself and how to distinguish a more expensive lens from a cheaper one

Help me update this list if you find any omissions or errors, please let me know immediately. Thank you.

More information here.