Re-purposing old lenses for modern DSLR camera

8 years 6 months ago #453219 by M Moore
Morning everyone.  I have found in storage a number of older lenses of various brands from the film days and I was wondering is there a way to fit these lenses to my current Nikon D70 and D800 cameras?  

If so, how is the quality of compared to comparable glass from today?  The big difference will be the manual focus only, right?  


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8 years 6 months ago #453236 by effron
Stick with the older Nikon glass, a useful site here.....
www.bythom.com/lensacronyms.htm

Why so serious?
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8 years 6 months ago #453237 by M Moore
There are a couple older Nikon lenses in the box, what about Minolta and Pentax glass? 


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8 years 6 months ago #453260 by Screamin Scott
I use an assortment of older Nikon manual focus lenses. You will have to focus them manually (of course) on either camera. The B800 will meter with older MF lenses in either manual or aperture priority modes. The D70 will not meter with MF lenses. Older auto focus lenses will focus & meter with either camera listed under your avatar. The D70 with manual focus (MF) lenses ,while not metering, can still be used Either via a handheld meter or the use of the old "Sunny 16" rule with adjustments made using the LCD & Histogram. If any of the older Nikon lenses are of the Non-Ai mount, they should not be mounted unless they have been Ai modified as the older non modified Nikkors will damage the Ai follower tab on either camera. As for the older Minolta & Pentax lenses. They can be used with an adapter, but the adapter will need a glass element in it to retain infinity focus. There are mechanical adapters, but the focus will be limited to a matter of feet from the lens. Not worth the time & money for the results. I use my older lenses from other makes on a mirrorless camera as it has a much shorter register difference & a simple mechanical adapter is all that is needed....

Scott Ditzel Photography

www.flickr.com/photos/screaminscott/

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8 years 6 months ago #453320 by Tony Imaging
Nikon glass will work just fine, the others will require an adapter. 


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