Canon vs Nikon lens/mount technology questions

[Bobbo]

Post 1986-ish lenses from either manufacturer will work on their respective cameras.

If you want anything older and OEM, you use Nikon (anything before 1977 needs to be converted, which if its a cheap lens, nothing a dremel and a screwdriver can't fix, like the 1975-ish 105/2.5 on my D90). If you want other makers' lenses, get a Canon and some $20 conversion rings off eBay.

Back to the OP:

1) No.

2) 6 to 1, half a dozen to the other. Seriously, you just need to try them out for ergonomic preference. I think the Eye-control Focus is a gimmick (notice no DSLR ever had it, everyone?). I never needed the 8fps of the extra motor drive for film, either. The F6 does have about five years newer AF tech than the 1v, though. The 3 and the F100 are about the same age.

3) Cheaper lenses but more expensive bodies. Canon/Nikon put it in the lenses, so even cheap bodies take advantage. Many people (myself included) prefer spending money on lenses rather than the cameras -- they are obsolete at a less-frequent interval than the 2-year average run of a camera.

 

[sevo]

I thought at one point I had heard of someone taking the mounting ring from an dead FM or FE and putting it on another body so that non-Ai lenses would mount. Can this not be done on a digital that otherwise mounts AI'd lenses?

The FM/FE AI ring could be installed on the FM2/FE3/FA, and that was a fairly common modification done by Nikon service centres. They also did fit the F5 with spare F4 rings on request - this was at that time even offered in their official product literature, as the F5 succeeded the F4 and F3 in astronomy and microscopy applications where aperture-less non-AI adapters were common (on the F6 they had the retractable tab return).

I never heard of Nikon officially offering anything like it for their digital cameras, but I have heard of D2's with retractable tab (presumably after-market transplants from a F4 or F6), so that the same might go for the D3/D4 as well.

 

[Nikon Bob]

Correct, which is hardly an inconvenience as there are millions of such lenses.

I did not say it was an inconvenience but only mentioned it so that people would be aware of the situation and the possible harm shanking the wrong type of F mount lens onto an ai tab metering body can cause. Quite correct too that there are huge amounts of of both compatible and incompatible F mount manual focus lenses out there to choose from. Choose carefully.

Bob

 

[splitimageview]

If you want other makers' lenses, get a Canon and some $20 conversion rings off eBay.

This can be a huge time sink as it can be very difficult to calibrate focus. Some people have had good results, no question, but if you want something to 'just work', I'd avoid this. One must be a DIY/tinkerer with a lot of patience, IMHO. Or use live view and a tripod. Focusing through the optical VF is hit or miss, mostly miss, in my experience. The so-called focus confirmation chips are not reliable.

 

[user237428934]

3) Cheaper lenses but more expensive bodies. Canon/Nikon put it in the lenses, so even cheap bodies take advantage. Many people (myself included) prefer spending money on lenses rather than the cameras -- they are obsolete at a less-frequent interval than the 2-year average run of a camera.

Weak argument. Even the cheap Sony cameras have an image stabilizer

 

[Nikon Bob]

I thought at one point I had heard of someone taking the mounting ring from an dead FM or FE and putting it on another body so that non-Ai lenses would mount. Can this not be done on a digital that otherwise mounts AI'd lenses?

I am not positive so don't quote me on it but I think the method used to communicate what the ai metering tab is indicating to a Nikon DSLR body is different from that used in the film bodies. That would make it not possible to use the components from an FM/FE on a DSLR.

Bob

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I never heard of Nikon officially offering anything like it for their digital cameras, but I have heard of D2's with retractable tab (presumably after-market transplants from a F4 or F6), so that the same might go for the D3/D4 as well.

There is no reason for a D2 to have an aperture/metering signal ring since the metering is based upon presets that the user sets in the Non-CPU lens custom settings. It's the same way with the D3 and D4. Offering that metering signal ring on the D2 would have seen them re-engineering the whole aperture interface system.

Phil Forrest

 

[skahde]

Ai-Tab signalling and preseting the lens data are separate issues. The first tells the camera how many stops the actual aperture when exposing will be apart from the wide open aperture used for metering. This is a prerequisite for correct metering whenever the aperture is set from the lens and not from the camera but it is only a relative measure. The latter tells the camera the absolute f-stop of the lens and its focal length. This is only needed for matrix metering and correct Exif. Metering will be spot-on regardless of what you set in the menu as long as you use averaging or spot metering.

Another issue of cmpatibility is setting the aperture from the camera, either automatically or via direct input which mechanically works from Ais lenses or later. But on later bodies it always needs a cpu with absolute info about the wide open aperture. This is coded only mechanically on Ais-lenses. Lenses without CPUs, Ais or earlier, will only work in A and M modes and when setting the aperture from the lens.

Ais-lenses can be upgraded with a CPU will work fine in all modes and behave like Ai-P lenses (in fact that is what they are, if not from the factory). Earlier (Ai, Ai'd) lenses do not take advante of the chip as the aperture set by the camera can and often will be off.

There is a lot of ifs and whens which sum up as the curse of downward compatibilty. The next step is ahead with lenses with electrically actuated apertures. They don't have mechanic actuators in the mount and aren't compatible to even an F100, F6 or D300. The new 5,6/800 is the third lens so far with this feature.

 

[bigeye]

The only platform flaw with the Nikon mount is that it twists the "wrong" way. I've been using Nikon since 1979 and it is just as annoying today as it was then. It's not a material difference, just one of those quirks.

(I believe Nikon the better simply because you can easily use lenses to 1959 and chip old ones, if that matters to you. Not sure all that is important to many, though.)

-Charlie