kaiwasoyokaze
Half Frame Goodness
Hello all, I bought a Nikon SP recently but realized that the mount only displays Feet and not Metres. Is there a way to change it back to the correct and right way to gauge distance into metres? (for example cannibalizing another mount and taking out the wonky scale in Feet?) 
Roger Hicks
Veteran
Mentally divide by three and it will be accurate enough for all practical purposes. Strictly a foot is almost exactly 30 cm but 33 (a 10% overstatement) won't matter except VERY close up at wide apertures -- and that's what the RF is for!
Alternatively, memorize a few distances, e.g. 10 feet = 3 metres (almost exactly). If you've time to look at the DoF scale you've time for the mental arithmetic!
Cheers,
R.
Alternatively, memorize a few distances, e.g. 10 feet = 3 metres (almost exactly). If you've time to look at the DoF scale you've time for the mental arithmetic!
Cheers,
R.
Highway 61
Revisited
If you can locate a Nikon RF camera with a mount in m, it will be a donor with no problem and the swap is very easy to do. To keep the aesthetics of your SP you need to find a "black dial" S2, an S3, an S4 or an SP.Hello all, I bought a Nikon SP recently but realized that the mount only displays Feet and not Metres. Is there a way to change it back to the correct and right way to gauge distance into metres? (for example cannibalizing another mount and taking out the wonky scale in Feet?)
The problem is that such a donor body will cost you much, unless you locate a total wreck with a clean mount, which isn't an easy task because there is quite some demand for such things, because they are interesting spare parts stocks.
You also may try to go through a trade with somebody having a Nikon RF camera with a black lens mount in m, and who would frankly prefer a lens mount in feet.
Its easy enough to swap focus helicoids with another camera, but to do it properly, after the swap you'll need to check the register (flange to film plane distance) and shim accordingly if its not correct.
Highway 61
Revisited
Not if you swap the moving parts of the helicoids only... In this case you can rely on the original shimmings for both cameras.
markwatts
Mark Watts
As Roger says...0.3048. Much cheaper.
radi(c)al_cam
Well-known
Not if you swap the moving parts of the helicoids only... In this case you can rely on the original shimmings for both cameras.
I must admit I hadn't thought of doing it that way. But even doing it that way, I'd still want to check the register just to be sure.
Completely agree. No need to mess around swapping parts when its really not necessary. Its not that hard to divide by 3 after all.
Dwig
Well-known
4 possible solutions:
- find a donor camera and swap parts, and possibly resell the donor.
- just think of ft as being 1/3m and do the math.
- make a paper sticker to cover the focusing scale and mark it in meters or furlongs or whatever.
- buy a 35mm marked in meters and pitch the 50; after all 35mm is a better normal...
kaiwasoyokaze
Half Frame Goodness
Thanks for all the replies! Definitely a lot of options to pursue. I will try the mathematical solution first and then see how much I use scale focusing (which i use for wider lens but not 50mm lenses as much.
Mucho appreciamundo
Mucho appreciamundo
In that case, the distance scale on the focus helicoid mounted on the camera body is irrelevant because its not visible when a wide angle lens is mounted. Just make sure any wide angle lenses you buy have the distance scale marked in meters.
Fraser
Well-known
maybe its rare or did they produce two versions one for Europe (US) and one for Japan? In the uk we've been trying to go all metric since the mid 60's so generally speaking most people can work in meters and feet, I do wish they would hurry up as the time i've wasted while spending time with my dad converting inches to cm!
Good luck
Good luck
kaiwasoyokaze
Half Frame Goodness
As a canuck, the pain is there especially in the way we sometimes use both gallons/litres, km and miles, horsepower or PS, in another hobby i had a long time ago we used to have this headache (with aquariums we used both metric and inches/feet for calculating fish tank and fish sizes, and also gallons and litres for how much water the fish tanks held) ug.
radi(c)al_cam
Well-known
Well, no one forces you Canadians to import US American goods having the «United States customary units» (what many confuse with «Imperial» measurements) — or: no one forces you to use the Metric system, unless there's a Communist-Catholic-Free Mason-Jewish conspiracy, of course