I Finally Found The Limit On How Many Nikkor AIS Lenses I Can Own

[Sirius Glass]

The OP must buy more AIS lenses to keep to market going. If he does not, we are headed for a business slowdown!

 

[chuckroast]

The OP must buy more AIS lenses to keep to market going. If he does not, we are headed for a business slowdown!

Noooooooooo .... must not ... can not ... arrrggggggghhhhh

 

[Chan Tran]

Other than the usual excuses, I really don't know. I guess I went through a phase where whenever I found a really clean specimen of any of my favorite Nikkor lenses at a good price, I'd buy it, use it for a while, fuss over it and then just add it to the collection when the next "beautiful bargain" came along. There are enough flavors of the 50mm Nikkor (f/1.4, f/1.8, f/2, non-AI, AI, AIs, factory AI'd) that before I knew it I had many more than necessary ... even after occasionally selling some. My favorites (at the moment) are at opposite ends of the continuum - a factory AI'D 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor-S.C and the much maligned 50mm f/1.8 AIs pancake (aka series E).

But among your 50mm you must have more than one with the same maximum aperture and in that case you can use the same lens number for them.

 

[chuckroast]

But among your 50mm you must have more than one with the same maximum aperture and in that case you can use the same lens number for them.

That's a point well made, HOWEVER, there is no way of telling just which of them was used. Clearly Nikon needs to make provision for serial numbers ...

 

[Chan Tran]

That's a point well made, HOWEVER, there is no way of telling just which of them was used. Clearly Nikon needs to make provision for serial numbers ...

I don't care about that. I don't care for the record keeping functions. EXIF etc... date, time, location etc... I only need the maximum aperture enter so the matrix metering works correctly and the aperture display in the viewfinder. The focal length is for when the camera needs to determine hand holding limit (like in auto ISO and A mode).

 

[chuckroast]

I don't care about that. I don't care for the record keeping functions. EXIF etc... date, time, location etc... I only need the maximum aperture enter so the matrix metering works correctly and the aperture display in the viewfinder. The focal length is for when the camera needs to determine hand holding limit (like in auto ISO and A mode).

Yep, right there with you. But I was referring to @BradS collection of many similar lenses where knowning which one used would be helpful.

 

[BradS]

But among your 50mm you must have more than one with the same maximum aperture and in that case you can use the same lens number for them.

Yep, right there with you. But I was referring to @BradS collection of many similar lenses where knowning which one used would be helpful.

I only fairly recently bought my first digital camera - a Nikon Z6ii mirror-less. I skipped the DSLR era completely. Anyway, I do have an inexpensive, third party F-mount to Z-mount lens adapter and have used it to test a few lenses. However, I really do not enjoy the experience (of manual focus on the digital camera). As suggested, what I have done, is use a handful of slots in the lens info table to record basic focal length and max aperture and then add more details in the image comments tag....because, yeah, I wanna know exactly what lens made this image and what aperture was used. Incidentally, some of these film camera Nikkor, and Asahi-Pentax screw mount lenses are quite surprising on digital, usually in a very good way but it's just such a pain-in-the-ass that I only adapt manual focus lenses for testing.

 

[Chan Tran]

I only fairly recently bought my first digital camera - a Nikon Z6ii mirror-less. I skipped the DSLR era completely. Anyway, I do have an inexpensive, third party F-mount to Z-mount lens adapter and have used it to test a few lenses. However, I really do not enjoy the experience (of manual focus on the digital camera). As suggested, what I have done, is use a handful of slots in the lens info table to record basic focal length and max aperture and then add more details in the image comments tag....because, yeah, I wanna know exactly what lens made this image and what aperture was used. Incidentally, some of these film camera Nikkor, and Asahi-Pentax screw mount lenses are quite surprising on digital, usually in a very good way but it's just such a pain-in-the-ass that I only adapt manual focus lenses for testing.

But the purpose of lens data isn't for record keeping but to allow the camera metering system to work correctly.

 

[chuckroast]

But the purpose of lens data isn't for record keeping but to allow the camera metering system to work correctly.

It is for that, but is is not just for that. It's also to properly record the lens metadata in the resulting file's EXIF fields to be available subsequently in post or thereafter.

My only point is that if all you can record are focal length and max aperture, AND you have many lenses where both of these are the same, the said EXIF data will be unhelpful if, say, you want to know which specific 50mm f/1.4 lens you used. This would be useful in the OP's stated purpose of doing legacy lens testing on a digibody.

I am soooo happy I work primarily in film and silver

 

[MartinCrabtree]

My F5 will imprint lens data between frames if you desire. Only with CPU lenses though.

 

[chuckroast]

My F5 will imprint lens data between frames if you desire. Only with CPU lenses though.

Yes, a number of film cameras had this sort of thing. The Fuji GA-645Zi I have listed for sale in the Classified section here can imprint Time/Date/Exposure/Lens setting on the film frame edge.

 

[BradS]

But the purpose of lens data isn't for record keeping but to allow the camera metering system to work correctly.

Maybe so but the wysiwyg nature of the Nikon Z mirrorless cameras make it kinda superfluous. Select manual exposure mode and adjust camera controls until what you see in the viewfinder or on the back screen "looks good". To me, the real value of entering that info is to have it in the EXIF data - it's just another subtle game changer the new technology provides.