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

[chuckroast]

Not only the $2000 body even the $6500 body D6 is the same.

So ... triple the silliness.

 

[Dan Fromm]

What about the Df, will it meter will all nonAI and AI lens?

Yes. Get the manual. Read the manual.

 

[Chan Tran]

What about the Df, will it meter will all nonAI and AI lens?

It also have the limit of 9 lenses. For the AI the procedure is the same as other cameras like the D750. For the Pre AI lenses you have to enter the data as Non AI lens. You have to move the AI coupling out of the way so that it won't get damage. Then you use the sub command dial to set the aperture in the viewfinder and meter according to that. You will have to set the aperture ring to the same value you set in the viewfinder.

 

[F4U]

You can own as many as you want. But what is reasonable to carry when you go out? Imagine yourself embedded in Viet Nam with a Nikon F and your other gear. You're getting shot at, the same as the soldiers. Even on a patrol where no contact is likely, the stuff is still heavy and you're tired, hot, and sweaty. Somehow, having the perfect lens for every occasion becomes much less important. so the real question is, what do you NEED? Actuall, this speeks well as the Speed Graphic guys. They had one camera and a few Grafmatics or film packs. The lens on the camera was a slight wide angle. From there, they could enlarge in the darkroom, which effectively replaces any lens longer than that.

 

[chuckroast]

You can own as many as you want. But what is reasonable to carry when you go out? Imagine yourself embedded in Viet Nam with a Nikon F and your other gear. You're getting shot at, the same as the soldiers. Even on a patrol where no contact is likely, the stuff is still heavy and you're tired, hot, and sweaty. Somehow, having the perfect lens for every occasion becomes much less important. so the real question is, what do you NEED? Actuall, this speeks well as the Speed Graphic guys. They had one camera and a few Grafmatics or film packs. The lens on the camera was a slight wide angle. From there, they could enlarge in the darkroom, which effectively replaces any lens longer than that.

It pretty much has nothing to do with what I carry.

It has everything to do with not wanting to fiddle through menus each time the bag gets packed differently. I like to setup my digisnappers one way and leave them alone. Trying to paw through menus to figure out what I want is obnoxious in any setting and infuriating in the field.

I own AIS lenses because I accumulated the ones I like over the years and use them, then- and now, on film bodies. I stuck with Nikon digital exactly because I could use these older lenses on the camera.

I realize this is entirely a 1st world problem and can be worked around, but I hate having to mess with things when I should be shooting.

 

[MattKing]

You can own as many as you want. But what is reasonable to carry when you go out? Imagine yourself embedded in Viet Nam with a Nikon F and your other gear. You're getting shot at, the same as the soldiers. Even on a patrol where no contact is likely, the stuff is still heavy and you're tired, hot, and sweaty. Somehow, having the perfect lens for every occasion becomes much less important. so the real question is, what do you NEED? Actuall, this speeks well as the Speed Graphic guys. They had one camera and a few Grafmatics or film packs. The lens on the camera was a slight wide angle. From there, they could enlarge in the darkroom, which effectively replaces any lens longer than that.

I'm trying to figure out why does your post make me think of "Heart of Darkness" and "Easy Rider", combined into one?????

 

[F4U]

It pretty much has nothing to do with what I carry.

It has everything to do with not wanting to fiddle through menus each time the bag gets packed differently. I like to setup my digisnappers one way and leave them alone. Trying to paw through menus to figure out what I want is obnoxious in any setting and infuriating in the field.

I own AIS lenses because I accumulated the ones I like over the years and use them, then- and now, on film bodies. I stuck with Nikon digital exactly because I could use these older lenses on the camera.

I realize this is entirely a 1st world problem and can be worked around, but I hate having to mess with things when I should be shooting.

I don't do digital. I'm retired from all that. Still have my D7100 and all my Adobe programs. I'd rather have a toothache than mess with all that. I don't have any AI lenses. And generally the 35 or 50mm is mostly what I keep on the F. But each to his own.

 

[chuckroast]

I don't do digital. I'm retired from all that. Still have my D7100 and all my Adobe programs. I'd rather have a toothache than mess with all that. I don't have any AI lenses. And generally the 35 or 50mm is mostly what I keep on the F. But each to his own.

I don't do much. I shoot 99.5% film. But holidays and family events are best captured the D way.

The reason this all came up was that I finally - after 50+ years - got a Nikkor AIS 28mm f/2.8 and I wanted to add it to the D750 where I discovered the aforementioned max count of non-CPU lenses.

I'd always used the 24 and 35, figuring that 28 wasn't different enough to be worth the effort. Well .. I was wrong. That 28mm has a certain "something" that I cannot quite put my finger on that I really, really like. I guess everyone else was right all these years...

 

[F4U]

A digiltal is good for one thing: A family event where somebody had their eyes closed, and you can see it on the back of the camera and re-shoot. Or want to sell something on ebay.

 

[George Mann]

I think you can mount some but I had the 2 pre AI lenses 35mm f/2.8 and 50mm f/2 and both will hit the AI coupling and damage it if you insist on mounting. That part of the aperture ring is not needed so if you grind them off then you can mount.

I have the Ai version of both lenses. They work and perform optimally with my D2x and D300s.

 

[Chan Tran]

I have the Ai version of both lenses. They work and perform optimally with my D2x and D300s.

But you can't use my Pre AI version of both lenses.

 

[chuckroast]

But you can't use my Pre AI version of both lenses.

Is that because your bodies cannot flip the AI coupling out of the way?

 

[Chan Tran]

Is that because your bodies cannot flip the AI coupling out of the way?

None of the digital body can flip the AI coupling out of the way except the Df (I have the Df though). For film cameras only the FM, FE, F3, F4, modified F5 and the 2 F2 Photomic finder DP-11 and DP-12 have the AI coupling that can be flipped out of the way. The FM2, FM2n, FE2 and FM3a couplings are fixed.

 

[chuckroast]

None of the digital body can flip the AI coupling out of the way except the Df (I have the Df though). For film cameras only the FM, FE, F3, F4, modified F5 and the 2 F2 Photomic finder DP-11 and DP-12 have the AI coupling that can be flipped out of the way. The FM2, FM2n, FE2 and FM3a couplings are fixed.

Interesting. I guess I never ran into this because all my legacy Nikon glass are AI or AIS lenses, so they all work swimmingly on my D750.

I did have an AI-converted 135mm lens and even that worked, but I've since given that away in favor of a 135mm f/2.8 AIS.

 

[Chan Tran]

Interesting. I guess I never ran into this because all my legacy Nikon glass are AI or AIS lenses, so they all work swimmingly on my D750.

I did have an AI-converted 135mm lens and even that worked, but I've since given that away in favor of a 135mm f/2.8 AIS.

However if you have one of the low end Nikon DSLR like the 3xxx or 5xxx series you can safely mount the Pre-AI lenses. They work the same as AI lenses that is on these cameras the meter doesn't work, you just have to know the exposure and set it manually.

 

[pbromaghin]

...that's the max of non-CPU lenses the 750 can track.

As both a non-digital and non-Nikon guy, what does this mean?

 

[Chan Tran]

As both a non-digital and non-Nikon guy, what does this mean?

First this fact also applies to the Nikon F6 which is a film SLR so it's not digital only but it has to to with the changes Nikon made over the years with their F mount lenses. It would be a long explaination.

 

[chuckroast]

As both a non-digital and non-Nikon guy, what does this mean?

So Nikon went through several generations of lenses. There was some difference in optical formulation and lens coating, but the mount stayed the same except ... how the lenses coupled with the body to inform the meter what aperture was selected.

The original lenses had little "rabbit ears" that connected to the camera body. As you moved the aperture ring, it pushed a pin on the body thereby telling the meter what your setting was.

The later AI and AIS generation lenses still that the rabbit ears so the lenses would work with older bodies. But they also had part of the aperture ring itself milled away to mate with newer bodies that had the aperture detection mechanism built right into the lens mount itself. Here is a more complete explanation:

https://www.keh.com/expert-advice/photography/education/nikon-lenses-non-ai-ai-ai-s-and-aid/

Now then, the newer digital bodies have no provision for using the rabbit ears. More to the point, they only way they know what aperture you've set on a legacy lens is via that milled away section of an AI/AIS lens assembly. If you try to jam an original lens onto one of these new cameras they will not mount correctly (or at all) because the aperture ring doesn't have space for the AI/AIS sensing setup on the body.

Of course, these days, all the digisnappers Nikon builds are designed to get that information from CPUs built into the lenses themselves via connectors on the lens that come in contact with the camera electronics when mounted.

Bah, humbug. I like manual focus lenses that are built like tanks. And with only two exceptions, that's the only kind of Nikon lenses I own.

 

[Chan Tran]

As both a non-digital and non-Nikon guy, what does this mean?

The story is longer than what ChuckRoast said.
The Nikon F mount lenses have 2 mechanism to couple a lens to the body. The first is the Rabbit ear on the preAI lenses which later was replaced with the AI ridge. The purpose of these coupling is to tell the camera body how many stops the lens will stop down during the actual exposure as the lens is opened fully when metering. The PreAI camera when you mount the lens you have to turn to the max then mininum aperture to index the lens to the body. The purpose of the indexing action is to synchronize the aperture scale that is built in to the body to the scale on the lens so that you have the aperture readout in the viewfinder. The AI (they called it Automatic Indexing which really is no indexing) got away with this and use a prism called Aperture Direct Readout (ADR) that simply relay the aperture scale on the lens to the viewfinder optically. The other mechanisme is the stop down level which the camera will release this level during the actual exposure to let the lens stops down to the aperture set on the aperture ring.
This works great on Nikon up to the early 80's or so. From then on there are other changes to accomodate cameras with P and S mode but I skip those for now.
The first camera Nikon had to deal with this indexing issue is the Nikon F5. The Nikon F5 when used with AI lenses it doesn't display the aperture in the viewfinder but rather it has the ADR so you can read the aperture directly from the lens in the viewfinder. This is rather expensive but also not allowing the F5 Matrix metering to work with these lenses. You can only use CW or spot with these lenses. The F4 matrix metering worked with these lenses but its metering algorithm isn't as complex as the F5. The F5 Matrix metering system requires that the camera knows the actual scene brightness and not only the amount of light that reaches the film. The meter measures the brightness at full aperture and the AI coupling tells it how many stops less bright it's going to be during the exposure so it can do the correct exposure but the meter doesn't know how bright the scene is without know which is the maximum aperture of the lens. Normally this information is not needed as you only need to know how much light reaches the film but the F5 wants to know the actual scene brightness because if the scene is very bright it will deem as unreal and increases the exposure. The fix this problem, I think cameras from the D2 and up (the higher end ones, as the D3xxx and D5xxx don't support metering with AI lenses) requires you to enter the maximum aperture of the lens into the camera so it would know and provides 2 things. First it can figure out how bright the scene actually is and second it knows the max aperture and how many stop the aperture ring will stop it down it can display the aperture in the viewfinder. Nikon allows you to enter these information in the camera memory for 9 lenses so when you change lens you just select lens 1 or 2 or .... without having to enter the information again. You also enter the focal length too so that it knows what shutter speed is minimum for handholding. These information is available for lenses with CPU like AF lenses so you don't have to enter.

 

[BradS]

Jeeeez, I think I may have nine 50mm Nikkors alone.
Get a Nikon F3HP. Problem solved.

 

[Chan Tran]

Jeeeez, I think I may have nine 50mm Nikkors alone.
Get a Nikon F3HP. Problem solved.

No big deal though.

 

[chuckroast]

Jeeeez, I think I may have nine 50mm Nikkors alone.

I have to ask ... why? (No judgment, just curious.

Get a Nikon F3HP. Problem solved.

Yep, I have one of those as well. Also, the top end finder for the F2 solved for this as well.

 

[BradS]

I have to ask ... why? (No judgment, just curious.

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).

 

[reddesert]

As both a non-digital and non-Nikon guy, what does this mean?

Here's a briefer explanation of this, not that's there's anything wrong with the long explanation. Nikon has kept the same basic bayonet mount through the entire F SLR series, but has changed the details of how the lens and body communicate, preserving limited backward compatibility. When AF film SLRs were introduced, the lens and body got electronic contacts to communicate, but most of the AF film SLRs except the cheapest also retained a mechanical metering linkage.

With most of their initial DSLRs (apart from the very expensive pro model), the body used the electronic contacts in the lens to communicate aperture info, so if you put an old mechanical lens on, it would physically mount and stop down and take photos, but it wouldn't meter.

Starting with I believe the D200, Nikon re-introduced the mechanical aperture metering linkage (aka "AI tab"). So the D200 and later high-end amateur/pro bodies can meter in manual or A mode with a mechanical lens. But it still doesn't know the absolute focal length or max aperture, since the lens has no electronics ("non-CPU"). To get over that, you can use a menu to enter the focal length and max aperture - non-CPU lens #1, #2, and so on. What the OP is mildly complaining about is that you can only store the info of 9 lenses.

But you can still use the other ones, you just don't get matrix metering, and so on. One thing that people sometimes don't appreciate is that even the cheapest, most dumbed down Nikon SLR bodies still have the mechanical stop down linkage inside the mount, so you can still use an ancient lens in manual mode.

 

[benveniste]

If that works to convince yourself to save money and shelf space, more power to you. I exceeded 9 non-CPU lenses long ago.