Modern Nikkor lenses verses older glass lenses on an F2?

peter k. · Jul 9, 2020

My brother in law who is a digital fanatic, gave me his old D-90, with a couple of lenses, a Nikon AF Nikkor 70-300mm and a Nikon Af Nikkor 28-80mm. Now of course they will not automatically focus on my Nikon F2, but are they usable on the F2?

If so, they must be plastic lenses as they are allot lighter than my older, non AI Zoom Nikkor 80~200mm and Nikkor 28mm lenses, and wondered the quality comparison between the two of them.

cjbecker · Jul 9, 2020

Im pretty sure those lenses are for crop sensor cameras, and will not cover the full frame of 35mm. Im just going off my memory so i might be wrong.

Bikerider · Jul 9, 2020

It all depends what lenses they were. Some of the 'Kit' lenses were indeed plastic but of reasonable optical quality. One that comes to mind was the 28/80 kit lens which if you ignored the distortion was very good.

mshchem · Jul 9, 2020

If they don't have an aperture ring they won't be of much use. D90 is a crop sensor. If the lens says DX on it, it won't cover. Nice little digital set up to play with.

peter k. · Jul 9, 2020

The 28-80 has an aperture ring on it, if you disconnect what we guess is the auto mode on the lens, which allows you to change the aperture. The 70-300 has no controls on it.

mshchem said:
D90 is a crop sensor.

Now no nothing about digital, what do you mean when you say its a crop sensor?

shutterfinger · Jul 9, 2020

peter k. said:
Now no nothing about digital, what do you mean when you say its a crop sensor?

No controls on a Nikon lens is an E series, think electronic control. It will function at full aperture only on your F2 and may vignette. if for DX (APS C).

AgX · Jul 9, 2020

By "crop sensor" he means that the sensor area is cropped compared to 24x36mm, or, with other words, just smaller....

MattKing · Jul 9, 2020

peter k. said:
Now no nothing about digital, what do you mean when you say its a crop sensor?

The sensor on the camera is not 24mm x 36mm, but rather APS-C size - 25.1mm x 16.7mm.
So if the lenses were designed for that smaller size - Nikon refers to them as DX - then they won't cover your full frame of film, and won't mount (I believe) on your film camera.
Unless you have one of the very few APS-C size film cameras that were sold before that film size was discontinued.

shutterfinger · Jul 9, 2020

MattKing said:
So if the lenses were designed for that smaller size - Nikon refers to them as DX - then they won't cover your full frame of film, and won't mount (I believe) on your film camera.

Nikon uses the same mount on their SLR cameras, film or digital FX or DX.

reddesert · Jul 9, 2020

peter k. said:
The 28-80 has an aperture ring on it, if you disconnect what we guess is the auto mode on the lens, which allows you to change the aperture. The 70-300 has no controls on it.

Now no nothing about digital, what do you mean when you say its a crop sensor?

Nikon made the 28-80mm and 70-300mm in both versions with an aperture ring, and versions without (with a "G").

All of them will cover the full film frame, but only the 28-80 mm with the aperture ring, this one: https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/2880.htm will be useful on the F2. The 70-300 without the aperture ring won't allow you to set the aperture, this one: https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/70300g.htm However, it would work fine on a Nikon AF film camera, and Nikon AF film bodies are cheap except for a few high-end ones.

To understand Nikon lens compatibility, read https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm I'm not endorsing Ken Rockwell's opinions on everything, but he has by far the best table and explanation of all the variations.

peter k. · Jul 9, 2020

Yes, its the one Ken refers to, and yes the 28-80 fits, and will give it a try on the F2. Interesting to have a wide angle zoom. Will shoot some identical shots from both to compare.

mshchem · Jul 9, 2020

I think that the 28-80 will produce nice results with your F2

MattKing · Jul 9, 2020

shutterfinger said:
Nikon uses the same mount on their SLR cameras, film or digital FX or DX.

I bet that leads to some disappointment for some people when they buy a lens that they think will work on their full frame camera!

RalphLambrecht · Jul 9, 2020

shutterfinger said:
View attachment 250022

No controls on a Nikon lens is an E series, think electronic control. It will function at full aperture only on your F2 and may vignette. if for DX (APS C).

This information is wrong with his crap factor equals zero it should say the crabshack sure equals one!

shutterfinger · Jul 9, 2020

MattKing said:
I bet that leads to some disappointment for some people when they buy a lens that they think will work on their full frame camera!

Maybe, but any Nikon lens from 1959 or newer will mount on the latest F or D bodies and still make pictures with limited abilities.

Ariston · Jul 9, 2020

MattKing said:
I bet that leads to some disappointment for some people when they buy a lens that they think will work on their full frame camera!

Or a pleasant surprise for a DX user who realizes he can use his old Nikon lenses!

I put one of my old 300mm lenses on my wife’s DX, and get about 450mm in effective reach.

shutterfinger · Jul 9, 2020

RalphLambrecht said:
his information is wrong with his crap factor equals zero it should say the crabshack sure equals one!

Have you looked at a Nikon web site lately? US A's is full of lens with the E and G designations.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p.../af-s-dx-nikkor-16-80mm-f%2f2.8-4e-ed-vr.html
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-p.../af-p-nikkor-70-300mm-f%2f4.5-5.6e-ed-vr.html

MattKing · Jul 9, 2020

Well it is great that film camera lenses work on digital bodies, it seems to me that Canon's approach avoids more potential heartbreak - EF and EF-S lenses can be mounted on cropped sensor cameras, but lenses designed for cropped sensors cannot be mounted on full frame cameras.

reddesert · Jul 9, 2020

shutterfinger said:
Have you looked at a Nikon web site lately? US A's is full of lens with the E and G designations.
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/af-s-dx-nikkor-16-80mm-f%2f2.8-4e-ed-vr.html
https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-lenses/af-p-nikkor-70-300mm-f%2f4.5-5.6e-ed-vr.html

The lens came from a D90 (can't use electronic or AF-P lenses), and he says it doesn't have an aperture ring. It's a 70-300 AF G, which is a very common lens that covers full frame, but is not very useful on a manual body due to the lack of an aperture ring.

jimjm · Jul 10, 2020

If your AF lens has an aperture ring, you should have metering capability if you have an F2A or F2AS body. This means you need either the DP-11 or DP-12 finder mounted to function with the lens.
Otherwise, the meter will not couple with the aperture ring on the lens, unless a coupling prong "rabbit-ears" has been fitted to the lens.
If you have the DP-1, DP-2 or DP-3 meters, they won't couple with the AF lens. You'll have to use stop-down metering.

AgX · Jul 10, 2020

RalphLambrecht said:
This information is wrong with his crap factor equals zero it should say the crabshack sure equals one!

Likely you misread something. At that table I see the crop factor for 24x36mm format given as 1.0 thus 1.

But yes, other than in this case, people often have difficulties with factors. Which might lead some to say zero, when there is no difference, but indeed should say one instead.

George Mann · Jul 10, 2020

Camera's without the aperture tab will mount most of the pre-AI lenses (tight fit), but will not meter with them.

As far as the quality of the kit-grade lenses go, I find that my old manual focus primes subjectively outperform the newer zooms.

reddesert · Jul 10, 2020

MattKing said:
Well it is great that film camera lenses work on digital bodies, it seems to me that Canon's approach avoids more potential heartbreak - EF and EF-S lenses can be mounted on cropped sensor cameras, but lenses designed for cropped sensors cannot be mounted on full frame cameras.

Nikon generally keeps mechanical compatibility of the mount while modifying the other details (AI tab or not? AF or not? aperture ring or not? Requires focus motor in camera or not? APS-cropped region or not? ...) every decade or so to keep up with the times. One might see this as giving the user the option to do whatever they want, or giving the user enough rope to hang themselves if they don't read the instructions.

Digital is OT here, but on a full-frame digital Nikon SLR, you can set it to use only the APS-crop part of the sensor, so mounting a "DX" (APS-crop) lens on it will work as intended. (Why? Maybe you only own one macro lens, or you dropped your full frame lens on a job and the spare is a crop lens, etc.)

Modern Nikkor lenses verses older glass lenses on an F2?

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