nikkor lens question,

[Jimmy2Feet]

Hi guys and Gals,

Just a quick question, Nikkor lnes', FX and DX format.

Am i right in my understanding?

Put and DX lens on a FX body wont really work, field of view will be affected to the point that there will be a dark boarder around pics.

FX lens on DX body, will work just fine, but again the field of view will be slightly affected giving a croped affect with shots. i.e. the camera will not capture the outer edges of the pics.

I hope i have explained what i mean well enough to make sense!!!

Cheers in advance.

[keith_d]

Almost right:

If you put a DX lens on an digital FX body it should be correctly detected and the body will only use the center portion of the sensor. You'll just get a lot less megapixels than you paid for.

Putting a DX lens on a 35mm film camera will often give you images with severe vignetting (dark corners) because the light from the lens doesn't cover the entire film area.

Putting a DX lens on an FX body is fine, you'll just use the center portion of the image where the quality is best and have to get used to lugging the extra weight around.

Hope that's some help,

Keith.

P.S. Shouldn't your signature read, "Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his days"

[Jimmy2Feet]

how about FX lens on DX body, IE what i am looking at is i have a D3100 (DX) but looking at an FX lens on fleabay will that work, or will it be a waste of money?

As for signature......i see what you mean, never really but much thinking time into it, cant even remember ware i read the quote, i just really liked it!!!

[jambo]

an FX lens on a dx body should be no problem at all, but you'll wand to make sure it'll work with automatic focusing as some of the older FX lenses will assume the camera body has a mechanical focusing motor.

Jambo

[TC3]

also since a dx camera sensor is smaller the sensor wont read the extreme corners of a fx lens. in many cases the extreme corners can be softer than in the more central part of the lens where the dx takes its crop if you get what i mean. in a way this can be to your advantage

[Jimmy2Feet]

Ok that makes perfect sense, Cheers for that. When i purchased that camera i realised that other than the top range pro Nikon cameras everything was DX, but have only jsut realised that the range of lens' a complete mix, but at least i know that i can still use FX lens', And gives me a good idea of which other makes of lens' i can use Sigma and such like.

Cheers again guys

[keith_d]

how about FX lens on DX body, IE what i am looking at is i have a D3100 (DX) but looking at an FX lens on fleabay will that work, or will it be a waste of money?


As someone has already pointed out, the 3100 has no autofocus motor in the body. It also lacks the aperture ring so it can't tell what aperture is selected on older lenses.

There are several generations of Nikon lenses

pre-AI = really old, won't fit on most modern cameras
AI and AIS = manual focus, no digital chip
P = manual focus with digital chip (not very common)
AF = auto-focus no focusing motor
AF-D = slightly newer autofocus with digital ranging
G = digital aperture control (no aperture ring)
AF-S = autofocus with built in silent motor

The earliest lenses that will work reasonably well on the D3100 will be AF-D, but these will be manual focus only because there's no focusing motor in your body. In practice, you probably want to look for Nikon lenses with AF-S in the name, or the Sigma equivalent HSM.

Regards,

Keith.

[Jimmy2Feet]

As someone has already pointed out, the 3100 has no autofocus motor in the body. It also lacks the aperture ring so it can't tell what aperture is selected on older lenses.

There are several generations of Nikon lenses

pre-AI = really old, won't fit on most modern cameras
AI and AIS = manual focus, no digital chip
P = manual focus with digital chip (not very common)
AF = auto-focus no focusing motor
AF-D = slightly newer autofocus with digital ranging
G = digital aperture control (no aperture ring)
AF-S = autofocus with built in silent motor

The earliest lenses that will work reasonably well on the D3100 will be AF-D, but these will be manual focus only because there's no focusing motor in your body. In practice, you probably want to look for Nikon lenses with AF-S in the name, or the Sigma equivalent HSM.

Regards,

Keith.

Cheers keith,

Yes i am only looking at AF-S lens', i am aware of that limitation with the D3100, i just didn't want to spend a good wack of money on a lens that will have large areas of black in the corners!