Automotive Randomness

[AllHailZ]

I borrowed a new lens that a friend got for her Nikon D300 digital camera. It's a macro-and-zoom lens in one. It's doesn't seem to work with my film N80 SLR as it does with her D300. I also don't have much experience with anything outside of 400 ISO, and these were taken with 200 ISO. So I experimented with both.

They produced interesting results, but not quite what I had been expecting... Any critiques/comments welcome.

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#1 cropped

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[manaheim]

I'm assuming that black circle around the images was not something you did intentionally... if so, that would confirm my suspicion that it's a DX lens. DX lenses are intended for partial-frame cameras, like the D300... basically, the D300 has a sensor that is smaller than a standard 35mm film footprint.

It's actually kind of neat... I wondered what would happen with a DX lens on a full-frame camera that didn't know how to crop down to deal with it. I guess what you get is a big black circle. Funny.

 

[AllHailZ]

You're right. It wasn't intended, it was like that in the viewfinder, so I was quite curious if it would do that in the actual pictures. What's interesting is that they're not all centered, some are off-center.

Actually, she lent me a second lens, a macro-only lens, but it worked like a 50mm lens with my camera while it worked like a macro with hers. I was intending on getting a Nikon D80 (or D200, depending on my money), because I thought their lens would be interchangable with my N80, but it doesn't seem that way. The lens I used made it look like a fisheye in the viewfinder... Here's what I mean, but this shot looks more squished than a fisheye...

 

[manaheim]

Well, you can buy full-frame lenses and use them on your partial-frame D80 or D200... you just can't really use the partial frame lenses that well on the film camera. Just keep in mind that you lose some of the width of the lens on the partial frame... so an 18mm is more like a 27mm... (for example)

 

[AllHailZ]

Does it matter if the D80/D200/D300/Dwhatever uses full-frame or partial-frame lens? And you're right, I did notice the loss of the width, in that shot of my car I posted, it originally had the entire headlights in the finder, but only half of the headlights came out in the picture.

 

[TamiyaGuy]

Nope, it doesn't matter. All of Nikon's lenses, right back to the AI period, work with "crop" sensors and film sensors. However, the more recent lenses have been manufactured for just these crop sensors, or "DX" format. These won't work on film cameras, but film lenses will work on DX.

Those are some really nice photos. In the close-up ones of the toy cars I really like the vignette, it just gives it a little something.

Nice job!