D series Lenses vs regular lenses

lycrarob · Apr 26, 2005

I've been told that the D series lens is most usefull with the digital slr's.
Do any of you use the regular lenses on a digital slr?
If so, does it work fine?
Or should I stick with the D series?
Thanks for any input.

Skipster · Apr 26, 2005

lycrarob said:
I've been told that the D series lens is most usefull with the digital slr's.
Do any of you use the regular lenses on a digital slr?
If so, does it work fine?
Or should I stick with the D series?
Thanks for any input.

I'm only assuming your referring to a Nikon lense as I just ran into this with my new SLR too. I spotted a 28-80 G lense on ebay for 35.00 and scooped it up. Didn't realize till i got it that it's not fully automatic. It will auto focus and set shutter speed, but not auto adjust aperature. I need to set my camera to aperature priority, adjust the aperature, then take the shot I want. I'm not sure how relavent this is too a DSLR but wanted to pass on a heads-up. The AF-D lenses are worth the extra coin. After-all, the picture a camera takes is only as good as it see's.

mikerfns · Apr 26, 2005

Skipster said:
... I spotted a 28-80 G lense on ebay for 35.00 and scooped it up. Didn't realize till i got it that it's not fully automatic. It will auto focus and set shutter speed, but not auto adjust aperature...

Uhh ... it *IS* fully automatic on your N80. If you want "auto adjust" aperture you need to use "P" or "S" exposure modes (or one of the "Vari-Program modes). If your 28~80G won't do that, something is amiss.

The only difference between a G lens and a D lens with an aperture ring is that you don't have an aperture ring to lock at f/22. G lenses are also D (i.e. they have the same "D" chip).

To answer the original question, non-D AF lenses (i.e. older AF lenses) will work fine on a DSLR. Metering will default to plain matrix instead of 3D matrix, and you won't get a focused distance information in your EXIF data. For 99% of your shots, unless you do a lot of flash work, you won't likely notice any difference.

Mike