Experimenting with a Nikon 35-105 mm lens

[Lonnie1212]

Hi Folks,

A few days ago I bought a Nikon 35-105 mm AF lens on eBay for $44.00. It is mounted to a Nikon D610. Today I took it to the park to try it out. It was 9 F degrees outside. But it didn't bother the ducks. I am here to learn how to improve my photography. I wasn't sure how an older lens would work on a newer camera. What do you think of the performance of this lens? The pictures attached have not been altered except for being downsized. Thank you, Lonnie

 

[Photo Lady]

very nice!

 

[Lonnie1212]

very nice!

Thank you Photo Lady. I think I got my $44.00 out of it, lol

 

[TWX]

I assume that you needed to manually focus since it appears that the lens and camera have incompatible autofocus systems if I read the specifications right.

I don't see anything wrong with the performance of the lens. The only critcism I would levy, and this might even be unfounded, is that your focus looks like it's somewhat forward of the subjects in both photos, and that your depth of field drops-off too soon. In the first photo, the water in front of the ducks is in-focus, and the frontmost ducks are just barely in-focus, but basically the bulk of the ducks behind are not focused. On the second photo, the ground in front of the duck is focused, the front-faceing portions of the duck are focused, but the back-feathers and tail-feathers of the duck appear to be out of focus.

And please don't interpret this too strongly, I'm more the Gomez Addams of photography than an Ansel Adams.

 

[K9Kirk]

It appears you got lucky, it works and takes decent pics so that's not bad for 44 clams. As a suggestion I would recommend using this site for information before you buy as well as afterwards if you're not sure of something.

 

[Derrel]

I assume that you needed to manually focus since it appears that the lens and camera have incompatible autofocus systems if I read the specifications right.

No, you are reading the specifications incorrectly... the Nikon D610 has a built-in autofocus motor in the body of the camera and will therefore Focus the older technology AF and AF-D lenses.

 

[TWX]

I assume that you needed to manually focus since it appears that the lens and camera have incompatible autofocus systems if I read the specifications right.

No, you are reading the specifications incorrectly... the Nikon D610 has a built-in autofocus motor in the body of the camera and will therefore Focus the older technology AF and AF-D lenses.

Well, Nikon is definitely not my strong-suit, and I caught the camera model in Lonnie1212's sig more than I did in the body of his posting.

 

[Derrel]

Hi Folks,

A few days ago I bought a Nikon 35-105 mm AF lens on eBay for $44.00. It is mounted to a Nikon D610. Today I took it to the park to try it out.

The D610 is compatible with both the older style screw-drive focus system and the later AF-S system, but his D3200 needs the AF-s motor in the lens for focusing.

 

[Derrel]

There are a few "hidden gems" in the Nikon back catalog. My experience is that the 24-megapixel full frame sensor cameras work pretty well with a wide variety of lenses that were made back in the film era.