New old lens

Don Fischer · Feb 15, 2024

Looked at an old lens in my camera case yesterday. 35-135 Nikon still here from the film days. Some reason I never used it much back then either. I think it's called a full frame lens and 35-135 on a digital turns into something else. What I found out was it just takes pretty nice photo's! Used to have a 70-210 around somewhere that wasn't to bad either. This 35-135 would make a pretty nice walking around lens I think. But don't think it's made any more. Yesterday was the first time in quite a while I shot with something other than my Tamron 18-200 or my Panasonic P&S. Probably gonna try this one some more! Well was going to put up one of the new photo's I did yesterday but Imgur changed and not a clue ow to up load it. Got home and looked at them and this one pretty much did it for me so made a 9 1/2x19 out of it and really do like it!

480sparky · Feb 15, 2024

It's still a 35-135 regardless of what it's mounted to.

What might change, depending on the size of the film plane / digital sensor is the field of view. If it's smaller than the standard 24x36mm film size, it will have a different field of view in the image.

Don Fischer · Feb 16, 2024

480sparky said:
It's still a 35-135 regardless of what it's mounted to.

What might change, depending on the size of the film plane / digital sensor is the field of view. If it's smaller than the standard 24x36mm film size, it will have a different field of view in the image.

"Still a 35-135 regardless what it's mounted to". Have to agree with that! Early on with digital I'd think that this lens off my film camera, say a 70-210 is actually something different on my DSLR. Well no it wasn't, just got a different field of view and clueless about what that really meant. Don't worry about it anymore as what I see through the view finder is what I'll get.

480sparky · Feb 16, 2024

The marketers of early DSLRs (which were mostly made with sensors smaller than 24x36mm, ie 'crop' sensors) really muddied the waters with their 'crop factor', 'equivalent' and 'equal to' maths stuff. This really just needs to go away as it was utterly and totally confusing to most people.

There were plenty of 'other' formats back in the analog-only age besides 35mm. Half-35mm, 110, 126, 127, 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 4x5, 5x7 etc. I don't ever recall 'converting' one format's focal lengths to another. The 80mm on my 645 was the 80mm on my 645, not 'the same as a 50mm on my 35mm".

MartinCrabtree · Feb 16, 2024

Two of my older pro MF lenses chipped for electronic camera use. Rather fond of both of them the 25-50 in particular.

50-135 f3.5 on my F5

25-50 f4 on my FM2n

Don Fischer · Feb 17, 2024

480sparky said:
The marketers of early DSLRs (which were mostly made with sensors smaller than 24x36mm, ie 'crop' sensors) really muddied the waters with their 'crop factor', 'equivalent' and 'equal to' maths stuff. This really just needs to go away as it was utterly and totally confusing to most people.

There were plenty of 'other' formats back in the analog-only age besides 35mm. Half-35mm, 110, 126, 127, 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 4x5, 5x7 etc. I don't ever recall 'converting' one format's focal lengths to another. The 80mm on my 645 was the 80mm on my 645, not 'the same as a 50mm on my 35mm".

You just said a mouthful!

cgw · Feb 17, 2024

"I don't ever recall 'converting' one format's focal lengths to another. The 80mm on my 645 was the 80mm on my 645, not 'the same as a 50mm on my 35mm".

Subjectively many of us did, knowing it was approximate--not exact. So what?

480sparky · Feb 17, 2024

cgw said:
So what?

Exactly my point.

greybeard · Apr 16, 2024

Don Fischer said:
"Still a 35-135 regardless what it's mounted to". Have to agree with that! Early on with digital I'd think that this lens off my film camera, say a 70-210 is actually something different on my DSLR. Well no it wasn't, just got a different field of view and clueless about what that really meant. Don't worry about it anymore as what I see through the view finder is what I'll get.

Yea, the focal length doesn't change but the FIELD OF VIEW (width of the frame) changes depending on the size of the sensor. Nikon's 2 most popular sensor sizes are denoted by the letters FX or DX. FX being also called FULL FRAME which is the same size as a 35mm film negative. The DX is also called CROP FRAME and is roughly 75% the size of a FX sensor. Because of this difference, when you put a 50mm lens on a DX camera, it will have the same FIELD OF VIEW as a 75mm on a FX body making it more telephoto.