questions re: lenses & buying a Nikon D200

jkruppa · Mar 21, 2007

I've been considering buying a Nikon D200 for a while now and last weekend finally got to check one out in a local camera shop. I wasn't too impressed with the lens that comes with the camera (I believe it was a 50-120mm, I can't recall, but it didn't feel "substantial") and was wondering if it would be better to buy just the body and get the lenses separately, say a good Nikkor 50mm for starters.

A secondary question about Nikkor lenses. I assume they have the little focus disc when you look through the viewfinder, like my Minolta XD11 SLR, but just wanted to be sure. I really like being able to focus that way and would like to do so with the D200 rather than rely on autofocus for portraits, for instance.

Thanks
Jason

Don Simon · Mar 21, 2007

Hi there. The lenses won't have a split-circle or any other focusing aid, because these are not in the lenses but in the focusing screen of the camera. As you are aware the old manual-focus SLRs have these aids, but AFAIK the D200 does not. Modern autofocus SLRs/dSLRs are designed for autofocus and therefore their viewfinders display focus points; manual focusing will have to be done with just plain ground glass which is not as convenient as using the microprism or split-circle as one would have done with older cameras. Having said that, it should be possible to replace the standard focusing screen with one designed for manual focus - Nikon probably offer one and if not then try KatzEye who definitely offer D200 focusing screens.