Will old Nikon lenses fit on a new digital SLR Nikon camera body? - 1
I want to get my father-in-law a DSLR camera for his 60th birthday. He already has TONS of old Nikon lenses from his old Nikon film SLR camera and has expressed interest in keeping and using those lenses. (I'd rather just give him a brand new DSLR camera body that comes with a basic DSLR lens… But it's his gift!). Can you recommend a Nikon model that will work with old Nikon lenses OR is there another manufacturer that is interchangeable with old Nikon lenses (like Minolta and Sony).
I want to get my father-in-law a DSLR camera for his 60th birthday. He already has TONS of old Nikon lenses from his old Nikon film SLR camera and has expressed interest in keeping and using those lenses. (I'd rather just give him a brand new DSLR camera body that comes with a basic DSLR lens… But it's his gift!). Can you recommend a Nikon model that will work with old Nikon lenses OR is there another manufacturer that is interchangeable with old Nikon lenses (like Minolta and Sony). Any Nikon lens made since 1959 will fit and work on a modern Nikon body, however, depending on the model of Nikon and the specific lens, it may not autofocus or meter correctly. The autofocus shouldn't matter (it only applies to the entry level models, D3000, D3100 and D5000 in any case) as I would imagine that coming from a film background your father-in-law will ne used to manual focus lenses.
Metering is not generally a problem either as there's reliable guesswork (sunny 16 rule) even if he doesn't have a hand held meter and with digital it's easy to check an over/under exposure with a test shot.
No other manufacturer will be compatible. Nikon boast that their lens mount hasn't significantly changed since 1957, but there are a few caveats;
AF lenses won't autofocus on the D3xxx and D5xxx budget models, which lack body motors.
The manual focus AI and AIS types won't allow metering on these bodies either, although in both cases, the lenses will mount, and produce an image.
The D7xxx series and above have no such restrictions - apart from, obviously, not allowing autofocus with lenses that were only designed to be focused manually. Although most old Nikon lenses will fit newer Nikon dSLR bodies, there are lots of compatibility issues to check out.
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If the lenses are Pre-AI, no way to use them unless you get the very expensive Nikon Df.
If those are old manual focus AI lenses (w/ bunny ears) then the "cheapest" you will have to get is from the D7x00 series.
If the lenses have AF printed on the barrel then you can use them with an old D70 or D90. If you get a cheap Nikon dSLR, he won't be able to autofocus with any of his old AF lenses and he won't be able to use the lightmeter on the older AI ones.
It seems you will have a lot of The new Nikon digital SLR camera must be one of the "Enthusiasts" or proline cameras
They can use ANY of the manual focus Nikkor AI lenses as well as all the Nikon auto-focus lenses, AF, AF-I, AF-S and AF-P lenses.
I use older manual focus lenses which have been converted to AI on my Nikon D500 and D800e and formerly on my D100, D200 and D300 cameras. The same list of lenses also work on my Nikon 35 mm SLR, F4s
Nikon boast that their lens mount hasn't significantly changed since 1957, but there are a few caveats;
AF lenses won't autofocus on the D3xxx and D5xxx budget models, which lack body motors.
The manual focus AI and AIS types won't allow metering on these bodies either, although in both cases, the lenses will mount, and produce an image.
The D7xxx series and above have no such restrictions - apart from, obviously, not allowing autofocus with lenses that were only designed to be focused manually.
Although most old Nikon lenses will fit newer Nikon dSLR bodies, there are lots of compatibility issues to check out.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm#dslr
If the lenses are Pre-AI, no way to use them unless you get the very expensive Nikon Df.
If those are old manual focus AI lenses (w/ bunny ears) then the "cheapest" you will have to get is from the D7x00 series.
If the lenses have AF printed on the barrel then you can use them with an old D70 or D90. If you get a cheap Nikon dSLR, he won't be able to autofocus with any of his old AF lenses and he won't be able to use the lightmeter on the older AI ones.
It seems you will have a lot of
The new Nikon digital SLR camera must be one of the "Enthusiasts" or proline cameras
They can use ANY of the manual focus Nikkor AI lenses as well as all the Nikon auto-focus lenses, AF, AF-I, AF-S and AF-P lenses.
I use older manual focus lenses which have been converted to AI on my Nikon D500 and D800e and formerly on my D100, D200 and D300 cameras. The same list of lenses also work on my Nikon 35 mm SLR, F4s