d60 with old lenses

AHarvey

AHarvey

AHarvey

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A friend at work has suggested that I look at gettin and adapter and buying some old film SLR lenses off an auction site.

It's a cheap way of getting some decent glass and I really don't mind manually focusing!

anyone have any experience of this?

What adapters should I be looking at and what older lenses?
 
Depends how old the lenses are. Many AF-D and some other will meter ok even if you have to manually focus.
Manual metering with a digital body is no big problem and is good for technique.
 
robertgilbert86 said:
You don't even get a light meter though...
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A 50mm 1.8 AF-D lens is an "old film SLR lens" and it will meter fine on the D60, no??? You will have to manually focus.
All other AF-D lenses should as well. Somewhere around the AI-S age of lenses then yes, you need a D200/300 or so on to meter.

The OP didn't really specify how old the lenses were he was looking at.


Depending on what you are doing, no metering is not a big problem. For action and dynamic lighting then its tough. But for still life it is fine. Double check the histogram to get where you want to be (just right of the half-way). Learning to check exposure and adjust accordingly to errors is useful for all types of photography as there are many times the automatic metering fails, or will be pron to failure, or you want a specific shot.
 
D.P. said:
A 50mm 1.8 AF-D lens is an "old film SLR lens" and it will meter fine on the D60, no??? You will have to manually focus.
All other AF-D lenses should as well. Somewhere around the AI-S age of lenses then yes, you need a D200/300 or so on to meter.

The OP didn't really specify how old the lenses were he was looking at.


Depending on what you are doing, no metering is not a big problem. For action and dynamic lighting then its tough. But for still life it is fine. Double check the histogram to get where you want to be (just right of the half-way). Learning to check exposure and adjust accordingly to errors is useful for all types of photography as there are many times the automatic metering fails, or will be pron to failure, or you want a specific shot.
Click to expand...

This.

I have recently brought a few old lenses to save money and have to manual focus and watch the metering. I know I shoot Canon and not Nikon, but the principles are the same.

I got a sigma 28mm F2.8 prime for £15 (including postage) and a silgor 85-200mm macro zoom for £10!!!

Not to be sniffed at!! :)
 
One thing to not is that the decent old lenses are still not dirt cheap. E.g., a 2nd hand 300mm f/4 AF-D will go for £400 cf. the new AF-S lens sells at over 1K. These make good money savings.

Indeed, some of the better ones will cost much more than the newer versions, like the Nikon 28 1.4 sells for £3000, or the Nikon 35 1.4.

Dirt cheap lenses more than likely have worse image quality than typical kit lenses, but there are bargains out there.
 
Anything AI should work, and surprisingly the D60 is fine with most non-AI lenses too...though you're warned against it in the manual. I say surprisingly since trying to mount non-AI lenses on most Nikon dSLRs will cause damage.
 
The D60 can mount non/pre-AI lenses without damage as the camera has no AI metering prong above the mount. The older lenses lack the notch in the aperture ring, where the metering prong would normally fit, meaning that cameras with AI metering cannot mount a non-AI lens. (solid aperture ring should prevent it mounting, nowhere for the metering prong to go)

You can use a separate light meter to do the metering for you, by setting an aperture or shutter speed on the meter and let it choose the other appropriate value. (you can get a good meter quite cheaply, especially the under-rated analogue meters. Gossen make some good meters and quite a few others are supposed to be good too. A meter would be useful anyway as it can be used in circumstances where the camera's own meter can't/won't work, i.e. exposures longer than 30 seconds and when taking pictures using an external dedicated flash unit.)
 
Thanks for all the replies.

Am i correct that light metering is purely the camera/lens judging how much light to let into the camera and whether to change the exposure settings?

I am all up for doing everything manually as I feel it really is the best way to learn.

On a different note, and to save starting a new thread, my brother had a play with my camera and now, everytime I view an image that has just been taken or is saved on the sd card i get a info panel over it telling me exif info.

Anyone know how to turn it off?
 
AHarvey said:
Am i correct that light metering is purely the camera/lens judging how much light to let into the camera and whether to change the exposure settings?
Click to expand...

Yep.

AHarvey said:
On a different note, and to save starting a new thread, my brother had a play with my camera and now, everytime I view an image that has just been taken or is saved on the sd card i get a info panel over it telling me exif info.

Anyone know how to turn it off?
Click to expand...

Press the d-pad up/down.
 
Mud said:
Yep.
Click to expand...

Thanks

Press the d-pad up/down.
Click to expand...

Thanks again! :D I knew it would be something completely stupid and once i did it I remembered having done it before :D


Thanks for all the advice everyone. Can someone suggest a decent lens for wildlife/macro shots that I can go and search for?

Being a beginner I am just learning about lenses etc and don't want to waste a few hundred quid on something that won't work!

EDIT: found a NIKON NIKKOR 50mm f1.8 AI for sale online, currently at £15. i take it this would work ok?
 
Last edited:
D.P. said:
A 50mm 1.8 AF-D lens is an "old film SLR lens" and it will meter fine on the D60, no??? You will have to manually focus.
All other AF-D lenses should as well. Somewhere around the AI-S age of lenses then yes, you need a D200/300 or so on to meter.
Click to expand...

Yep sorry I AF-D will meter, just AI and older won't. Sorry about that, I wasn't really considering AF-D as 'old' lenses!
 
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