Choosing a DSLR for these lenses.

[saxartist]

My father was a professional photographer, and he passed away in 2002, before the advent of digital photography. I am very much interested in photography, and have done some work with film, and I'm interested in purchasing a DSLR.

My main criteria is what will work best with these lenses? Not knowing enough about these to sound intelligent, I present this raw list:

nikkor-s auto 1:1.4 f=50mm Nippon Kogaku Japan No. 847435
nikkor 85mm 1:1.4 242670
vivitar telephoto 135mm 1:2.8 No.3705036
nikkor 24mm 1:2 233615
nikkor-sc auto 1:1.2 f=55mm 294481

That's all the information I can glean from looking these things over. From my internet research thus far, it sounds like a Nikon D200 will work with most of these things pretty well? I really don't care if it can autofocus all of them, I like manual focus. And metering would be nice, but I'd like to know options.

Thanks for helping. I really want to move into digital and not lose these thousands of dollars worth of investments if it is possible.

[TCav]

That looks like quite a collection of lenses.

style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #000000"I think your post would probably have been better placed in the Nikon dSLRforum. Someone there could probably tell you the likelyhood that they would work with modern dSLRs, and which ones would work best.

[tjsnaps]

OK here is the part you wont like. If your lens says "Nippon Kogaku" on it. Then I'll bet its a pre-AI lens wich means you cant use it on any digital Nikon unless the lens has been AI modified. The others might also be Pre-AI if you show me a pic of the back of the lenses I can tell you this.

Even if they are AI. manual focus lenses will only meter with the more expensive Nikon cameras ( D3, D700, D300 ) and of caurse they will not auto focus. However those lenses being fast lenses would be worth having.

The do make adapters that will let you use the lenses on Canon and Pentax even with metering but I have no clue how well they work.

[JimC]

The least expensive Nikon body (that's relatively current) that a non-CPU lens would meter on is the D200 (and they'll also work on the D300, D3 and D3x).

If any of them are pre-AI lenses, you'd want to convert them to AI. Here's a page showing lens/body combinations that need conversion if you don't want to risk damage (lenses should be converted to AI for most bodies).

The older non-AI lenses are in the right hand column. You'll also see links to prices for the conversion ($25-35 per lens plus shipping).

http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm

Thom Hogan has a chart showing older camera models that can meter with AI type lenses (and it's best to convert them to AI if they haven't been already). Note the "Lens Support" row in the table:

http://www.bythom.com/olddslr.htm

Here's yet another page that may help out:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm

If you want to consider bodies from manufacturers other than Nikon, you can find adapters. For example, any Canon dSLR model will still meter with them via an adapter if you use stop down metering, which is basically setting the aperture ring as desired. The camera won't know what aperture you set, but the meter will still work. Here's one example:

http://www.fotodiox.com/shop/product...oducts_id=3908

[peripatetic]

That collection was created with 35mm in mind, hence you need a D700.

[tjsnaps]

JimC wrote:

If any of them are pre-AI lenses, you'd want to convert them to AI. Here's a page showing lens/body combinations that need conversion if you don't want to risk damage (lenses should be converted to AI for most bodies).

The older non-AI lenses are in the right hand column. You'll also see links to prices for the conversion ($25-35 per lens plus shipping).

http://www.aiconversions.com/compatibilitytable.htm

Accusal its pretty easy to AI convert Pre- AI lenses yourself. I have done a number of them. However you have to be careful when you have someone do it for you. I took a look at the page provided here and the first thing I noticed was the picture showing a lens "after conversion". The conversion was not done right. And although that lens would work on early AI cameras it would still be dangerous to try and put on a more modern camera which have a tab the early AI cameras didn't. Hopefully that guy has updated his method sense the picture was put up on line.