This is great, but the thing that keeps stumping me is that I don't have any Nikon lenses, just a couple of third-party lenses that have a Nikon mount. I don't know what to look for in the mounts of those two lenses to be able to figure out which Nikon film bodies they'd be compatible with.
Both of those lenses are AI-S compatible -- look at the AI, AI-S column on the page previously linked
The Tokina requires a screw-drive AF nikon camera for AF to work, will work fine on a MF camera
Both lenses have chips that fully support Center-Weighted, Spot and Matrix Metering if the camera supports it
Sorry, I thought that by owning Nikon gear you would be familiar with the Nikon ecosystem. If you're a Sony user who has adapted Nikon lenses, then none of the lens variations matter on Sony because none of their features are supported. When you go to mount them on a Nikon camera, however, compatibility becomes important b/c Nikon used mechanical sensors on the different cameras to identify lenses. Prior to the era of electronics all of the communication between camera and lens was mechanical.
One has to be careful about what kind of adapter you use to mount these Nikon-compatible lenses. There are adapters out there that will destroy the electronic interface pins.
Here is a page that explains the differences in the Nikon metering systems (and how to identify them) from the lens' perspective. Unfortunately I can't get the images to load, hopefully it will work better for you:
One of them is a Tokina ATX Pro 28-70 f 2.6-2.8 zoom (the Angénieux design) from the 1990s, and the other is a Zeiss 35/1.4 Distagon ZF.2 lens designed for use on digital full-frame cameras. The Zeiss is all-manual; the Tokina has a switch for manual or autofocus; realistically I'd probably never use the autofocus. They both have manual aperture rings. I use both lenses pretty frequently on my Sony mirrorless camera and it might be nice to have a film body for them as well.
As it turns out I own both of those lenses. I use them both on SLR and DSLR Nikon cameras.
The Zeiss is an AI-S type lens that has an AF metering chip but no AF capability.
The Tokina is an AF era autofocus lens, supports AI-S metering as well as matrix metering due to the chip, and screw-drive AF.
To get the most out of them, choose any Nikon film body that has AI-S metering capabilities or Matrix metering capabilities. If you want AF then you need an AF body from the 1990s that has screw-drive AF.
Just about any F-mount Nikon film camera will work with those lenses (they are all F-mount). choose the camera for it's desired features. The important exception is the N80 that won't meter with AI-S lenses, but both Zeiss and Tokina added chips to those lenses to make them fully metering compliant.
Jan 02, 2024 at 08:02 AM
Previous versions of coralnut's message #16432814 « Which Nikon film body »
