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Paul Tansom wrote:
Is any of your old Nikon kit compatible with the D40? Manual only focus lenses can be hard work.
** end quote [Tim Green]
The answer to that is possibly, and I've not actually investigated further than that yet. Apparantly the issue is how far the lens protrudes into the camera body when focusing and zooming. The mount, as ever is compatible, although some features may not work. My understanding is that the main difference, apart from the physical side already mentioned, is that the focal length of the lens required for the equivalent magnification is different due to the differing size of the sensor compared to the 35mm film area.
In the case of Pentax cameras, the K mount has been fundamentally unchanged since it first appeared in the 1970s (obviously, subject to the backwards-compatible addition of auto-focus coupler and auto-aperture and ID electrical connections). In fact, on my fairly new K10D (and the *ist D that preceeded it) I still regularly use a 22-year-old f1.7 50mm and an f2.8 135mm - both completely manual lenses, and which the Pentax can still accurately expose for (admittedly this requires a pre-shot "stop-down" and is centre-spot only, but they're just fantastic lenses so it's worth the slight extra work). They're great for gig photography as they're so fast, and in that sort of environment, auto-focus is next to useless anyway :-)
It is my understanding that Pentax are the only dSLRs that can /truly/ use any lens in their /entire/ back-catalog, right back to screw-fit jobs, but that Canon and Nikon can use some intermediate age lenses - I think that their mounts have evolved somewhat, breaking true backwards compatibility.
On the issue of focal lengths, the "standard" for dSLRs is the APS-C sensor (although there are some with 4/3rds and full-frame sensors). This is smaller than film and ends up giving a crop factor of about 1.5, which means that a 50mm lens on a dSLR becomes about the same as a 75mm lens on a 35mm film camera. However, this is *cropping*, and it does not actually alter the effective magnification of the lens. If you still like to use film cameras and swap lenses around, be aware that many lenses are now made specifically for dSLR cameras and produce a smaller image area (which matches the sensor). you cannot then use these lenses on a film camera, as they vignette around the corners.
same time it felt so plasticy it seemed like a toy camera and I felt that if I dropped it it would shatter into tiny pieces. The Pentax and Canon cameras of the time felt pretty similar.
I certainly agree wrt. the Canons I've tried - the insanely popular 300D and 350Ds /still/ feel like plastic toys compare to my Pentaxes.
wish it was lighter (although the bulk of carrying extra lenses is often the most annoying), I just like to feel something solid in my hands when I take a photo. Much as I like my little 5200 digital camera, I recently took my SLR out and enjoyed taking photos with them far more than the convenient, compact and perfectly good little digital - even though I only carried an equivalently ranged zoom on my bulky old SLR!
Too true. I've bought a couple of compacts with that "I'll take them with me all the time and use the dSLR for special occasions" mentality, but the difference between the two types is just too great, so I really do take my Lowepro Mini-Trekker AW, complete with 10-20mm, 15-30mm, 28-75mm, 135mm, 50mm, 300mm, mini tripod and Vivitar 285HV flash with me /everywhere/. It weighs a ton, but I wouldn't be without it.
Meanwhile, to add to the earlier part of this thread, I use Bibble Pro for photo manipulation (www.bibblelabs.com). Even though it's not free (at around $130 for the Pro version) and it's aimed at RAW processing (which I don't do much of), I still like it as it has a good workflow, some great tools and the licence allows you to run it on Linux, Mac and Windows (and even to be multiply installed, as long as you only run it one at a time). It's can also properly use dual core CPUs, which is nice as the Linux box I mostly use it on and the MacBook pro I use on the road are both such beasts. Sweet.
Cheers, Simon
- -- ====================================================================== Simon Ransome http://nosher.net Photo RSS Feed: http://nosher.net/images/images.rss