** Tim Green timothy.j.green@gmail.com [2007-08-14 14:08]:
On 8/14/07, Paul Tansom paul@aptanet.com wrote:
and as a side note, haven't second hand film camera prices nose dived. If I sold all my boxed pristine Nikon film camera bits I still couldn't affored even the base D40 with a lens :( It's a shame the gadget that would fit a digital sensor into a standard 35mm camera never took off, ah well.
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.
My plan was, and I guess still is, to get another Nikon and with any luck a few of my lenses will tide me over until I can afford properly matching ones. I have to be honest here and confess that I am a seriously biased Nikon fan. Many, many years back when I first upgraded from my original Zenith 11 and Zenith 12 cameras and auto-focus was still a new an expensive idea I was rather taken with the Nikon F301 and found a good price on it, and I have stuck with them ever since. I still remember visiting one camera shop that was pushing hard on a Minolta camera and when the handed it to me it was amazingly light, but at he 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. Not that I have anything specifically against them, and when I'm carrying my camera I sometimes 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!
Anyhoo...