Any Nikon experts here? Need advice...

Hey guys,

Hope you don't think asking about a Nikon product is too rediculous, but my friend has a hard head... lol.

A buddy of mine who lives out in the sticks has a few older Nikon lenses from back in his film days, which he still uses quite extensively today. He wants to try out digital photography, but is on a budget and would like to use his old lenses if possible.

Even though it is not the best solution, is there any Nikon D series camera body in the $300-$400 range that would allow him to get his feet wet with digital, yet still enable him to use his old lenses?

I have researched it a bit, and found out that the D40 and D60 would not be at all a good choice, due to lens restrictions. A far better choice would be the D50 or D70.

I am so clueless when it comes to Nikon products, that any advice would be appreciated!! My initial recommendation was to simply buy a used Xti with a lens or two... and take it from there.

I don't know about Nikon, but you CAN use Nikon lenses (and I do) on Canon cameras, with inexpensive import adapters. The downside is:

You have to manually stop them down, which means most of the time you have to focus first, wide open

All manual lenses on all Cameras (Canon, Pentax, Oly, etc) suffer from SOME metering inaccuracies, which means you must learn the lens and compensate, and "chimp."

The focusing screen for many of us is Soooooooo tiny, the Xt especially. The big reason I bought my 40D--with magnified live view

No idea what they go for (probably too much), but a used D200 has better compatibility with older Nikkors then a D70 or D100...

If he has AF Nikkors, a D70 will do fine.

ANY NIKON lense will work with ANY newest Nikon cameras, like d40, d60, d80 and etc. d40 and D60 will have manual focus, other higher class cameras autofocus (because they have motor inside)

I know I might get flamed for this but I did a search for info on this and came up with this link for you.

http://www.kenrockwell​.com/nikon/compatibili​ty-lens.htm

Wow, that's a GREAT link!!! Thanks!!!!!

Jacc wrote in post #6226578
ANY NIKON lense will work with ANY newest Nikon cameras, like d40, d60, d80 and etc. d40 and D60 will have manual focus, other higher class cameras autofocus (because they have motor inside)

That's not true.

There's a couple of early pro nikon bodies named as D2X and similar which often go for 400 bucks or so. They have about 6 megapixels, built like tanks and have very good autofocus and metering system. They also support all of the old lenses.

IMO the older Nikkor AI and AI-S lenses are some of the best optics to come out of Japn.. Nikon haven't changed their mount since the late '50s although their metering link and the newer electronic contacts have changed which is a smart move by Nikon..

The older AI and AI-S Nikkors will fit most of the newer Nikon DSLRs but you will lose some functions like auto focus and some auto exposure modes.. In some cases you will have to stop down to meter..