Use your viewfinder as a picture previewer, not an aiming device.

Looking at two charts posted the differences shown will, in my opinion, be irrelevant in the real world.

There are trolls, but we have your list, and they make the site worthwhile.

The Nikon tool given is very good, but it is only half the story. We always see pictures taken from the same place with various focal lengths. As an exercise, try this. Take a subject (person, object etc) and have it fill up a certain part of the picture and have an interesting background and or foreground. Now using the various focal lengths move closer or farther away from the subject to fill up the same part of the picture with the subject. (You will be closer with the shorter focal lengths and farther away with the longer focal lengths.) This exercise will show the "perspective" of the focal lengths. This perspective will alter the relationship of subject to the foreground and background.

Aye.

A bit of frivolity, a frankenphoto card for May 4th.

The main text of the card was:

Happy (May 4th) Star Wars day.

“Klaatu barada nikto”

May the fourth be with you.

There was a PS on the inside top part of the card:

PS. If this card doesn’t make sense, find and watch the 1951 movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” It should be required viewing for all science fiction buffs.

Attached file:
(Download)

Very nice shots. That being said, the first one reminds me of the martian in the Bugs Bunny cartoons.

I'm sort of with DJO, Nikon should allow the use of non-AI lenses on their higher end DSLRs.

As some background early Nikon lenses had a fork on the top of the lens that would engage a pin in a clip-on meter or a photomic head. This told the light meter what the lens was doing. These lenses were a bit of a nuisance to change because you had to set the aperture to f 5.6 when you put them on the camera so that the fork and the pin would align and engage.

The next step were the "AI" lenses (automatic indexing). The camera had a pin in the mount that protruded into what was the base of the lens, the AI lens mounts had areas of the base (that was the f stop ring) missing to receive the pin. As the f stop was changed the pin would follow the movement. In the case of the TTL (photomic head) meters, I don't think they actually knew the f stop, but it knew how many stops down it is from what the meter is look through. Note: the AI only has to do with the f stop information being transmitted to the meter, nothing to do with manual or automatic.

For several years after AI lenses were introduced, the cameras with the AI pins all had the ability to press a release button and fold the AI pin out of the way allowing the use of non-AI lenses. Somewhere around the F4 or F5 Nikon stopped having the AI pin release as standard, but it was available as a repair option.

Later on with more and more electronics the actual f stop were known.

Back to the OPs comment, it doesn't seem like the kind of thing an adapter would fix, anything in between would change the distance of the lens from the sensor.

Now for the politics. I find it INEXCUSABLE that Nikon doesn't at least have available the AI pin release option for the higher end DSLR cameras. I for one have several lenses and bellows that I would like to play with on my D700 or D810. I once mention this problem to Nikon and I received a very curt response telling me that maybe it is time to get some newer lenses. I have many newer lenses but I don't want to have to re-buy all of now-and-then (eg. 1000mm reflex, 28mm PC, PB5 bellows) lenses that I have. I'v e given up any hope for the invasive fish-eye with digital.

2

Love it. Next shot should be of her squirting Cool Whip (straight from the can) into her mouth.

Another thought, my first slr was a Nikkorex F. This was the precursor to the Nikkormat cameras. While it was by no means the best slr, it was a good camera and Nikons first attempt at low to mid range slr to use their lenses. I think that it was a re-badged Mamiya/Sekor with a Nikon F mount.

Nikon photomic meters also had a window to view the f stop on the lens (the small white stops printed at the back of the lens)

Nikon F, it ruled the world of SLR for over 10 years and it defined what an SLR should be. Any of the Nikon Fs (2-6) or the Canon F1 would be good choices. The Pentax spotmatic comes in a close second.

I think that you need to talk to Doctor Who.

Yes, read the manual! I want the manual to document exactly what the camera will do in response to each control. I don't want the manual to tell me why I would want to do that. It is the job of photographic teaching books to tell us why and how. It is the job of the manual to tell us exactly what the camera does. For example: the manual should tell us how the bracketing works how many pictures, what variation, what order, do you need to reset it or not (this was probably the question that spurred Bob original post, he had responded to it a coupe of days ago.) I don't need the manual to tell me why to bracket(just to get it right, or set up for HDR, or whatever) When a photographic teaching book is teaching about a technique that requires bracketing, it shouldn't have to tell you how to bracket, its different for each camera.