Good Nikon film SLR

[ennyong1985]

Dear All,
I am very new in this forum as you might have realised already. I am interested in buying a Nikon film SLR which has the same body size as d300 or d90. Can anyone here show some mercy and give me a hint? And does anyone knows whether it will work with the Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5 - 6.3 Di VC? Please advise. Your comments are much appreciated.

[chris-p]

Hi Ennyong, welcome to the forum.

You're going to have to buy used equipment as Nikon don't really make any film SLRs any more. url=http://www.mifsuds.com/usedpriceindex.htm]Mifsuds[/url] have a Nikon F4 body for £250 and an F100 with MB-15 Battery Grip for £230.

As for the Tamron lens, it's a Di lens so it's designed for the smaller imaging frame of APS-C sized sensors. I will fit onto an older film Nikon camera but you will get a lot of vignetting as the image the lens projects is smaller than the size of 135 film.

[Robster]

Hi
The ultimate Nikon Film SLR has got to be the F3 it is a Legend as cameras go, during the 1980s if you was a press photographer this is what you had, you can pick a good one up on ebay for around £200
It also has the advantage of interchangable everything!
Best of luck looking

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by chris-p

Hi Ennyong, welcome to the forum.

You're going to have to buy used equipment as Nikon don't really make any film SLRs any more. url=http://www.mifsuds.com/usedpriceindex.htm]Mifsuds[/url] have a Nikon F4 body for £250 and an F100 with MB-15 Battery Grip for £230.

Nikon still do the F6 film camera.

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by OldBoy

Nikon still do the F6 film camera.

So they do!

Thats you're best bet then, unless you want something "posher", in which case you'll have to try to find one used. Personally I've always been a fan of the F4. If you can find one of those for sensible money you'll have one of the best film cameras ever made!

[greenwing]

Originally Posted by chris-p

So they do!

Thats you're best bet then, unless you want something "posher", in which case you'll have to try to find one used. Personally I've always been a fan of the F4. If you can find one of those for sensible money you'll have one of the best film cameras ever made!

At £1700 new (from Grays), it's probably quite posh enough... Quite nice that it has the Multi-CAM2000 AF system, and i-TTL flash so that it's compatible with the SB-800 et al.

The Tamron 28-300 is a full-frame lens. Di is just to do with coatings, DiII is the 'cropped sensor' designation. Probably won't do justice to the F6, but I imagine the OP wasn't really considering the F6.

It's tricky to know just where in the line Nikon SLRs started supporting things like AF-S and VR. While most F-mount lenses will physically fit, and can be used, on most Nikon SLRs, there's a point where some functions stop working.

Hope this helsp
Chris

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by greenwing

It's tricky to know just where in the line Nikon SLRs started supporting things like AF-S and VR. While most F-mount lenses will physically fit, and can be used, on most Nikon SLRs, there's a point where some functions stop working.

Chris

Nearly all Nikon lenses will work with any Nikon camera, but pre AI might only work in manual mode. I use a 400mm F2.8 AIS lens with both my D200 and D3 with or without converters attached and still have all the functions.

It appears this website is still on British Summer Time! Either that, or the LHC has started up and created a time-warp?

[greenwing]

Support for older lenses by newer bodies is quite well documented. What I was wondering, though, was what film SLRs support AF-S and VR? I suppose that's just as well documented, just not so widely known.

[flake]

And there was me thinking that the difinitive Nikon film camera was the F5 ?

[OldBoy]

Originally Posted by greenwing

Support for older lenses by newer bodies is quite well documented. What I was wondering, though, was what film SLRs support AF-S and VR? I suppose that's just as well documented, just not so widely known.

VR works fine with Nikon film cameras. I couldn't download the manual for the F6 to check on the lenses, but can't see any problems with AF-S lenses, just make sure they are not DX's which are for crop frame cameras, althought they would work you would be left with a circle of darkness.