D7000 and Zeiss 25mm ZF.2 Distagon

<p>Has anyone tried this combination? How easy/hard is MF with the standard D700 focusing screen? cheers, Terry</p>

<p>Hi Terry,<br>

I do not have 25/2 but I tested my new D7000 camera with Zeiss 50/2 and with Nikon 105/2.5 AI-S. Because I have a quite advanced myopia I rely a lot on the green confirmation dot. What was strange for me, Nikon lens is spot on focus every time but based on green dot I get front focused images from Zeiss.... I had no time to check with other lenses to see if is a lens problem or a body problem. As a side note I am overwhelmed of the IQ I get in available (indoor) light from 105/2.5. This lens seems to be designed for D7K.<br>

I'll try to test my camera with other Zeiss and MF lenses to see how it works. Anyhow D7K focusing screen seems to be at least as god as in D300 but the green dot includes arrows as in D700 which, at least for me, is very important.</p>

<p>Mihai, Are you aware of <a href="00M3Pp">this behaviour</a>? Maybe the D7000 performs similarly.</p>

<p>Very interesting Jose! I will try again on close and far focus to see if there is a difference. Anyhow, I took hundreds of pictures with 105/2.5 wide open and I've got very crisp images... I can't see why changing the lens change the situation... while with my D700 (which has narrow DOF at the same aperture) I had no problem focusing 50/2 MP. I'm afraid to not be an effect of reverse engineering... I'll try at home some other Zeiss, CV's and Nikkor MF glass in an unscientific test and I"ll come back to this thread with my results.</p>

<p>Your lens needs to provide focus distance "D" information to a modern Nikon DSLR. Something that your Zeiss lens does not have.</p>

<p>Make sure you get one with D, if focusing is the most important to you. Also D is important for other things, like metering, flash modes, etc.... Though, many do well with lenses that do not have D information, even with the latest and most advanced camera bodies, but they will not be able to stop the technology progress by arguing that D is not important. Discussed few times before.</p>

<p>Frank, my Zeiss glass is last generation (ZF.2) so lenses are chipped and supposing to give all necessary information to the body. BTW 105/2.5 AI-S is not a chipped lens, being just recorded manually in the Non CPU Lens Data.</p>

<p>@ Frank: I was also referring to the chipped version (ZF.2) --my understanding is that this works in all exposure modes, 'lacking' only AF.<br>

@Mihai: if you're consistently getting front-focused images, can't you fine-tune the AF settings on the camera?</p>

 

<p>Terry, I may be wrong but I believe fine tunning feature works only for AF lenses. I never heard that you can tune MF lenses in regard with the electronic rangefinder green dot... if I am wrong please tell me.</p>

<p>Aha...I think you're right Mihai. Sorry...</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"Make sure you get one with D, <strong>if focusing</strong> is the most important to you."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>The "D" chip has absolutely nothing to do with the focusing algorithm used to drive the lens and achieve accurate focus. The distance encoding is used to tweak exposure, not focus. Also, the distance encoding data is in discrete steps, and is not infinitely variable (42cm and 45cm focused distance will both encode as 0.45m for example).</p>

<p>Terry, Michai,<br>

Providing chipped version does not quarantee providing accurate focus distance information from the lens to the camera that is ready and could use it.</p>

<p><strong>This lens is not "D" lens,</strong> and the CPU in it does not provide or handle any focus distance information.</p>

<p>Unless it was added recently, but I believe it was not, the lens does not provide precise focus distance information "D" to the camera, even if it was chipped. </p>

<p>"<em> supposing to give all necessary information to the body." - </em>they really know how to fool you, providing blank statement like this, instead of itemizing information items that the lens provides.<br>

Le't just say they give all information that they have at their disposal?, but the "D" information is not there. Lens would have to have electronic and mechanical components to provide precise focus diatance information that the camera could possibly use, for metering, focusing (e.g. 3-D focus tracking), and flash.</p>

<p>See how many modern features in Nikon DSLR depend on D information. It was itemized few times, and discussed before. For some of them Nikon provides a substitute lesser quality algorithms, but some are just not available. Search prior dicussions on this subject.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><em>"The "D" chip has absolutely nothing to do with the focusing algorithm" </em> - The 3-D focus tracking uses precise focus distance information from the lens.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"The 3-D focus tracking uses<strong> precise focus distance</strong> information from the lens."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>That's just it. It is not "precise", it is in discrete <strong>steps</strong>. The further you are from the subject, the less precise it is (two test shots I just took at 1.3m and 1.4m subject distance reported as 1.2m and 2m focused distance).</p>

<p>Yes, "D" information is beneficial for some camera functions. But not for fine tuning focus accuracy of individual lenses.</p>

<p>Of course none of this has anything whatsever to do with Terry's original question.</p>

 

<p>Frank, manual focusing a lens does not include and / or does not need "3D focus tracking" which is a feature of Auto Focus lenses. Also to be more precise, Nikon itself does not speak anything like this when describe "D" lenses:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>AF-D<br /></strong>Nikon introduced AF-D series lenses in 1996, while these lenses look similar to AF lenses they contained an encoding microchip that transmits focusing distance information to the camera body, this information is used to enhance the accuracy of the cameras exposure and flash metering systems. Cameras with advanced 3D matrix metering systems require AF-D compatible lenses to take full advantage of this technology. All current Nikon autofocus lenses transmit distance information to compatible cameras and are therefore AF-D compatible, AF-D lenses are recognised by the D designation marked on the lens as illustrated in the image below.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>( https://nikoneurope-en.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/12089/~/nikon-af-lens-designations )</p>

<p>So "D" feature enhance the accuracy of camera exposure and flash metering system. The advantage is for advanced <strong>3D matrix metering systems </strong>and <strong>NOT</strong> for <strong>3-D focus tracking</strong> as you keep mentioning.</p>

<p>Again this have nothing with manual focus glass. I own 8 manual focus Nikkors (AI, AI-S and AI-P), three Voigtlanders and four Zeiss ZF.2... Of course none is a "D" lens but all of them works perfectly on D700, including very precise focus based on the green dot confirmation. <br /></p>

<p>I have the d700/25mm combo but I don`t usually use it. From what I remember, it isn`t difficult. It`s similar to a d200 with katzeye focus screen. That`s the camera I use the 25mm mostly. If you are going to shoot, say, at f2 and near macro range then it needs more attention, otherwise, it`s slower but not too difficult. </p>

<p>Well, I believe that it is possible to fine tune the focus (phase detection system) with manual lenses. Fine tuning the focus means that you are changing the distance where the "green dot" activates wrt. focused distance.<br>

I chipped four manual lenses. Ais 180ED was the difficult one as I had to use metal saw directly to the lens end. I did cover everything essential carefully.<br>

Those chips were 30 € each, quite reasonable. I had to program them with my F100. Chip instructions tell how to fine tune the green dot.<br>

With factory chipped manual lenses, it should be no problem to fine tune the focus indication - like ZF.2 lenses. With fully manual lenses, you may have to borrow a similar chipped lens to be able to activate the proper lens in the fine tune list. Give the fine tune value. Then manual lens selection according to the manual lens. I did not test this latter case tough.</p>

<p>Yes the Tagotech / Dandelion chips allow adjustment of the green dot. And there are a few known problems with them because they are "G"-type chips but the distance sensor is obviously missing - for example, TTL-BL flash mode has problems so one should use plain TTL, and the 3D tracking wizardry can't work properly either. AFAIK with Nikon's pre-D AF lenses have different chips, so the camera knows there is no distance info and those features are disabled. </p>