Ever since Nikon introduced the Nikon F film SLR and the F mount way back in 1959, that mount has been on a gradual evolution as technology changes. Most of the current Nikkor lenses are AF-S G lenses, which have a built-in silent-wave auto-focus motor (AF-S) and no aperture ring (G). Aperture control is still via a mechanical connection from the (D)SLR body to lens. Mechanical Aperture Control In the old days, the amount of aperture opening was controlled by the mechanical aperture ring on the lens barrel. The mechanical lever from body to lens merely controlled when the aperture should stop down; it doesn’t control how much it should stop down. When Nikon introduced the FA with Program Mode and Shutter Priority along with AI-S lenses in 1984, that all changed as the camera would determine the amount of aperture opening and control it via the mechanical lever under those modes. It was an acceptable solution for still captures. Today, with plenty of people making video capture and time-lapse photography, that mechanical lever is not precise enough to deliver consistent aperture opening and therefore consistent exposure from frame to frame, which can lead to flicker in time-lapse capture. Additionally, with increasing frame rates, according to Nikon, a motorized aperture control via electronic signals works faster and is more precise. Mechanical Aperture Control The first E lenses Nikon introduced were three tilt/shift perspective-control PC-E lenses in 2008: 24mm/f3.5, 45mm/f2.8, and 85mm/f2.8. Due to their tilt-shift nature, a mechanical aperture control was impossible. Modern E lenses started in 2012 when Nikon introduced the 800mm/5.6 E AF-S VR, which is quickly followed by: 400mm/f2.8, 500mm/f4, and 600mm/f4 E AF-S VR super teles with Fluorite elements 300mm/f4 E PF AF-S VR with Phased Fresenel technology. 200-500mm/f5.6 E AF-S VR 24-70mm/f2.8 E AF-S VR 16-80mm/f2.8-4 E DX AF-S VR for Nikon’s APS-C format DSLRs. The 300mm, 500mm, 600mm, 200-500mm, 24-70mm and 16-80mm are all introduced this year, in 2015, and I am sure this list will grow pretty quickly. Unfortunately, not every Nikon DSLR is fully compatible with E lenses. The simplest rule of thumb is that with three exceptions, all Nikon DSLRs introduced on or after 23rd August, 2007 are fully compatible with E lenses. That was the day Nikon introduced the D3 and D300. After that day, only the D60 (2008), D90 (2008) and D3000 (2009) are not fully compatible with E lenses. In other words: All Nikon FX-format DSLRs are fully compatible with E, with the D3 being the very first one. All Nikon film SLRs cannot control the aperture on E lenses from the body. (However, the three PC-E lenses do have an electronic aperture ring on them and therefore the photographer can use that aperture ring to control the aperture on certain older bodies.) All Nikon DX-format DSLRs introduced before August 2007 cannot control the aperture on E lenses, including all D1 family, D2 family, D40 family, D50, D70 family, D80, D100, and D200, plus the three exceptions after 2007: the D60, D90 and D3000. If you mount an E lens on one of those older DSLRs, you are stuck with the maximum aperture only, which might not be a very severe restriction for those super teles. For example, I have mounted my 300mm/f4 E PF on my D200. The D200 automatically selects f4 and always stays there, but otherwise that combination works fine.
When I started to read this post I thought you might be talking about the old series E lenses that I enjoyed using with my FA. Still have the FA, waiting for the day the digital camera in a film canister is released.
Chuck, the PC-E lenses do not have the plunger and aperture ring mechanically connected to the diaphragm. As I understand it, on fully compatible DSLR's the plunger is not needed, the electronic aperture mimicking an automatic diaphragm, and controlled from the camera. On others that can power an AFS lens (the F4 being one of the first that works) it operates as a preset D lens, requiring use of the button to toggle between wide open viewing and preset aperture shooting. On any camera that cannot operate an AFS lens, the diaphragm does not work at all and remains locked at whatever setting it was on when it was last used on a compatible camera. An earlier version of the 85/2.8 PC lens works with all cameras. This is a preset D lens that meters electronically, but requires use of the button to toggle between wide open and preset aperture. On any film camera this will work as a preset lens without mechanical meter coupling.
One has to hand it to Nikon, calling it E while there were Series E lenses already is a bit a confusing idea; it's not like there weren't any characters or combinations left they could have used instead. It surprises me that the D90 is an exception - when it was launched, it was pretty higher-level enthusiast, plus the first one with video. I doubt whether from here on, it will be a big limitation as those bodies are aging (and for the D3000 even less of an issue probably), but it does smell a bit of either a lack of communication in Nikon, or indecisiveness in how to move forward. But well, impact will be pretty low, so it's water under the bridge I guess. ...waiting for the day the digital camera in a film canister is released. It is, it's called a scanner, works really nice, though no 10 frames per second. Or minute. ;-)
E stands for (something like) electromagnetic aperture diaphragm. Therefore, I thought using the letter E makes sense. I never thought about any confusion with Series E lenses (economy??) from the 1970 and 1980's, until Bob brought that up on this thread. Apparently Nikon realized that having an electronic diaphragm was important around 2006, 2007 as live view became possible then (first appeared on the D3 and D300), soon followed by video capture on DSLRs. Recall that the D90 was the first DSLR (certainly first from Nikon, possibly first from all brands) that could capture video, although it is primitive. Unfortunately, E compatibility was too late for the D60, D90 and D3000. Since very few people would use any PC-E lenses on those DX bodies, and the 800mm E lens is well over $17K, E compatibility hasn't been a concern until about now. We are at the end of August, 2/3 of the way into the year, and Nikon has added six E lenses in 2015 (300mm, 500mm, 600mm, 200-500mm, 24-70, 16-80 DX). Of course, if you would like to use the 400mm/f2.8 E lens on your D3000, everything should still work, but you are stuck at f2.8. I think that is still much better than stuck @ f22. So far, these are the Nikon DSLRs that are fully compatible with E lenses, all introduced on August 23, 2007 or after: D3, D3X, D3S, D4, D4S D700, D800, D800E, D810, D810A D600, D610, D750, Df D300, D300S D7000, D7100, D7200 D5000, D5100, D5200, D5300, D5500 (there is no D5400) D3100, D3200, D3300 (D3000 cannot control the aperture of E lenses) All seven Nikon TC-nnE teleconverters are compatible with the E telephoto lenses, from the 200-500mm/f5.6 zoom and 300mm/f4 PF and up. However, with some TCs, the combination maybe too slow to AF.
Add 1 more "E" lense... the new 200-500mm.. Also interresting : - Don't confuse the old E-series lense with the new "E" lenses , something completely different.. shun was a few sec's quicker with adding the 200-500 .. !
CPM, I have added the 200-500mm already. I noticed that I missed it a few minutes ago. Hopefully I got all the bodies right too. I am sure the list of compatible bodies will grow pretty quickly.
"Still have the FA, waiting for the day the digital camera in a film canister is released. "I hope you're not holding your breath Bob! The technical problems to overcome in making a sensor thin enough and robust enough to slip behind a film camera shutter are pretty much insurmountable with current technology. Of course if you re-engineer an entire camera back and modify the camera body to interface with it then it's acheivable. Ahh! But wait a minute; then it's called a Nikon Df and costs less than that hypothetical back and camera mod would.
If you want to combine pre AI lenses with a digital image, you could do worse than to get a bottom feeder like the D3200. Except for the DX format, you'll get a camera that mounts all your old F lenses without meter connections. The viewfinder is not terribly good, and the shutter speed dial is on the back instead of the top, but otherwise, you can pretty well treat it as a meterless F with an endless roll of free film and ISO levels you'd have dismissed as science fiction 50 years ago. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself because I'm too cheap to get a Df!
I wonder how many of you remember that around the turn of the century, i.e. 1998, 1999 or so, AF-S used to be the symbol of high-end Nikkor lenses. Nikon first introduced AF-I lenses in 1992 and then replaced them with AF-S versions 1996. The first ones were 300mm/f2.8, 400mm/f2.8, 500mm/f4 and 600mm/f4 lenses, followed by 80-200mm/f2.8 AF-S and 300mm/f4 AF-S. However, suddenly Nikon introduced an affordable, $300 24-85mm/f3.5-4.5 AF-S (first version without VR) and AF-S was no longer a "status symbol." A few years later, in 2006 Nikon added a D40 that can only auto focus with AF-S lenses. I see a parallel in E lenses. Nikon fist started with a super expensive 800mm/f5.6 E AF-S VR, followed by a 400mm/f2.8 .... All of a sudden the number of E lenses exploded in 2015 with 6 new entries so far, including a DX 16-80mm E. I think Nikon is building up its selection of E lenses, leading to future camera bodies that are only compatible with E lenses.
Even if there is no support for G lenses in some future category of low-end camera body, there is no reason not to support lenses with aperture rings (since if the lens aperture ring is used, the aperture reproducibility is very high; the only real problem occurs when using the body to control the aperture mechanically). Furthermore there is the problem that most Nikkors ever made (in terms of number of lenses) are G type and so a camera body that would not support them would be very unattractive. Since Nikon only recently introduced 20/1.8 and 24/1.8 as G lenses it is clear they are not planning an all "E" future at least for the time being but only implement "E" where there is a clear benefit of higher reproducibility of aperture especially at high speed, or in some cases for video use. In my opinion the mechanical control of aperture from the body was always a bad idea but now that we've had it for decades there is no possibility of undoing what was done. Nikon's primary asset is their lens heritage. For the starter bodies this might not matter as much but it seems the consumer is often perfectly happy using their mobile phone camera instead of a dedicated camera, leaving mostly the serious user (enthusiast and professional) to buy dedicated system cameras. And many if not most of these users will want full support of the full range of Nikon mount lenses (assuming they go with the Nikon system).
When the camera was all mechanical, and the customer demands minimum viewfinder blackout time during picture taking, there was no realistic way of avoiding actuating the aperture from the body. Nikon has actively preserved lens compatibility (to some useful degree) going back >30 years with it's medium and high end bodies. If the DSLR market remains healthy, and Nikon remains a pivotal player in it, then I suspect Nikon will preserve the ability to actuate mechanical aperture from its medium to high end bodies for at least another 30 years. Low end bodies are always built with razor thin margin and rely chiefly on a large clientele with minimal prior investment in the system. So I suspect the first low end DSLR without mechanical aperture linkage will appear in about 3 years, after Nikon has released about 2-3 lower end E zoom lenses and 2-3 lower end E primes. But on the larger issue, I suspect DSLR, at least the "reflex" part, will not remain healthy for very long. I suspect in 3-5 years, once focus tracking has been overcome, even the role of high end DSLR will be taken by mirrorless bodies. They may inherite the F mount , but they will probably have smaller flange to film distance and would rely on a F-to-F adaptor to preserve compatibility with existing Lens portfolio. The F-to-F adaptor may well feature the ability to actuate mechanical apertures. This would allow Nikon to go forward with all E lenses, while offer those who would wish for backward compatibility an paid avenue to do so.
Ilkka: I'd argue that the primary reasons not to support aperture rings are price, reliability and weather sealing, all of which are adversely affected by having an aperture following ring around the lens mount. Aperture levers are another matter, but they're still an ugly solution once you're looking at long lenses and routing through extension tubes, teleconverters and bellows, let alone tilt-shift lenses. An electronic solution is just a few pieces of wire, and - in the years since Canon went to EF - a reliable electronic aperture really can't be expensive any more. It's not like there aren't problems with mechanical apertures sticking. Going electronic is awkward for those adapting lenses to other formats, but not the end of the world. I'm surprised it's taken Nikon as long as it has to even start transitioning - it took a very brief exposure to Nikon's extension teleconverters to realise that they seem bizarre, as an ex-Canon user. Canon teleconverters don't rattle! But I do think Nikon will take their time over it until more DSLRs (and film SLRs) make their way to obsolescence. Fortunately there are still alternatives to most lenses that Nikon are making E. And I'll be interested to see what happens when and if Nikon move away from SLRs - and I'll be watching the D5 closely, for a start. I'm not taking bets in any direction just yet - Canon and Nikon are both pretty conservative companies, and there are plenty of possible improvements within the current mount.
It turns out that the D60 was introduced in January 2008, after the introduction of the D3 and D300 in August 2007. Therefore, there are three DX bodies from 2008 and 2009 that are not fully compatible with E lenses: D60, D90, and D3000. My original list was still correct, but the D60 belongs to the "post August 2007" group rather than "pre August 2007." I have corrected my original post to avoid future confusion.
All Nikon FX-format DSLRs are fully compatible with E, with the D3 being the very first one. All Nikon film SLRs cannot control the aperture on E lenses from the body. (However, the three PC-E lenses do have an electronic aperture ring on them and therefore the photographer can use that aperture ring to control the aperture on certain older bodies.) All Nikon DX-format DSLRs introduced before August 2007 cannot control the aperture on E lenses, including all D1 family, D2 family, D40 family, D50, D70 family, D80, D100, and D200, plus the three exceptions after 2007: the D60, D90 and D3000. Concerning DX DSLRs, let's see this re-grouping makes it easier to remember: The D300 and D300S are fully compatible with E lenses. Except for the D3000, all Nikon DX DSLRs with 4-digit model numbers are fully compatible with E lenses, i.e. the D3000 series from the D3100 and later, the entire D5000 series and entire D7000 series. All other DX bodies, including the D1 and D2 families, all models with 2-digit model numbers (from D40 to D90), and the D100 and D200 cannot electronically control the aperture on E lenses.
