Old Nikkor lenses

I have an old Nikon F1 that works great and a bunch of the old

lenses for that camera which still take good pictures. Will these

lenses fit the new Nikons. I kn ow they will not work with

autofocus and exposure, but will they work manually?

 

Thanks

 

Jeremy

If the lenses were purchased in the same years as the F (and the early F2), they're what's come to be known as 'pre-AI'. A number of different services are out there who can perform a mechanical conversion for you for anywhere from $25 - 50 USD per lens. When you shop for used lenses, such converted lenses are commonly called "AI'd".

 

Once you have had your lenses AI'd, they will mount on newer bodies. In the current Nikon lineup, AI and AI'd lenses will meter with the more expensive models (F100, F5, FM3a, D1X/D1H) but not with the less expensive ones (N80, N65).

Several batches of the early and mid 1960's Nikkors could not get factory AI'd ; when Nikon introduced the AI vented prong and rear indexing. These serial number batches dropped radically in price in the mid thur late 1970's. I got a 135mm F3.5 and a 35mm F2 for about 30 bucks each then. Later some aftermaket guys have been able to AI some types of these orphaned Nikkors. The Nikkon Nikkormat handbook supplements and Nikon published the serial number blocks; of the lenses that could not be converted by Nikon. These lenses were a very very small subset of the number of pre AI lenses made. Don't assume all pre AI lenses can be converted.

I have a thought. The current consumer bodies such as the F80 do not have an aperture coupling ring, right? So it should be possible to mount an old non-ai and use it in manual mode. Is this idea flawed?

 

Regards,

Aaron

Aaron,

 

Technically speaking you can mount any Nikkor on your nikon body, however you will damage the cpu-coupling with the old lenses. Any non-cpu lens will not meter on cpu body's. The F3 and the FM/FE are the latest model Nikon's you can use all old lenses on, offcourse without meter coupling in some cases. Dont use non-ai lenses on the bodys with plastic meter-coupling, allthough it can be done you will damage it.

 

Greetings,

Only Canon ever made the F1 ;)

 

See here for an excellent explanation on the lens question:

 

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/nikonfmount/lens2.htm

Hi Henk,

Since the old N/AI lenses can fit on the F3 with the flippable aperture coupling tab, would my F4 (which also has the flippable tab) have problems since it does have the electronic contacts on the body?

 

I myself don't have an F80, but I thought that the F80 did not have the aperture coupling tab and thus would meter only with CPU lenses.

 

Regards,

Aaron

I found a site at Nikon for technical help and emailed them and

below is their response:

 

Although today's Nikon cameras use the same lens mount as

the Nikon F, the meter coupling system was changed in 1977,

so any Nikkor lens made before then must be modified to

automatic indexing (AI) before it can be safely mounted on a

camera made since that date. For information on AI modification,

please visit <http://www.aiconversions.com>. John White, the

technician who performs this service, is not part of our network

of Nikon-authorized service facilities and we are not responsible

for his work.

Therefore, we provide this referral for the convenience of our

customers only. However, Mr. White has been providing this

service for many years and our customers report they are very

satisfied with his work.

 

Once they are AI-modified, your lenses can be used on the Nikon

F5, F100, N90s, F3HP, FM3A, FM2N, and FM10 cameras, as well

as on older models such as the N8008s, N6006, and F4s.