Special lenses for digital SLR??

[martin_levesque]

I presently have a Nikon F80 and I'm slowly buying myself prime AF

lenses from time to time, but I'm wondering if I'll be able to use

those same lenses,if I decide to buy a digital SLR body someday...

In other words, are there lenses made espacially for digital SLR?

Thanks.

 

Martin.

[daniel_taylor]

You can use your same lenses on a DSLR. But they will have a different field of view and behave like lenses with a longer focal length (1.5x on the Nikon DSLR's).

[k_michael]

Some lenses such as Sigma's and Nikon's 12-24mm were designed with digital in mind. Wide angle can be a problem due to the multiplication factor. If yu would place one of these lenses on a 35mm camera, you might vignet.

[edward_h]

> Some lenses such as Sigma's and Nikon's 12-24mm were designed with digital in mind.

 

No, you are incorrent. Only Nikons 12-24 is broken (=vignettes on a 35mm frame). Sigma's 12-24 is full-frame.

 

And to answer Martin's question: All of your current lenses might work, but they'll be a lot longer than you had originally planned, thanks to the fact that there are exactly 0 full-framed DSLRs from Nikon. If you want your 35mm Nikon lenses to be 35mm Nikon lenses you'll have to spend a few thousand dollars getting yourself a DSLR from Kodak. That the camera is useless outside of a studio and has terrible moirée problems we won't mention...

[ellis_vener_photography]

<I>That the (Kodak) camera is useless outside of a studio and has terrible moirée

problems we

won't mention...</I><P>Which begs the questions, have you actually shot with one?, and

can

you prove that you have?<P>Daniel has it pretty much right, except that while the angle of

view capture with the current Nikon sensors is tighter (1.5x to be exact), the depth of field

will remain that of the original focal length. In other words, a 24mm lens on past and

current Nikon DSLRs (D1 & D2 series, D100, & D70 --as well as the Fuji DSLRS will record

the angle of view that a 36mm lens would on 24x36 media, but the depth of field for any

given f-stop will still be that of a 24mm lens on any format.

[jbq]

I disagree with Ellis here - for a given subject distance and f-stop, the same lens will create the same circle of confusion (we agree here), but since the image created by the smaller sensor needs to be enlarged more to reach the same print size, the same lens on a smaller sensor has less depth-of-field.

 

The "optimal aperture" for a given scene (the one where circle of confusion and diffraction are balanced) is the same regardless of format. But the traditional depth-of-field is not.

[juan_parm_nides1]

Martin, the only thing you must have in mind is that behond f8 (f11...and more) when using normal lens for a DSLR and not the digital specified, you will have a very very light quality loss, but the quality is exactly the same when you shoot below f8. Tested in PS.

Even if you are going to shoot landscapes f8 has enough deep of field to catch almost everyting, but yo can, of course, use above f8 if you like.

[mark u]

"The "optimal aperture" for a given scene (the one where circle of confusion and diffraction are balanced) is the same regardless of format. But the traditional depth-of-field is not."

 

Not so. Diffraction circles are defined by wavelength of light times f-stop, which do not vary with format and desired circle of confusion size used in normal DOF calculations. Thus an APS-C image starts to be diffraction limited relative to its circle of confusion under normal assumptions of image magnification and viewing distance at about f/11, whereas for 35mm this happens at about f/16, and f/22 or more for MF.