film and digital lenses

[tm_photography]

I have a D50 and was looking at getting a film body used. The F4.2s looks nice.

I was thinking I'd use the 70-800 ed vr with it. Can the F4.2s do VR? If not

which older models do? I don't have a lot of money to spend but would like a

nikon film body to share lenses with my d50....

 

Any suggestions are most appreciated

 

Timothy

[fullmetalphotograper]

The f4 will not use VR but it will do every thing else You may want to look at the F5 it will use

VR. DX lenses will not work on film cameras.

[ShunCheung]

What is an "F4.2s"? Do you mean the F4 or F4s?

 

The very first Nikon AF body that is VR compatible is the F5, introduced in 1996. All AF bodies from the F5 and on are VR compatible, and all of those bodies have more than 1 AF point, usually 5 as in the case of the F5, F100, F80/N80, D70, D50 ... or 11 AF points such as the F6, D2 family, D200 and D80. The latest D40 family has 3 AF points. All of these are VR compatible.

 

All AF bodies before the F5 have only 1 AF point (including the F4) and none of them is VR compatible.

 

I assume your lens is the 70-200mm/f2.8 AF-S VR. That is a G lens without an aperture ring, and a film body must have both the main command and sub-command dial to be fully compatible with it. Something like the F100 or F80/N80 would work with it very well.

[tri-x1]

The F4/s is a great camera but it is HEAVY--especially if you have been working with digital. It looks and feels like it was milled out of a steel billet. I liked the weight for shooting at slow speeds--helped steady the camera.

[fgoericke]

Now that's a zoom lens! 70-800mm :-)

[peter_petrov1]

<p>F4 is a solid body. It works with AF-S lenses. Unfortunately, it does not support the VR function. It is probably better suited for people, who want to use their manual focus lenses. This does not mean that you will not like it - just check it for yourself.</p>

 

<p>You can check the <a href="http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/nikon_articles/other/compatibility.html">body/lens compatibility chart</a> for Nikon. It seems that the film cameras which support VR are F65, F75, F80, F100, F5, and F6. If I was in your situation, I'd take F80 - it is not expensive, and has a lot of features. F100 is better, it just costs more.</p>

[mawz]

Note that not all post-F5 bodies are VR compatible. The F50 & F55 are not.

 

That said, I'd look at the F100 as the best deal out there. Performance is as good or better than an F4, you have full compatibility with VR, AF-S and G lenses (the F4 only supports G lenses like the 70-200 VR G in P and S modes as it cannot manually set aperture on-body) and is available for around the same cost as an F4 ($3-400 on the used market, sometimes cheaper).

 

Note that using an F100 will make you somewhat unhappy with the D50. The F100 has a far better viewfinder, is much faster all-round (fps, AF, max shutter speed), is built much better and has a superior control layout to the D50. The film equivalent of the D50 is the F75. But given the usual price difference between a F75 and F100, the F100 is a far better deal(same goes for the F80 and F100 comparison).