Old lenses and a D3 body.

[theodore_papageorgiou]

<p>I think I go for a D3 body these days,having a lot of older lenses,plus two zooms,ie,20mm/f2.8, 24mm/f2.8, 28mm/f3.5, 35mm/f2, 50mm/f1.4, 50mm/f1.8, 55mm/f3.5, 85mm/f1.8, 105mm/f2.5, 135mm/f2.8, 180mm/f2.8 ED, and the zooms,are the 17-35mm,and the 80-200mm/f2.8.<br>

A friend of mine,told me,that most of them are of no use,with the D3.<br>

If it so,which of them,I have to sell,and which I should buy some day,to take the 100% of capability of the camera?<br>

Theodore.</p>

[tommyinca]

<p>Yes, they are all no good, so sell me the 17-35mm cheap :-)<br>

If they are autofocus (seems like your zoom are) they will work just fine on a D3. If they are manual focus, with the exception of non-AI lens, they will work on the D3. You just need to make sure they all have AI or AIS tabs on them.</p>

[luke_kaven]

<p>The only requirement is that they be AI/AI-s or cut for AI. In every respect, this is a good bag of classic Nikon lenses that are perfect for the D3. The 28 f/2 AI would be excellent for another stop-and-a-half at this focal length. </p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>After you get the D3, test each one of those lenses on the camera. In particular, watch out for chromatic aberration. Check the results carefully and sell those lenses that don't perform well on the D3.</p>

<p>Is that an obvious answer?</p>

[tobey_bilek]

<p>Find a better friend. If they have the Ai tab, they will work just fine. If not, Aiconversions.com will fix them. The 17/35 is already Ai and most likely the 80/200.</p>

<p>You will need to stop the wides down to F11 or 8 to get very fine details in the far corners perfect. If there is out of focus or sky there, you will not notice a thing. The new zooms are not much better.<br>

NX2 corrects lateral CA automatically and is my prefered program for editing, $119 at Cameta camera. It is better than Photoshop for Nikon.</p>

<p>Only M and A modes will work. S and P mode will be lost unless you have chipped lenses.<br>

The 17/35 is chipped. See if the 80/200 has the same electronic contacts.<br>

Ai lenses have a step in the lens mount skirt between 8 and 16 depending on speed of the lens. Check the primes.</p>

<p> </p>

[wpahnelas]

<p>theodore, what your friend told you is exactly wrong. that is, the old AI and AI-S lenses can give superb performance on D3. not all equally great, of course. you will have to judge for yourself with each individual lens you own. in general, working with the classics can be very satisfying, especially if you enjoy a slower, more methodical style of shooting.</p>

[christiaan_phleger___honol]

<p>The 180 ED is particularly fine....</p>

[niccoury]

<p>If I'm not mistaken, the 17-35 should be the AF one. Was there a 17-35 AIS? I don't think so.</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>So far there is only one version of the 17-35mm/f2.8, which is the AF-S that was introduced 10 years ago along with the original D1. Back in the AI-S era (1980's), zoom technology was much inferior and no quality super-wide zoom was possible.</p>