jimh

It's VERY simple to "AI" a PC-Nikkor at home. Since they don't have auto aperture they can never be considered AI, but they can easily be modified to fit cameras requiring AI lenses.

 

While an AI-conversion of a normal lens requires some precision to get the angles for aperture indexing right, converting a PC-Nikkor is simply a matter of grinding away a couple of millimeters of the whole skirt.

 

Just remove the skirt from the lens, put it in a vice, use a file for a couple of minutes and consider it AI'd.

I have the SDIII myself and scanning as color negative makes no practical difference in density range.

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What <i>does</i> make a difference though is scanning as positive. Either B&W or color. When scanning as positive you can catch all information in the negatives, with the exception of strongly overdeveloped ones.

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Minolta's software seems to be calibrated only for C41 films. It is impossible to capture the density range of a conventional B&W film when in the negative modes.

Thanks, Joseph. I really appreciate the explanation of <i>why</i> they behave different.

It surprises me that the D50 and D70 apparently needs CPU equipped lenses for flash exposure.

 

My D100 gives ttl flash metering with any lens, with the same features I get with an AF lens without the D feature. Only the ambient metering is shut off when mounting a lens without electronics.

600 km is no problem in Sweden and Finland. There is not much traffic on the roads except for near the bigger cities like Stockholm and Helsinki. Most roads have only two lanes though, so trucks and caravans can sometimes be hard to pass. I have a house 650 km north of Stockholm (where I live). That drive usually takes about 8 hours, and I have at least <i>some</i> energy left when I get there.

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If I wanted to stop and see things along the way and perhaps have a couple of cups of coffee as well, then I'd say 600 km is the upper limit for one day. You can drive farther, but then you won't be doing anything else than driving that day.

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I think your travel plans look very good (providing you have enough time). The nature of the High coast has nothing in common with Stockholm and Lapland has nothing in common with the High coast, so you will have lots of experiences. If I were to choose I'd give Norway higher priority than Rovaniemi. You will be able to experience the Finnish type of nature in Sweden, but the Norwegian coast is a totally different matter. I have never been to northern Norway but it is very high on my list of things I want to do.

Would the combination of D70 and AF 50/1.8 non-D be of interest? If it is, I can get you a file tomorrow.

The scanning will work fine with your computer.

 

You may find that you want a little more memory for the post processing though. But it's not mandatory, more of a convenience.

6553.5 sounds too close to 65536 to be a pure coincidence. 65536 is the largest decimal value that can be represented with a 16 bit digital system. My guess is that the camera has a 16 bit timer and can't stay open longer.

 

If it wasn't for the specific value, I would have guessed your batteries just went bad.

 

The hot areas are probably there because of electronics close to the sensor getting hot.

Use "one thread" as a search term to limit the results to individual threads.

It's no problem operating it with one hand. It's a good meter. No extra features besides the averaging function. A little plasticky perhaps.

 

The only thing I'm missing is the ability to let the shutter speeds step in 1/10 stops instead of the aperture, but with an older Nikon where he shutter only has full stops that's not a problem.

 

I have no experience with the spot attachment though, although I think ten degrees sound a bit much to be really usable.

 

In that price range I'd also consider the Gossen Digisix (or Digiflash if you need flash metering). The Minolta has much better user interface but the Gossen is really small and easy to carry everywhere. It doesn't have spot metering either.

I even had an AF 80-200/2.8 but I discovered very quickly that I would never like it. It's way too big and heavy for me who never photograph at big apertures anyway and always use a tripod. The weight in the bag is a big issue for beeing able to walk far in the wilderness. <p>Fortunately it had an issue with infinity focusing so I could send it back.

I couldn't agree more. Though for me personally I think the price för the 80-200/2.8 zooms isn't the big issue, but the weight. I have no need for f/2.8 if it comes with the weight penalty of the Nikon zooms. Nikon has the x0-200/2.8 and the 70-300/4-5.6 but without a high quality option in between, except for the 70-180 micro which is slow, heavy and expensive.

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Canon has a killer lens in the 70-200/4. It's affordable, good weight, high quality and has a tripod collar. I can't understand that Nikon hasn't answered. And I'm even more surprised that none of the third party manufacturers has come up with a lens in that class.

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I ended up with an 80-200/4 AI-S. It's a pity that it lacks a tripod collar and that it doesn't seem to have enough room inside for a CPU transplant (which I discovered <i>after</i> I got the donour lens for the chip). But it's a superb lens and right now seems to be my only option.

Google seems to filter out a lot of content now that was visible a while a go.

 

The solution seems to be to go directly to google and use site:photo.net as a search term. Strangely that gives a lot more hits.

The distance between bayonet and sensor <i>is</i> actually greater on Nikon than Pentax. It's about 1 mm difference. I don't however know of any adapters. I guess there wouldn't be enough room for the bayonet itself.

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Automatic stop down and coupled metering is very rare in adapters between brands.

You can grind the ring on a non-AI lens to make it an AI. But you can't make it an AI-S, because one of the differences between AI and AI-S is that the latter has a linear movement of the aperture relative to the aperture pin, but the former hasn't.

<p><a href="http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/lhhansen/photo/repair/aimod/aimod.htm">Here</a> is some information about AI conversion.

Hi Jani :-)

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I don't have a source in Finland for you, but a couple of suggestions for where you can look.

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Knife making is a big hobby in Sweden, it must be even bigger in Finland. I bet there must be some kind of web sites dedicated to knife making where you can find a source of dyes.

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<a href="http://nordellknives.com/eng/eng_laderbehand.htm">Here</a> are some dyes from a Swedish knife company.

<p>If that fails, there has to be some general hobby store where they sell handicraft materials like pearls, textile, fine wood and stuff like that. In Sweden we have a chain called Panduro and I bet they have leather dyes. Other possible sources are saddlers and car reconditioners working with high end and/or older cars.

The 401 was the first Nikon to set the aperture on the body.

Try asking at <a href="http://www.fotosidan.se">fotosidan.se</a>, a Swedish photo community with 19000+ members.

(the holder I had to cut was a P holder)

P is almost too small for a 19-35 so A is definitely out of the question. I had to cut off my holder to use it with a 19-35.

I have trimmed several Hitech filters to fit the Cokin holder without a problem. I just use a regular file and hold the filter by the edges when working on it.

 

Strange though that some Hitech filters actually fit without modification. Hitech should be 85 mm and Cokin 84. But some Hitech filters are 84 mm and fit perfectly.

Interesting solution. Does the film get completely flat or is it just the irregular smaller curvature that dissappears? If it gets flat this could be a solution for negatives and slides that have too large a curvature for the scanner holder as well, not just sandwiched slides.

<i>exceptional skin tones, faithful color reproduction and the flexibility of broad exposure latitude</i> and <i>achieving top-level granularity among ISO 100 slide films</i> sounds like Astia. Good news.

Olympus OM-1 with Zuiko 50/1.8? :-)

It loads in my browser. Although not dead it is slow indeed, about a minute or two.