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Tamron 500mm. mirror lens and d70 (1 Viewer)

rb_stern

rb_stern

Richard stern
I have a Tamron 500mm. SP f8 mirror lens that I used to use regularly on my old Pentax MZ-1 SLR. I would like to try it with my d70 dSLR. There is a detachable Tamron Adaptall mount, and I believe they exist for Nikon cameras too. Does anyone know if this set up will work - i.e. wiill one of the Adaptall Nikon mounts fit on the d70 (and if so, which mount?), and will metering work?

Thanks,

Richard
 
I have a Tamron 500mm. mirror lens with an Adaptall mount. The mount I use is the Nikon AI, vintage mid-1980's. I'm guessing these are still available. It mounts with no problem on my D100 body. Since the lens has no CPU, it will not meter. You have to estimate exposure or meter manually.
 
Thanks, and a metering question

Doug Greenberg said:
I have a Tamron 500mm. mirror lens with an Adaptall mount. The mount I use is the Nikon AI, vintage mid-1980's. I'm guessing these are still available. It mounts with no problem on my D100 body. Since the lens has no CPU, it will not meter. You have to estimate exposure or meter manually.
Click to expand...


Thanks, Doug. I see Adorama has them available. By "meter manually" can you do that with the camera by using the manual setting, setting the aperture to f8, then adjusting the shutter speed till the indicator in the viewfinder indicates the correct exposure?

BTW, I'm interested in this because I have the lens anyway, it may be a lighter occasional alternative to the 80-400 Nikkor, and unlike my old Pentax, I can try shooting handheld with high ISO settings.

Richard
 
No. The meter doesn't work, period. I meant you must use a hand-held or clip-on meter.
In actual practice, it's not hard to learn to estimate exposure for a test shot and then quickly check the histogram to see whether adjustment is needed. Using this method, one gets pretty good pretty quickly at estimating exposures in the field, just like in the old days.
DG
 
Doug Greenberg said:
No. The meter doesn't work, period.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I was using this lens on Canon (300d and 20d). If I used aperture priority the camera showed the aperture as 0 in the window (and EXIF), but selected shutter speed perfectly. I think I was told to try that by a Nikon owner. Does it not work ?

Mike.
 
citrinella said:
Interesting, I was using this lens on Canon (300d and 20d). If I used aperture priority the camera showed the aperture as 0 in the window (and EXIF), but selected shutter speed perfectly. I think I was told to try that by a Nikon owner. Does it not work ?

Mike.
Click to expand...

I never got any metering with manual lenses on my D70. But as stated earlier, guess work and histograms works a treat.
 
i have the tamron as well and have used it on a canon 350d in ap priority
and if i remember also program mode with no problems
 
This lens will work (and will meter) on a D200. One thing you'll discover is that the D200 with its high level of detail will reveal whatever weaknesses your lens may exhibit. I found that the apparent quality of photos with some lenses with my older D100 seems better than on the D200, since the lower resolution of the D100 kind of masks some of the flaws of lenses. The Tamron 500mm. mirror lens is a good lens, however, particularly for the price, and you should be able to get some fine photos using it.
 
rb_stern said:
How come this lens will meter on a D200 but not on a D70?

Richard
Click to expand...

Some Nikon cameras allow metering with manual lenses although the lower end ones, from the D80 down, do not. On the D200 (and the older F601m) there is a mechanical coupling on the lens mount which engages with a flange on the lens. This communicates the lens maximum aperture information to the camera.

For best results you need to enter the lens maximum aperture and focal length into the camera's memory. Then when you attach the lens, you select the appropriate lens from the list in the memory. It uses this information in the metering algorithm. Obviously this is of limited use for a zoom lens, especially if the maximum aperture is variable.

In my opinion this is one of the really neat aspects of the D200, helping to make it a first rate camera. For years people were complaining that almost no Nikon cameras would meter with manual lenses, so I guess Mr. Nikon and his little helpers were listening.
 
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