Lenses and Nikon Camera

I have a Nikon N70 and a Nikon Series E 70--210mm f4 zoom lense I haven't used in combination for quite awhile and need help in refreshing my memory in antcipation of a trip coming up right away. As best I remember and can tell from my review, I can't use many of the N70s auto features with this lense such as shutter priority etc. This being the case, what is the recommended auto feature setting for exposure mode on the N70, if any, for use with this lense? Or is it possibly preferable to just put the N70 on manual?

Thanks,
Tom

The problem is that a lot of manual focus lenses will do this with a lot of automatic cameras (not all, so I won't generalize). With a lot of them, you can use either manual or aperture priority (A) mode with manual focus lenses. Out of the four (P,S,A and M) modes, most of the time I use A anyway. You'll probably get CW center weighted metering because of the manual focus lens, not matrix - which shouldn't be a big deal if you're careful with metering.

Definitely try it out and make sure to get a roll of film developed before the trip - that way you can be sure everything is working properly.

Check this link: http://www.nikonians.org/nikon/slr-lens.html

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Originally Posted by another view

The problem is that a lot of manual focus lenses will do this with a lot of automatic cameras (not all, so I won't generalize). With a lot of them, you can use either manual or aperture priority (A) mode with manual focus lenses. Out of the four (P,S,A and M) modes, most of the time I use A anyway. You'll probably get CW center weighted metering because of the manual focus lens, not matrix - which shouldn't be a big deal if you're careful with metering.

Definitely try it out and make sure to get a roll of film developed before the trip - that way you can be sure everything is working properly.

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Thanks for your answer. And I am running some rolls through before departure

It will help my understanding (or at least I think it will) if you can explain why one lense (Nikkor 35--80) you lock at the smallest aperture and the other (E 70-210) doesn't have a lock. What do I lose on the larger lense other than auto focusing and the inability to use shutter priority and is this "loss" related somehow to the lock feature or the absence thereof?

Thanks again,
Tom

It is the AF lenses that have the aperture lock switch, and it has nothing to do with the focal length. The aperture gets locked into the minimum f-stop so that the camera can use any available setting in "S" or "P" mode. Of course those two modes aren't available with manual focus lenses on your camera anyway. Like I said earlier, it wouldn't bother me personally not to have those two modes for my style of shooting.

You'll notice on the autofocus lens that there are small round electrical contacts on the lens mount that line up with gold contacts in the camera body. This allows the camera and lens to communicate, and without this you (generally) won't be able to use things like S and P mode and matrix metering. Also, because of these contacts it's highly recommended to turn off the camera before changing lenses.