Nikon having Cheaper Primes?

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SimonUK

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Am i the only one who has noticed that Nikon has much much cheaper Primes than Canon? With 35/50 and 85 under the 200 mark? Because of this i'm considering the switch to Nikon, with the 400ish i could make from selling all my current Canon gear, i could get like a d70/d100 and a 35+50+85 primes!

Anyone else noticed this?
 
The 35mm f/1.8 DX is one canon doesn't make. But that's over £200 on it's own (cracking little lens though)
The 50mm f/1.8 is roughly the same price as the canon (better build quality but lacking a focus motor for AF on lower bodies). Around £100.
I've never seen the 85mm f/1.8 D for under £200 new. It's roughly the same as the canon 85 f/1.8 USM in price.
 
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I'd check your prices - the 85 is £300. I think the prices are comparable for comparable lenses (doubtless someone will be along to show me I'm wrong)

Seems a bad reason to swap
 
I'm saving your post to show my wife next time she comments on how much my gear has cost me. :D
"at least I didn't buy those expensive Canon ones dear".... :lol:


Kev.
 
It seems to me. Second hand that the primes are much cheaper and that there are alot more of them! I may be wrong though.
 
You're looking at old manual focus nikkors.

Interesting, you can pick up nikon F - EF mount adaptors for only around £20 and use those old manual focus lenses on your canon body.
You can get a whole load of other adaptors for canon as well, M42, C/Y, PK, OM etc. opens up a large selection of manual focus lenses that you can't use on nikon bodies (the diametre of nikon's F bayonet is smaller, so lenses can't be positioned with the correct flange distance).
I thought you said somewhere that you have a load of old M42 lenses that you love using on your 1D. The old nikkors on nikon DSLR's will be the same to use as that, all manual.

Somewhat ironically, old canon FD lenses are the only (except rangefinder leicas and stuff like that) lenses you can't adapt (effectively) onto EF mount, because the bayonet diametre is the same size as EF.
 
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squishy said:
You're looking at old manual focus nikkors.

Interesting, you can pick up nikon F - EF mount adaptors for only around £20 and use those old manual focus lenses on your canon body.
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This is true. The MFness of the Len's really doesn't bother me. The only thing i use on my Canons now is MF M42 primes anyway. For me-Faffing around with Adaptors isn't really worth it. With the Canons you have to -Take the Len's off, Then unscrew teh adaptor which can be hard, then put the new lens on, then put the Len's with the adaptor onto the camera. With the Nikons it seems alot easier just to pop the lens on and off.

Been thinking about switching for a while, and i'm getting a D60 and Nifty for a week tomorrow to try it and see if i like the system. To me in my eyes it seem's to be cheaper for what i want to do. Obviously if i had money then i'd drop it on the Canon Primes but money isn't that hard to come by when your 15 and trying to live aswell and buy camera equipment.
 
It would be even cheaper just to buy an adaptor for each of your current lenses ;)
 
Also depending on the Nikon body you can even set the MF Nikkor lenses up to give you full Auto Exposure with open aperture metering. So only the focus is manual.
 
EdBray said:
Also depending on the Nikon body you can even set the MF Nikkor lenses up to give you full Auto Exposure with open aperture metering. So only the focus is manual.
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Yeah yeah!
 
EdBray said:
Also depending on the Nikon body you can even set the MF Nikkor lenses up to give you full Auto Exposure with open aperture metering. So only the focus is manual.
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Fair point, that would make manual focussing easier if you're not viewing through a stopped down viewfinder.

I think I read somewhere that it's the Dx00 series that can do this? So the D100 should.
 
Yeah, i think most of the will meter. Thats the only problem with Nikon, they have a really really stupid system for numbering things, and the Prefix's are silly and hard to understand :P
 
squishy said:
Fair point, that would make manual focussing easier if you're not viewing through a stopped down viewfinder.

I think I read somewhere that it's the Dx00 series that can do this? So the D100 should.
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If I remember correctly it started with the D200.
 
SimonUK said:
This is true. The MFness of the Len's really doesn't bother me. The only thing i use on my Canons now is MF M42 primes anyway. For me-Faffing around with Adaptors isn't really worth it. With the Canons you have to -Take the Len's off, Then unscrew teh adaptor which can be hard, then put the new lens on, then put the Len's with the adaptor onto the camera. With the Nikons it seems alot easier just to pop the lens on and off.

Been thinking about switching for a while, and i'm getting a D60 and Nifty for a week tomorrow to try it and see if i like the system. To me in my eyes it seem's to be cheaper for what i want to do. Obviously if i had money then i'd drop it on the Canon Primes but money isn't that hard to come by when your 15 and trying to live aswell and buy camera equipment.
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...Or you could just unscrew the lens from the adapter, leaving the adapter on the body? This is what I always do when swapping one M42 lens for another on my 50D.

You also get pretty reliable metering with any lens on a Canon body, in either M or Av mode. IIRC you can't use the Av mode on most (all?) Nikons unless the lens has the electrical contacts in it to talk to the body. I may be wrong as I pretty much only use Canon but I've found my 50D very, very versatile in terms of what I can mount on it. I have lenses ranging from a 28mm f/2.8 Nikon to a Kaligar 135mm f2.8 (a little soft wide open but crazy sharp when stopped down to f/5.6, almost puts my Canon 50mm f/1.8 to shame) to a Optimax 300mm f/5.5 (impossible to MF, although easier than my Tokina 500mm f/8 mirror lens).
 
manualfocus-g said:
Um, M42 adapters for Canon are not much more than a fiver these days...! Just buy one for each lens :D
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What nikon lenses can you use in this way? Reason I ask is I am a nikon shooter and j want to do some video. I have been waiting for nikon to release the D800 or D4 hoping it will do HD video. I am looking at the D7000 in the interim, but considered a Canon with an f4 zoom to keep me out of trouble. Now if I could use some of my nikon glass that would look a more attractive option. I'm guessing it has to be nikkor lenses with an aperture ring?
 
lensflair said:
What nikon lenses can you use in this way? Reason I ask is I am a nikon shooter and j want to do some video. I have been waiting for nikon to release the D800 or D4 hoping it will do HD video. I am looking at the D7000 in the interim, but considered a Canon with an f4 zoom to keep me out of trouble. Now if I could use some of my nikon glass that would look a more attractive option. I'm guessing it has to be nikkor lenses with an aperture ring?
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You'd need a Nikon adapter, not an M42 adapter for that purpose:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Nikon-G-Lens-...ns_caps_hoods_adaptors_ET&hash=item2a0c6f231f

Remember you'd lose AF and VR and would need to stop the aperture down manually.
 
kev_blizard said:
Quality comes at a price Kev :D
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It's that white paint that's expensive Kev. They use it to mask the flaws in the lens bodies. ;)
Luckily Nikon don't have that problem, so we don't need the paint. BUT we do use it occasionally. On the ones that do get through quality control. We slap some white tippex on them (just like Canons) and sell them off as ok!! :D
See you soon mate. ;)

Kev.
 
Nuffles said:
...Or you could just unscrew the lens from the adapter, leaving the adapter on the body? This is what I always do when swapping one M42 lens for another on my 50D.

You also get pretty reliable metering with any lens on a Canon body, in either M or Av mode. IIRC you can't use the Av mode on most (all?) Nikons unless the lens has the electrical contacts in it to talk to the body. I may be wrong You are, as I stated earlier in the Thread the Nikon D200 and up can use AI and AIS fit lenses in both Av and M open aperture modes as they have an AI (auto indexing) ring (see image below) as I pretty much only use Canon but I've found my 50D very, very versatile in terms of what I can mount on it. I have lenses ranging from a 28mm f/2.8 Nikon to a Kaligar 135mm f2.8 (a little soft wide open but crazy sharp when stopped down to f/5.6, almost puts my Canon 50mm f/1.8 to shame) to a Optimax 300mm f/5.5 (impossible to MF, although easier than my Tokina 500mm f/8 mirror lens).
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lenscompatible.gif
 
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