Although I have three digital cameras, I still do my “serious” photography with film. But I’m ready to go all-digital, and the camera I like best is the Nikon D90.
The lens that I use 99% of the time is a 28-300 zoom lens made by Tamron. The actual name is “AF aspherical XR LD (IF) 28-300mm 1:3.5-6.3 macro phi 62.” Since Nikon doesn’t make a comparable lens (the closest is 18-200), I’d like to continue using the Tamron.
Does anyone know if this lens is compatible with the D90? I’d be willing to sacrifice autofocus, if necessary.
I had no problems using the Nikon and Nikon-compatible AF lenses from my 20 year old Nikon film camera with my D-80 (or, rather, I didn’t have any problems until the lenses were stolen!) -but- the zoom range was quite different. I’m sure someone with more technical knowledge of the differences between film and digital cameras can explain the reasons why better than I could, but basically, you’ll be losing quite a bit off of the wide angle ability of that lens and gaining some telephoto. My 35-70mm lens behaved more like a medium telephoto when I used it on the digital.
Other than that, the mounting and all other functionality of the lens (including the autofocus) worked fine.
This answered a lot of my questions. I wasn’t aware that a digital 18-200 is the equivalent of a 35mm 28-300. But I think I’ll take my lens to a camera shop and see for myself.
The D90 (and all the models below it) are crop sensors, so multiply any focal length by 1.5x. The models above the D90 are full frame sensors and have the same optical properties as a 35mm film camera.
Getting a true wide angle is a little tougher on crop sensor cameras for this reason.
I’ve changed my mind. I’ve read many reviews on various sites, and decided that what I really want is the D90 with a new Nikon 18-200 lens (my second choice was the 18-135). I found the body and lens as a kit for less than $1000, so I placed the order this morning.
I’m going on vacation to France in 2 months, so I have that long to get used to the D90. Nikon’s site has a great tutorial that I’m playing with until the camera gets here.
Read up about the “fee” and “f–” errors. They take, literally, one second to fix, without tools. I’ve had people in the shop, who missed shooting for days, because they thought their camera was ‘broken’. The first error is fixed by putting the aperture ring to it’s smallest stop and the second is fixed by making sure that the lens is fully locked on the camera body.
Ooh ooh! I need the people in this thread to answer a similar question for me.
As a teenager about 10 years ago, I got into some amateur “professional” photography and blew some of my savings on a SLR. Being an idiot at the time, I went with a Minolta, and bought a couple of autofocus lenses to go with it. (A 28-80mm and a 75-300mm, IIRC.)
Now I’d like to get a DSLR, and it would be awfully nice to be able to use my old lenses with it. However, Minolta is no more, and its remains were eventually scavenged by Sony. I understand that some Sony DSLRs use the old Minolta AF lens mount.
Is there some resource that will tell me what cameras I can get with that lens mount? Sony’s website is, as far as I can tell, eminently unhelpful on this. Also, do Sony DSLRs suck? Should I just write off the whole enterprise and start over with new lenses?
I know very little about Minolta (I shoot Nikon), but some quick Googling indicates that Sony uses the Minolta “alpha” or “A” mount. If I were you, I would got to dpreview.com and ask about your particular lenses in the Sony forum.
The Sony DSLRs are considered good cameras. Sony makes the sensors for Nikon. Nikons seem to have an edge in image quality and usability, but the Sonys are fine cameras.
Thanks for that, beowulff. That site has a great camera database which includes “lens thread” for each camera. Looking at the various Sony DSLRs, some of them are apparently compatible with “Minolta A-type” and some aren’t.
So question answered, unless anyone else has opinions on Sony DSLRs.
Read this again. You are being scammed, the deal won’t go through as offered. They’ll tell you batteries aren’t included and offer to sell them to you for another $100, plus lots of other things. If you reject their offers they’ll cancel the deal. Just cancel the order now and be done with it. Who are you buying them from?
This is the same deal from B&H, the most respected mail order camera company on the net. You might be able to get it for 10% less from a reputable site, but not 40% less.
Ditto. And as Telemark said, they will likely charge lots extra for normal accessories, or send you the wrong units (not what you ordered), etc. You’re not going to get what you think you’re going to get.
I had placed the order with “Sonic Cameras.” Now, with a little more investigation, I’m hearing horrible things about them, and all sorts of warnings. I am canceling the order.
