Made in Japan. This teleconverter fits on NIKON F cameras. It is a MF thing, however it has automatic aperture control as stated in its name “AUTO”. It increases focal length by the factor of 2. It came with a very elegant zipping pocket. It has a metal prong that joins lens aperture setting to the converter and then to camera if fitted with apropriate mechanics.
I can mount my AI/S lenses but cannot mount my NIKKOR 50/2 due to excessive length of mounting bracket on the lens which goes to far into converter. Lens at 150mm with this converted will be 300mm. 210mm lens will go at 420mm. Amount of light is lessend by the factor of 2, same as focal length but to the opposite side. In case one have f/3.5 on the lens, now it will be f/7 at least. I think that there might be even less light available.
Regarding build quality. It is quite decent. Glass and metal. Regarding optical quality, it is above my expectations. I though that it gonna be somehow bad or really bad as it was inexpensive purchase. However it very good or good light it is usable. In low light better keep at home.
Above you can find two examples at 200% magnification. First one was taken with Nikon 150mm, now at 300mm, aperture f/3.5, now at f/7. Second one was taken with Vivitar 210mm, now at 420mm, aperture f/4.5, now at f/9. You can clearly see differences in picture clarity in terms of contrast and detail levels. I think that even having 120mm less, Nikon 70-150mm Series E f/3.5 performs better than Vivitar.
At higher magnification it looks like above. Same level of details. This show superiority of Nikon over Vivitar in that case. It simply has better resolution.
I was looking for NIKON camera that will allow me to use manual focus lenses with proper light metering. I found that D200 would suite this need. It a 10 megapixels camera with SONY ICX-483-AQA sensor. It seems that is the only camera using this one. It is more or less the same as on D80 only being capable of faster data read-out. It is a CCD type sensor.
NIKON D200
It has a lot of pro features like top LCD with work parameters. It has a lot of switches so you are free of going into menu to change anything. You can skip LCD for almost everything you need to take pictures. It has no live view so you could use only LCD to change AUTO ISO or to preview pictures. No motion picture capturing either. It has one button which can be programmed. I have programmed mine to let focal length and minimum F number for MF lenses. It has DOF preview button.
Design
It is a very solid metal body which can survive fall from 2m to concrete surface. Mine got tested that way. It has crack next to battery compartment. Nothing else suffered. I must admit that this was very impressive. Rubber falls off as on any other NIKON cameras. You need to glue it a little bit to stick to the body. It is quite heavy. A lot heavier than D70S. It is lighter than earlier pro cameras like D1. Buttons, switches and scrolls seems to be very solid made.
You can mount any NIKON F AI lens. You can mount as well AI/S, AF, D and G lenses. You cannot mount pre AI lenses. On AF-P lenses, AF will not work. Fortunately you can have both light-metering and focus confirmation on AI and AI/S lenses, which is the most important thing.
It has stronger filter atop the sensor making patterns less sharp but with less color artifacts such as moire. I have compared it with D70S and it seems to be less sharp overall. I defined sharpness here as being able to resolve details at proper contrast. D70s performs better here even having only 6 megapixels sensor. In case of taking good or bad pictures it does not matter that much. One day I will elaborate more about my chase for 35mm film like look with a lessen black level, broad dynamic range accross the same, near contrast levels. It is easier to accomplish this not with D200, but with D70s. Shame for it that it does not have light-metering with AI lenses. I would not bother then with different cameras.
Samples
Conclusion
It is a very good camera, worth its money. You can judge it yourself by taking a look at sample pictures above. If it suits your needs there give it a try. Remember to keep spare battery in a pocket as camera drains it very fast.
This would be my favorite and the only one digital camera, except one thing. It does not meter light on AI lenses, unfortunately. My copy already shot almost 50 000 pictures. It shows no wear at all, including battery.
Design
I think that being lightweight and having such a great battery (ie. low power consumption) makes this camera almost perfect one. It allows you to print A4 or event bigger with great quality. It has only 6 megapixels, but this does not count at all. It has CCD sensor and great set of filters atop of it. Pictures you take looks like taken with 35mm film. You should get of cource some decent lenses to get that kind of look, but the camera make it a lot easier. I run it with custom picture style which is increased sharpness and increased tone/contrast.
Regarding battery. Sometimes I even forget where I put a charger. On a single cycle you can take up to 1 500 pictures. Even with flash and preview on the screen you can get around 500. That’s a lot. Comparing to other DSLR cameras it is the best measure I found so far.
NIKON D70S DSLR CAMERA
Although make in Thailand it presents very good build quality. It lacks of falling off rubberized elements, but it has some sticky rubber things, especially on CF card cover. I was forced to scratch this rubber completely because it was so annoying.
Pro features
It looks like a pro camera put into consumer camera. It has top LCD with runtime parameters. It has plenty of buttons which you can use to set the most important things without going into main screen menu. That is really important in terms of working speed. It has pro style shutter speed of 1/8000 and what is the most important thing it synchronizes flash up to 1/500 of a second. Even now it is a lot. With such a feature, you can easily use flash to shot with filling light, event outdoors. Such a speed increases battery lifespan, because the shortest it is, the smallest amount of power is being used. It has limited AUTO ISO.
Limitations
One would say that it has certain limitations, such as too few AF points, slow AF with motor in the body. By the way it is also a feature in demand. You can use this body with non-motorized lenses. It lacks AF type button on the body. You need to go inside screen menu to change it. There is no non-CPU lens menu position, so if you put some AI lens, you will get f/0 and 0 mm in picture’s EXIF.
ISO
Concerning ISO speeds I have been little confused at the first moment, we start here with ISO 200. Nowadays, people are confident with ISO 100 as a baseline which was not in the past. For long time base film speeds numbers were lot smaller and only in the second half of XX century there was ISO 100 as a let’s call it standard. Actually now it has nothing to do with it as with digital cameras. It is more or less only a signal amplification and I have hears that there were some ideas about keeping this amplification only in the RAW pictures not applying or settings it anywhere. Correct me if I am wrong, but this was SIGMA case. I think that setting ISO number has some other implications but to me it is unrelevant unless you get more color artifacts because of lack of light, which you can call noise. To recap, I am good with ISO 200 as base number, because I can shoot at 1/8000 of a second. You could compare other DSLR manufactures cameras and their base ISO (as well as measured one) but I think that is no use of it. What it is really important is picture quality and overall picture style coming from the camera plus good lens.
If we are concerned about ISO and quality I must say that 400 is still okey, 800 could be better and 1600 use if you have to. Comparing to CMOS sensors such as CANON’s, their perform better in low light, that is a fact. But to me, NIKON’s D70S gives more pleasant picture style. I could call it misterious one with some special kind of black tone and noise granulation. It is a reminescense of 35mm film as I stated ealier.
Samples
Here you have some examples of pictures taken with NIKON D70S.
at macro reversed CANON kit lens, 1/20, ISO 640at SOLIGOR M42 200 mm with adapter, 1/1600, ISO 200at 50mm, 1/320, ISO 200at 50mm, 1/400, ISO 200at 50mm, 1/125, ISO 400at 50mm, 1/2000, ISO 200at 35mm, f/5.6, 1/2000, ISO 200at 70mm, f/8, 1/5000, ISO 1600
One thing is worth mentioning about the last picture. If you increase ISO up to 1600, reds would be more acceptable than at lower ISO speeds. Increasing ISO makes color more flat and not so vivid. It is a desirable effect as for me.
Conclusion
I am very satisfied with this camera. In case it will break I will get another one, that is for sure. Thery are really cheap, and still you can get one with low shutter count. Feature set is more than enough sometimes. I started even thinking, why do we have cameras with more megapixels in cropped format. They would be more pixel density and manufacturing process will be more complex showing no real world benefits. Why do everyone would like have more megapixels if still you would print no so big formats or crop to put pictures online. I am not quite sure. In terms of low light shooting it seems that people forget that it is only about the light and nothing else matters actually. Raising the bar to shoot with more theoretical resolution and with even less light is a demanding feature, but is it really worth it?
This is one of my favorites. It is a NIKON F mount, AI lens with constant speed at f/2. It is a regular/normal lens. It has no AF, only MF. This copy come from between 1977 and 1979. It is clean inside. Focus and aperture ring operate very well. No visible damages.
NIKKOR 50 f/2, backNIKKOR 50 f/2, sideNIKKOR 50 f/2, front
Performance
When it comes to picture quality it has very decent parameters.
at 50mm, f/4, 1/1250, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 50mm, f/2,8, 1/1000, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 50mm, f/2, 1/2000, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 50mm, 1/50, ISO 400, NIKON D70Sat 50mm, 1/6400, ISO 200, NIKON D70Sat 50mm, 1/640, ISO 200, NIKON D70S
As it has short focal length, shooting landscapes will be a little bit difficult with cameras below 10 megapixels. You will not be able to resolve too much details. Quite opposite with closeups or midrange targets. You can easily take pictures event wide open at f/2, but if you would like to be 100% sure that you will not have any kind of defocus, mist etc, please stick between f/2.8 and f/5.6. Use f/8 and f/11 only if necessary. Use only f/2 in low light or if you like to get some sparklings in the background. In terms of contrast and color, you get good ones.
Conclusion
Strongly recommend it. It is general purpose lens with huge potential and reasonable price. It is metal and glass built piece of lens.
As always I bought it for next to nothing. It is NIKON F mount lens. To be more precise it it a AI lens. No AI-S features. This review will be a little shorter than usually, because the lens is crippled by malfunctioning aperture blades. I can only shoot wide open at f/3.5. Mine has 3 months guarantee so I will not hesitate to send it back.
Design
It is a telephoto lens which operates by barrel rotation. It says it is MC, but I cannot see anyway. It is an automatic lens, so you can frame picture wide open and then camera will trigger mechanical coupling to close aperture appropiately. It keeps focus while zooming. Zoom, focus and aperture rings run smoothly. It is not so convenient as with push-pull, because framing and focusing takes a little longer.
SOLIGOR 70-150 f/3.5 MC AUTO
In general it is very well built with metal and glass. And of course it is an inexpensive expenditure. My copy has little dust inside and no fungus.
Performance
It can be easily seen at wide open f/3.5 at far range that it is soapy. Of course very few people try to shoot wide open outdoors. Still it should be at least sharp enough without significant haze seen. It is not.
at 150mm, f/3.5, 1/250, ISO 100, NIKON D200
As it is sharp it also has a lot of mist put on the picture in front. Contrast is quite okey, same thing with colors. It is not that bad. At close range it is also very sharp and also very misty.
at 70mm, f/3.5, 1/1250, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 150mm, f/3.5, 1/200, ISO 100, NIKON D200
Soap effect is mimized at 150mm close-ups. It is heavy at 70mm or 100mm. Stopping down to f/11 gives very good results at 150mm, 100mm and even 70mm. On the last picture there is a net put on window and it is important that you do not see moire because it was shoot on NIKON D200 which has improved filter atop the sensor which lacks a little bit of sharpness but gives better results in terms of patterns.
Conclusion
In case you could get working copy unaffected with aperture damage and without fungus you can start with f/5.6 and shot close, mid and far ranges with quite good results. Avoid f/3.5 outdoors. For such a price it is not a sin at least to try this lens and pass it on.
Together with NIKON 75-150 f/3.5 and SOLIGOR 70-150 f/3.5 I recently purchased this one, which is NIKON F mount VIVITAR 70-210 telephoto lens with constant f/4.5. My main criteria did not change, so it should be reasonably priced and built. I thought that this would be a good one. Now I know that it has some issues. I bought this one with a camera N2000. Unfortunately camera has some issues with leaked batteries, in simple words it was damaged in terms of electronics.
Compatibility
It is a telephoto zoom lens for NIKON F cameras. To be precise it is AI-S lens with mechanical coupling for transmitting aperture to the camera. Such a coupling is missing in NIKON E SERIES lenses. One should notice that on the mouting ring there is written “N/AI-S” which I think it means NIKON/AI-S but I may be wrong. For sure it does not mean non-AI, because it has all the AI specifics and I can easiliy put it on my D200 or event D70s (which certain limitation which is metering).
Design
It is somehow tough piece of metal and glass with little rubber and plastic. It is pull-push design. To get 70mm you push away. To get 210mm you push forward. Zooming rotates front barrel, so no good with grad filter or similar.
VIVITAR 70-210 F/4.5 MC, MACRO FOCUSING ZOOM
There is no zoom creep at all. Zooming and focusing gives proper resistance while rotation is ongoing. As with similar designs, this also wobbles a little bit and outer barrel. Aperture ring rotates smoothly. It has no DOF range markings except for IR one.
Performance
My copy has some defect, which is dust and a lot of fungus inside. Effectively I get low contrast pictures with some kind of a mist. It says that this lens is MC, but frankly speaking I cannot see this greenish tint on it. It is rather neutral, so I do not think it remained even SC. It also says that it has MACRO FOCUSING ZOOM which gives 1:1 close-ups only at 210mm. Knowing that I tested it at close ranges. Here are the results.
at 210mm, f/8, 1/100, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 210mm, f/8, 1/320, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 210mm, f/5.6, 1/100, ISO 320, NIKON D200at 210mm, f/4.5, 1/350, ISO 100, NIKON D200
In the middle range it gives a lot of sharpness and contrast. But not every time. You should stronly avoid pointing at the light source or even be at 90 degress (on the ground) to it. All other directions seem to be good enough and even if not, it would be easy to fix later in post processing.
at 135mm, f/8, 1/200, ISO 100, NIKON D200
At the telephoto range shooting landscapes it gives a lot of details and constant contrast which is way better than close or mid range.
at 210mm, f/11, 1/200, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 210mm, f/4.5, 1/1000, ISO 100, NIKON D200, cropped
Conclusion
It is quite good lens, with some potential. Not sure if it is only because of my copy conditions, but it lacks of proper contrast. When not stopped it is too bright in viewfinder showing some flares. Shooting only with light behind. I find it only useful at 210mm. From 70mm to 100mm it is only okey. At 135mm is quite okey. I think that showing only good shots could possible make a false impression that every shot will be okey. That is not the case. Please remember how many shots are in poor light conditions or simply blurred because of camera movement. In august, in the morning there is good light with proper shading, that is why almost all lenses would give good performance.
As many know, NIKON cameras and lenses have been heavily used by pros in the 1970-1980. They invest a lot in their gear. That is why the compatibility is important. You do not choose only a camera or lens, you choose complete system. If this system keeps backwards compatiblity then you are good to go. With some exceptions…
F mount was introduced in 1958. Major upgrade happened in the late 1970s by showing AI type lenses, which pass aperture information to the camera by using mechanical lever. Then, there were minor upgrades like AI-S which one can recognize by having depressed channel on the mount ring, which looks like little well.
In the 1980s NIKON introduced AF system which was compatible with AI and AI-S. In the 1990s there was D which transmitts distance to the camera which may help with proper flash exposure settings. There were also not to so popular on the aftermarket model lines like AI-I, AI-S and AI-P which basically have its own AF motor. Secondary model description letters tells us about the motor type being installed in the lens. I won’t cover it by now, because I do not own aby of these. I may say something about AI, AI-S, AF which I do own. There is also G type lens which lacks aperture ring. In my very case, it is no use, because I aim at using also MF cameras.
MF cameras
If you would like to shot with MF camera and pre-AI lenses then you choice should be as follows: Nikkormat FTN/FT/FT2, F2, F2S, F2SB, Nikkormat EL, ELW. You can mount pre-AI lenses as well as AI/AI-S lenses on these cameras. If you aim shooting only AI/AI-S as well as Series E, AF, AF-S then of course limited only to MF you can easily choose the following cameras: Nikkormat FT3/EL2, FM, F2A, F2AS, FE, F3/F3HP. With pre-AI you will be able to mount such lenses, but will be stopped down. In case you do not aim at pre-AI lenses and would like to shoot only with AI/AI-S, Series E, AF, AF-S you get the following: EM, FG/FG20, FE2, FA, FM2, N2000/F301, FM10FE10.
AF cameras
If you would like to shoot AF camera then your choices seems to be quite limited because I do not recommend selecting the cheapest and the most popular because their lack of support for almost anything. I recommend going with F4, F5, F100, F70, F90. You will not be disappointed by these. With F4 yo will be able to mount pre-AI lenses.
AI/AI-S, AF, AF-I/AF-S, D
F5, F100, F70, F90.
AI/AI-S, AF, D
N2020, F601, F801. No AF feature on AF-I/AF-S.
AF/D
F60, F50, F401x. No AI/AI-S metering, AF-I/AF-S will not have AF.
Recently I have been looking for some old style NIKON F AI MF lenses across the internet. I got this one. It is a discount, costs next to nothing. Of course it’s not only about the money, but about the performance you can get from it. It’s a NIKON F mount, AI-S lens. AI-S has a depressed notch on the mounting ring. AI in general has secondary f-stops markings but more importantly has light-meter coupling.
Compatibility
I can mount it on my NIKON D200 camera and get both focus confirmation dot in viewfinder as well as proper metering thanks to its AI featured lever. My main objective was to keep it low-cost, old-style, MF, proper metal and glass build. So it is AI-S.
I cannot get light metering on my NIKON D70S, because it lacks mechanical coupling for reading it from lens mouting ring. Shooting on this camera with AI, AI-S lenses, either you get external light meter or remember all numbers by yourself. I cannot get light metering neither on my NIKON F50. Reason is the same as with D70S. With digital is only a matter of few more tries. With film it won’t work, you cannot check instantly if you are good with exposure. Need to get different camera like F70, or EL. For sure I will try to describe it more precisely soon.
Design
This lens can be operated in pull-push manner. To get 75mm you need to push away, to get 150mm, pull it to the maximum. Unfortunately focusing rotates the outer barrel, so no good with screwed grad filters. Fortunately focus does not change with zoom. It is very convinient to focus on 150mm and do final framing on 75mm.
NIKON 75-150 f/3.5 (up to f/32), SERIES E
It has markings for DOF ranges. It says nothing about any coatings. Just that is was made in Japan. Some copies suffer zoom creep which is basically a tendency to fall/slide along with gravitation changing our zoom position set previously. My very copy is free of this defect. I must say that is has some foreign matter inside like dust and fungus. Not that much, it does not affect image quality in any reasonable way. Minimum focus at around 1 meter and it’s constant.
Performance
I have read that there are few things considered with inexpensive lens design. First is to minimize cost by limiting construction elements as well as linerizing manufacturing process. Second is to sacrifice one of its zoom positions, like normal or tele in terms of imaging quality.
at 150mm, f/8, 1/160, ISO 100, NIKON D200at 75mm, f/5.6, 1/140, ISO 160, NIKON D200at 100mm, f/5.6, 1/180, ISO 100, NIKON D200
Looking at some examples, I see very sharp images starting from f/4 up to f/11 with no to little image defects. Very sharp, contrasty, vivid one, you can get on tele at 150mm. I like it very much. Same with quasi-macro.
at 150mm, f/5.6, 1/250, ISO 100, NIKON D200
I think that is not real macro, but close to this, so someone says that it is quasi-macro. Nonetheless, sharpness occurs not only at distant subjects (like 1 km on the first example) but also on close one (like 1 meter). I have not conducted any sharpness tests across the corners as I think that it is not so important for the artistic purposes. It seems that shooting at 75mm or somewhere near 100mm would give less performance. Maybe a little.
Conclusion
It is one of my favorite lenses. It’s sharp, both normal and tele and most of all it is very cheap. It has constant f/3.5 which is good enough for almost anything you need. Stopping down only to f/4 gives so much more up to f/11. For obvious reasons you should not go for f/16 and above it if you don’t have to. Strongly recommend it. Beaware of poorly handled copies. Remember that it is AI-S and MF. Shot only with light source behind as it will be too bright and less contrastly while shooting against the light.
