[Leica] Nikon D2X review

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

At 9:04 PM +0200 5/10/05, Daniel Ridings wrote:
>Henning Wulff wrote:
>
>>When Nikon came out with the F80, I started looking around at other 
>>options. The abandonment of the manual focus lenses was written on 
>>the wall, and that was one of the main reasons I had stuck with 
>>Nikon.
>
>I don't know, Henning. I'm so used to using a hand-held meter with 
>my M's (only have M2, M3 and M4) and Rolleiflexes that the metering 
>has never really been a decisive issue with me.

Many of my cameras don't have exposure meters, including the large 
format stuff, some medium format and panoramic cameras and I have and 
use a variety of light meters, but I appreciate meters in the cameras 
and really can't understand why Nikon would decide that if you put a 
certain Nikon lens on a certain Nikon body you're prevented from 
using the meter in that body.

>The old 50/1.4 Nikkor from the 70'ies (doesn't even have the AI 
>notches) works just fine on the D100. I have to meter by hand, of 
>course, but as I said. No big deal. I have to do that the majority 
>of times anyway. Works on my F3's too.
>
>>Actually, in some respects the 20D works better with the AI lenses 
>>than the D70, or D100. It meters, but of course no automatic 
>>diaphragm is available. I still use some AI Nikkors on my 20D.
>
>Now no automatic stop-down would bother me to no end. _That_, for 
>me, would be unusable.

Well, the Nikon lenses I use most are a 400/5.6, 28PC and a 200/4 
Micro. All can be used with manual aperture; the first is used wide 
open anyway, as it doesn't get better stopped down, the second is 
preset, and for the third I don't mind using it in manual as the 
stopped down view lets me know better what I'm getting.

If I do general photography with a 50/1.4 or so, I too would like a 
stop down aperture, but then again I find the D100, D70 and of course 
the 20D to have very poor viewfinders for manual focussing, so I 
would get a 50/1.8 AF rather than keep on using a 50/1.4 manual. I 
know I would miss a lot of shots of my granddaughter if I depended on 
manual focussing the 20D.

>>The APS-C vs full frame debate seems pointless to me as the smaller 
>>format is just that; a smaller format. It has advantages and 
>>disadvantages. If you have or can get lenses that give you the 
>>angles of view you want, you're set.
>
>I agree. And that little cheapo that Nikon has come out with, the 
>18-70, is a real bargain. It made me start to like digital.
>
>Daniel


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    *            Henning J. Wulff
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