Lens compatible with the D3200?

soymoozsoymooz
edited February 2016 Posted in » Nikon D3200 Forum
Looking at a used SPIRATONE TELEPHOTO 400mm, f/6.3, 72, NO 64746, T-Mount, and I'm wondering if it would work with my son's Nikon?

Comments

  • fpginzofpginzo
    edited February 2016
    Definitely not, unless you use an adaptor. You can easily find it on the internet.
  • soymoozsoymooz
    edited February 2016
    Thank you! Is there any chance you know what kind of adapter I should look for? I know little about cameras! Thanks again.
  • brutobruto
    If it has a Nikon T mount adapter it will indeed work, but it will be entirely manual. It will not meter, it will have only manual or preset aperture, and it will work only in Manual mode.

    Even the most primitive Nikon F lenses generally have an automatic aperture, which means that you view wide open, and the lens stops down to its preset aperture only when it shoots, but a T mount lens will not have even that. It's likely a "preset" aperture, which means that there are two aperture rings on the lens. One is set to the chosen aperture with click stops, and the other moves freely between wide open and the preset aperture, so that you can view and focus wide open and then flick it down for the shot.

    You'll have to use either an external meter, or guess. The histogram view in the playback helps a lot here.

    This is not necessarily so awful. I routinely use a preset-aperture Nikkor PC lens on my D3200. But that's a very fine, very exotic lens which I already had, and the lens in question would have to be very cheap, I think, to be worth bothering with.

    The T mount was a universal-fit system in which one could get adapters to use the same lens on multiple different mounts, and Nikon is among them. But you will have to get used to that 100 percent manual operation. There are some sleepers out there, and Spiratone made a few, but I doubt this one will satisfy in sharpness as well as convenience.

    Here's a quick shot of a T mount lens and its adapter. As you can see, the lens itself has a screw thread, which does not mount on any camera by itself (it's similar to the old screw-mount Pentax mount, but threaded differently to avoid problems). The adapter screws to that. Many T mount adapters will have a "NI" printed on them but not all. If you have an adapter it must be the right one to avoid camera damage. If you have the right one, it's quite safe.

    http://jmp.sh/Fb34FpT
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