One feller's views on the state of everyday computer science & its application (and now, OTHER STUFF) who isn't rich enough to shell out for www.myfreakinfirst-andlast-name.com
Using 89% of the same design the blog had in 2001.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY!!!
Back-up your data and, when you bike,
always wear white.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate links in green.
We used to call Mr. TSUNASHIMA with affinity and respect "Boss, TSUNASHIMA". Certainly, he was a big-brother type person and took thought for younger men. His dynamic manner did not limit to work-related things. Mr. TSUNASHIMA, who would play tennis for years, was a hard drinker equal to Mr. MORI, introduced in Tale Nine.
Let me introduce you an episode of "Boss, TSUNASHIMA" at a drinking party.
It was about my freshman's time. At a drinking party on a company trip, several people (hard drinkers) of us were sitting in a circle and drinking sake (Japanese rice wine). Sake bottles were rapidly emptied one after another. The party really came alive and people's laughing voice and cheers echoed. Finally, all the sake bottles were emptied. So, Boss, TSUNASHIMA gave a cry to me, one of organizers, "Hey, SATO! Sake is empty." So I said, "Yes, sir," and brought several bottles of beer. Then, Boss, TSUNASHIMA exclaimed, "Hey, SATO! Is this really sake ?" I replied, "Well ?" Boss, TSUNASHIMA suggested, "Well, this is an alcoholic beverage called BEER, isn't it ?" So I knew that after all, a heavy drinker was different. The scales dropped from my eyes. I realized that I could not join in the party unless understanding their delicate manner and feelings.
That's, um, unexpected.
I've always thought reflex lenses were interesting, but always read about their poor image quality and small aperture, meaning you couldn't take very quick pictures in low light, so I never really gave them a serious thought.
But after buying a used, manual focus 300mm f/4.5 lens years ago and really enjoying using it on my D40, I've been a little less adverse about putting really old lenses on really new cameras.
I've got a few pictures on Wikipedia that I took during NFL games years ago, and kinda missed having my camera with me when I went to a game last week. But the rules have changed, and my old 80-200mm technically shouldn't be allowed in any more, since it's over the new rule of a max length of 5" on detachable lenses.
You can probably see where this is going. How can I get an ultratelephoto lens into an NFL game? Well, you get a 500mm reflex mirror lens that's 109mm long (so 4.3") to a bright arena without much in the way of shadows, and see what you've got.
We'll see how good of a specimen I bought when it arrives, and I'm a little worried about how narrow the depth of field is, but that does seem to go with the wide-open telephoto territory. I think the extra ISO digital allows will more than make up for the loss of one stop of maximum aperture.
Will be fun to give it a shot in any event. Don't know that I'll have much to report about sake or BEER, however, other than my absolute horror at how many $18 cans people around me seem to be downing. Seriously, dropping $50 to buy your best friends a round seems, um, a little steep.
And a little more context on why Mr. Tsunashima factored into what amounts to a blog on the history of Nikon's reflex lenses:
The optical system was designed by Mr. TSUNASHIMA, Teruyoshi of 1st Optical Section, Optical Designing Department (then). Mr. TSUNASHIMA ranked with Mr. MORI, Ikuo, introduced in Tale Nine, and Mr. SHIMIZU, Yoshiyuki, introduced in Tale Five, was one of the designers who built up the golden age of old Nikkor lenses.
He completed optical design of Reflex-Nikkor 500mm f/8 (New) in August 1982 and, later, obtained patent right both in U. S. and Japan.
Waiting until the time was ripe, the lens was on sale in spring of 1984, when trees put out leaves. The specifications of the lens, being light and compact and having amazingly short closest focusing distance of 1.5m, got publicity and accelerated the Reflex-lens boom of those days.
...
In other words, Mr. TSUNASHIMA designed the Reflex-lens in person, struggled to produce it in large quantities, and strictly controlled its quality by himself to put it on sale. Consequently, Mr. TSUNASHIMA participated in the own designed lens up to a stage just before shipment, which was the nearest stage to users.
I bought a Nikon Z fc. I like it. I think the quick take is that if you want a Z, you probably should buy a full-frame (FX), not a DX, but I like it.
One of the neatest things about the camera is that, without a mirror or shutter to pop out of the way, there's no reason to make a lot of noise. All of these mirrorless bodies can be put into "silent mode" where the only sounds are those of the aperture or focus changing in your lens. For nature photography, where extra noise means your subjects might run for the hill, it's an amazing bonus.
But I couldn't get my flash to fire on my Z fc for a while, though I know it worked when I first got it (and worked great if I changed the white balance to "flash"). I was using an old hotshoe flash and was trying to use its automatic setting, but it didn't so much as fire. Nor did a super cheap Changyin flash, though both worked with my Sprocket Rocket Lomo camera. Weird.
We've had a D40 for approaching a year and a half, and overall I'm pretty happy with it. It does have a few major flaws, most notably an all too often inability to achieve focus or, in Auto mode, to decide which of the three focus sensors to use, both of which prevent you from snapping any picture with Auto's default settings. I don't like spending money to miss pictures.
Beyond the flaws, there are issues that I realize are neurotic peeves. I have FE2 and N70 film bodies, and a few manual (80-200mm f/4) and AF lenses (35-70mm f/3.3-4.5 and 50mm f/1.8) to go with 'em, as well as an old SB-20 Speedlight. Nikon, usually religious about backwards compatibility, has cut pretty much every bit of that compatibility out of the D40 short of the F-mount and flash hotshoe. I don't get AF from my old AF lens because there's no internal focusing motor in the D40, which makes focusing wide open at f/1.8 on the 50mm a challenge. I don't get Aperture Indexing (AI) on my 80-200 zoom because the D40 doesn't have the mechanical stop to read the dial. Both of those omissions admittedly make some sense, as they'd require significant physical additions and cost to the camera body, but the thing doesn't even have the circuitry to do TTL with the SB-20 -- nor can it ask the SB-20 to turn on the infrared focus-assist light. If using the assist light is as easy to integrate as it seems it'd be, leaving the ability for the D40 to use it out is plain dumb.
These things annoy me because they greatly limit my access to used Nikon equipment -- equipment I own and equipment I might scarf up off of ebay. Old AF lenses, flashes, much less manual focus lenses, are pretty much huge pains to use on the D40. The D40 will still run the shutter the way you ask, but you're going to be on the Manual setting and eyeballing everything. Swapping the built-in flash from TTL to manual (and from 100% to, say, 50% power), is a real hassle, effectively overcome only by adding the old Speedlight on top and ignoring the built-in flash.
I've since come around a little on the lack of backwards compatibility. The D40 is dirt cheap -- $470 for body and lens -- and the new DX format means that it's not like it'd be smart to use an old fisheye, even if AI worked. What used to be 20mm on the film Nikons works out to about 30mm on the D40, no longer seriously wide angle. For wide angle stuff, you're going to have to replace your lenses with something specifically made for the smaller DX sensor which takes advantage of the narrower view by using less glass and saving some you some cash in the process. What's a DX 10-20mm in full 35mm film numbers? 6.7-14mm? Try buying one of those. The old < 10mm lenses are wacky enough already.
Add to that that the truly long, fairly fast telephoto AF Nikon lenses have had internal motors since about 2000, which I knew, but didn't really take the time to realize what it meant: These work on the D40 too, which is pretty cool. The 300mm internal motor AF lenses are still pretty expensive, but it's a bigger field for finding used lenses than I'd thought I'd have when I first considered the D40.
(I realize talking about a $1200 lens on a D40 sounds idiotic, but do remember that every year you can hold out on the camera body is another set of fancy smancy features you can bag once you do buy. Lenses, speaking with only a hint of hyperbole, last forever. Bodies are replaceable. Do you really shoot at full res with your D300 right now if you're not on the job?)
So about the only lens I'm really missing out buying thanks to the D40s cut corners is the cheap 70-300mm Nikkor zooms. People love them, but the digital version is hundreds of dollars more. f/5.6 at 300 is getting close to slow, too. Not being able to use this lens is not as big a deal as I'd made it out to be a year and a half ago.
Still, I've wanted to try out a 300mm lens for nature photography and some sports, and wanted it at least as fast as my 80-200 f/4 that I use now. Even the 300mm Nikkor from 2000 that focuses on the D40 is insanely expensive for playing around. Luckily the D40 provides a neat loophole for getting an extremely inexpensive 300mm telephoto -- it's the first Nikon since the 60s, I believe, that'll attach to pre-AI lenses without getting damaged.
That puts a lot of lenses back into play that, just as importantly, don't have as much competition/demand on the ebay market as the other manual focus lenses. Putting a pre-AI lens on your 1977+ Nikon that's not a D40 or D60 will damage your camera without some work that Rockwell describes as a hatchet-job, if only because your lens is no longer close to collectable and, well, does look a little rough afterwards. Now the guy with the "hatchet" pretty clearly knows his stuff, and short of the now-defunct conversion service from Nikon is about your only choice for getting pre-AI on any other Nikon body. And the "hatchet" starts at $25+$6 shipping = $31 surcharge. That's $31 extra bucks plus shipping up to Mr. White's workshop that I can bid with that most others can't.
Long story only slightly shorter, so I grabbed a pre-AI 300mm Nikkor for under $50 shipped. It's about a half-stop slower than f/4 (opening up only to 4.5), and won't focus any closer than about 13', but for several orders of magnitude less than my other choices for an f/4.5 or faster 300mm Nikkor, I'm game. It works well, so far. It also makes me feel a little better about the D40. A little.
Update 4/6: More links on the old 300mm. Seems to have something of a bad rep among aficionados, but not knowing better, I'm not sweating the lack of perfect sharpness. And for under $50 shipped (with one waiting in an eBay store for $75 shipped, willing to take less), the price of entry is next to nuttin. Nice having f/4.5 vs. 5.6, though I'd take 4 or 2.8. ;^)
I've been meaning to write up a review now that I've had a Nikon D40 for a little over six months. I haven't yet.
Let me give you the important part... If you have any old style Nikon AF lenses for Nikon autofocus film cameras, consider avoiding the D40 and grab a used D50. The D40 is missing the little screw-driver and in-camera motor than focuses those lenses. The D50 has the internal motor. I can use my old, manual focus Nikkor with the D40 without much problem by guessing exposure [and checking the LCD], but with something like my AF 50mm normal lens, not having decent autofocus somewhat negates the advantage of large aperture of the lens, at least in uncontrollable moving subjects.
The D40's inability to use old AF lenses also means that, if you appreciate AF, yuou're largely out of luck on eBay for old lenses as well.
So if you're an old Nikon film AF SLR owner or want to get good deals building your lens collection on eBay, the D40's particularly poor backwards compatibility is a larger drawback than I considered it when purchasing. I'm also turned off that the D40 makes me put the older AF lens on min aperture even when I'm using Aperture-priority. Because there's only one dial on the D40 for changing settings, you have to hold down some pitifully small button like a shift key to swap that single ring from shutter speeds to aperture in Manual exposure mode. This stinks, and annoys me to no end. So this adds insult to injury, as you now not only can't AF with your old AF lenses, but you also can't use their aperture rings like you can with older lenses (see below).
If you're an old Nikon film camera user without any AF lenses, only manual focus, you can grab either the D40 or D50, I think. The D40 won't give you exposure, but it's no big deal. It's more useful to check out the results on your LCD after you take a shot anyhow to determine exposure. Moreover, because there's no metering, you're welcome to use the lens' aperture ring to set the f-stop. In fact, you have to use the old-style aperture ring to change f-stop.
If you've never owned an SLR, go buy the D40 now. It's a nice starter DSLR body, and having rolls upon rolls of "film" at your exposure is wonderful. The AF isn't the best, but it fills the niche to help you move up from point & shoot to DSLR very well.
The postings on this site are [usually] my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any employer, past or present, or other entity. About Our Author
