Question about using Manual Prime lens on Nikon D3100

Qiydaar Foster

New member
Greetings all, I'm new here.

I love my Nikon D3100 and i have the kit lens and also a 55-200 zoom lens. I've been working on an indie movie in which we are using old manual primes and I have fallen in love with them. I recently purchesed a nikon 28mm 1:3.5 lens from ebay and put it on my camera.

Now when I put the camera in live view mode and record, I literally get what I see and that's great, especially since I like to work in black and white. The problem is that if i take a still of that very same setup, i am under exposed. now with the digital lenses of course i have the exposure meter to see, but not with this lens. Also if I switch my camera to any other mode besides manual (portrait, sport, etc) the lcd display says "lens not attached".

When I manually change the aperture ring on the lens itself, it kind of auto-decides what the exposure is in the live view mode but then if i take a pic, its underexposed..I'm trying to understand this all, can anyone help?!!

Thanks in advance...
 

PavementPilot

New member
Put your camera in M Mode. Set your aperture on the lens to f/8. Set your ISO to 100, and your shutter to 1/125. This is your basic Sunny 16 rule. Take a shot and look at it with the histogram on. If the histogram peak is far left or center, then either change the f/stop open more or slow the shutter down. The opposite is true if your histogram is right of center. If you want this shutter speed and f/stop, then increase your ISO. You need to remember the exposure triangle and what you change in one aspect will effect the other two. If you are not familiar with the exposure triangle, I would suggest reading a book by Bryan Peterson, Understanding Exposure 3rd Edition or later.

I shoot with a Series E 50mm 1.8 on my D3100.
 
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