What used macro lens will fir a D5100?

J

jeplane

Senior Member
I see a lot of lenses on E-bay for a very attractive price. Some are decades old, but the glass is till pretty good.

I understand that I would have to adjust the focus manually. Or that I will not have much info in the camera, since theses lenses do not have any CPU. And I am fine with that, as I understand enough of the basics, that I believe I will be able to manage.

What I find hard to understand is findoing out which lens, and which mount goes into a D5100. I di have a list buried on a website from Nikon, but it is still Hebrew for me.

For example:

- Are AIs lenses out of the question?

Thanks for your input...
 
J

Just-Clayton

Senior Member
AIs and pre-AIs will work on my D3100. I have a 50yr old 50mm that i use. But, it doesn't work on my 300s. The machining is different. I actually prefer the manual older glass. I get a sharper image. I do believe pre-AIs will work on the 5100 also.
 
E

Eye-level

Banned
You won't be able to meter either but that is ok because you can chimp and use the histogram to get the exposure dialed in. Another thing you can do to help assure the correctly exposed shot is to set your camera up to bracket your shots like you would do if you were going to make a HDR snap.

Any Nikon F mount lens will work on that camera...there may be one or two very rare exceptions but any F mount will work. If you use Ai or Ais or newer you'll be able to matrix meter I believe.

You have a great camera because of this backwards compatibility. There are literally millions of old Nikkor F mount lenses out there. 55/2.8 micro Ais is reasonably priced used and a great lens. I have almost bought one I can't tell you how many times.
 
Last edited:
B

brian313313

Senior Member
Thanks for the info Jeff. At this point I only slightly understand what I read. I'm hoping to get a lens that I can take wildlife photos with. Right now, I have the 18-55mm kit lens and am almost always at 55mm so I know I need more zoom. My wife is begging me for some pictures of birds but I can't get very close to our feeder without them flying off. I have a tripod but the birds move so I'll need a faster shutter speed. I'd really like to catch one landing still in-flight which I think would be at least 1/250 needed. I could get the 55-300mm nikkor lens, rebuilt for about 219, but I'm concerned that the F/5.6 won't be fast enough to catch that. Do you have any opinions/suggestions?
 
Top