Have you been GELDED?

Interesting terminology used by Nikon as a lens designation. (Horse people know what it is.) If you thought the "G" designation, as in Gelded, on a Nikon lens was a feature of some type you would be wrong. It means something has been removed, as what they do with horses, well not exactly that, but none the less something has been removed, not added. It's the aperture ring. The newest lenses from Nikon no longer have the aperture ring, it's not really needed anymore. All the AF/AE camera bodies set the aperture electronically (internally), even in manual mode, making the aperture ring on lenses useless. So as a cost saving move Nikon has removed it. The "G" works fine on all AF/AE cameras however if you have an older manual focus body then the G lens is useless. A G lens is also a D lens which means the electronics in the body can read and record in the EXIF data the lens focusing distance.

Ah, I didn't know that's what the G stood for. I was thinking of getting an old 50mm D just cause they're cheaper and I wanted to mess with it But since my D5000 doesn't have a focus motor I would have to do that manually too. Could be fun.

The f/1.8 50mm has a focus ring on the front of the lens. The AE works fine, just manually focus it.

Joseph - personally, I dont like the G or so called Gelded lens. Too much plastic in it (cost cutting). I still like the classic look, the weight and feel of the AF-D lenses with the aperture ring.

Joseph, that's a nice, compact explanation. Thank you for that. I can't believe Nikon uses this terminology (I'm a horse person and also very visual.) So is there the possibility that the "S" in AF-S stands for "stallion" lol Just kidding . . . it's "silent motor" right?

I stick with the D lenses. They just feel better to me. So I have NOT been "gelded".

Best Regards

Does that mean that if you have 2 "D" lenses you have Double D's?

I could not resist!!!


Pete

Does that mean that if you have 2 "D" lenses you have Double D's?

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I could hardly wait to see your response, Pete. Thanks for not disppaointing! LOL

I would sure like to see THIS thread run through the translator!
That might scare the devil out of some folks!

I can just picture some people in other countries checking out the lenses to see if something had been "snipped" off!


Pete

If you prefer the AF-D lenses then you had better hang on to them. You have probably seen the last of them. Even the camera auto focus motor will eventually go. They will still be auto focus but will rely only on the silent wave motor in the lens.

Pete, I have to assume that there is a translation of the word gelding at least in Japanese because they are the ones that named it in the first place. This translation thing should really be fun.

Gelding, what's next! I hate plastic lenses, they may be cheaper to manufacture and optically perform ok, I just hate the way they feel.

Well, it does bring whole new meaning to sending your camera in and having it FIXED!

That may explain why my D70 is so nice now that I had it fixed earlier this year.


Poor thing.

Pete

Bill, understood. Look at what has been done to a lot of products, more plastic less metal. Not much we can do about it.

Manufacturers should pay attention to what their customers want. How much more can it cost to make a lens from metal than plastic. Logic tells me that plastic will wear faster than metal counterparts and then what do you have? A sloppy poor performing lens.

While the lens lacking an aperture ring is disappointing in some aspects, I have nothing but positive things to say for the 2 G lenses I picked up this year, the 70-200 2.8 VRII and 24-70 2.8.

I thought about that fact, because just buying those 2 lenses was a substantial investment, and decided that if I got to the point where I wanted to shoot film again, I would have to shoot with a F5 or F6 to get 'full' functionality out of them.

While I have many great memories of shooting film with a F3 and FM2N, they are memories. If I wanted to shoot with one of those cameras again, I could find a 43-86 or other old lenses as a novelty relatively inexpensively. If I was going to be a serious film shooter, I'd want one of the latest Nikon film bodies. Yeah, I'd be dead in the water if the batteries were dead with those bodies. Same situation I'm in with digital.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, it's a cost-cutting measure that I'm not losing any sleep over.

Thread necromancy…

Joseph Bautsch said:

The newest lenses from Nikon no longer have the aperture ring, it's not really needed anymore. All the AF/AE camera bodies set the aperture electronically (internally), even in manual mode, making the aperture ring on lenses useless. So as a cost saving move Nikon has removed it. The "G" works fine on all AF/AE cameras however if you have an older manual focus body then the G lens is useless. A G lens is also a D lens which means the electronics in the body can read and record in the EXIF data the lens focusing distance.

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Not completely useless, but not nearly as functional you'd like. The main limitation is that on a camera that isn't set up to control the aperture via the internal link, a G lens will only take pictures at its smallest aperture.

This picture is the result of using the 18-55mm G lens that came with my D3200, on my ancient F2 Photomic. Zoomed out to 18mm, the effective aperture is, I think ƒ/36. Also, it's a DX lens, only intended to cover the smaller-size sensor, hence the round cutoff on a full-sized 35mm film frame.