Ugly silvery looking metal fork missing on Zeiss Otus?

L

LeicaR9

Senior Member
Hi

Here on that photo under the Nikon logo
F6-ZF.jpg

The silvery looking metal fork that makes you want to kill yourself, this is missing on Zeiss Otus.
Will Otus work on Nikon F6?

How about ZF.2 lenses, will they work, because on most Zeiss official product photos there is no such ugliness, but some have?

How can i be sure if i shop online, do i get nice lens or not?
Maybe i get ugly version and have to swallow sadness not going for the Leica M7 starter set?

F6 has good price + i love portrait range 85 - 100 mm.
I have always wanted the leica apo summicron 90mm, but it's hard to focus on rangefinder camera.

F6 would be better, but that ugly fork,
soo yeah, should i drop the portrait range dream cos 50mm is also sweet and easy to focus on M7?
 
D

Dave_W

The Dude
LensWork said:
That "ugly silver fork" is the meter coupling for non-Ai (pre 1977) cameras.
Click to expand...

I think the two holes in the "fork" indicate it's an AiS lens and when there's no holes in the "fork" it's a non-Ai lens. So it will work with modern DSLR's but will not allow auto-focus.
 
L

LeicaR9

Senior Member
Is there really so many pre 1977 camera shooters out there?
I see this fork on current Nikon manual lenses and on Zeiss ZF.2 which is from 2010 or so.

The ZF.2 even is a CPU lens. And Nikon AF lenses work without that fork even in maual focus mode and on d4, d800.. you name it.
 
Bob Blaylock

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
LensWork said:
That "ugly silver fork" is the meter coupling for non-Ai (pre 1977) cameras.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's correct. This is how the aperture setting was communicated to pre-AI Nikon cameras. The camera has a pin which engages this shoe, and allows the camera to detect the aperture setting on the lens. Nikon introduced the AI method in 1978, which used a different means of coupling the aperture ring to the camera. The continued to include this shoe, for quite some time, on AI lenses, so that they could be used with older pre-AI Nikons.

Here are a few pictures of my F2, wherein I attempt to illustrate the pin that engages this shoe:

Here, we see a lens mounted on the camera, with the pin on the camera engaged in the shoe on the lens.
CSC_9739.jpg

Here's the camera with no lens mounted, and the pin hanging down. Normally, it retracts when the lens is removed; I had to manipulate it a bit to get it out where it would be clearly visible.
CSC_9744.jpg

And here, I have the DP-1 finder removed, and am holding it to make the pin as visible as I can. On the F2, the meter is built into the finder, which is interchangeable. There were three different non-AI finders, and two AI finders for the F2 body, as well as a few different non-metering finders.
CSC_9746.jpg

Dave_W said:
I think the two holes in the "fork" indicate it's an AiS lens and when there's no holes in the "fork" it's a non-Ai lens. So it will work with modern DSLR's but will not allow auto-focus.
Click to expand...

Close, but not quite.

Non-AI lenses have the solid shoe. AI lenses that have the shoe have the “skeleton” shoe, with the holes in it. The most modern lenses don't have this shoe at all.

AI-S was another step after AI. There's a lever on the back of all F-mount lenses, which the camera uses to stop the aperture down, so the aperture is wide open when viewing, but stops down to the selected aperture to take the picture. This was originally intended to be a binary action; depending on what the camera did with this lever, either the lens would be wide open, or else it would be closed to whatever aperture was set via the lens' aperture ring. AI-S made this lever linear and calibrated, so that with the lens' aperture ring set to the smallest aperture, the camera could use this lever to select any aperture setting. I believe this is how all modern Nikon DSLRs control the aperture, and this is why you are instructed, when using a lens that has an aperture ring, to set it to the smallest aperture when mounting it on a DSLR, so that the camera can control the aperture via this lever.

CSC_9749a.jpg
 
Last edited:
Bob Blaylock

Bob Blaylock

Senior Member
LeicaR9 said:
Hi

Here on that photo under the Nikon logo
View attachment 85932

The silvery looking metal fork that makes you want to kill yourself, this is missing on Zeiss Otus.
Will Otus work on Nikon F6?

How about ZF.2 lenses, will they work, because on most Zeiss official product photos there is no such ugliness, but some have?

How can i be sure if i shop online, do i get nice lens or not?
Maybe i get ugly version and have to swallow sadness not going for the Leica M7 starter set?

F6 has good price + i love portrait range 85 - 100 mm.
I have always wanted the leica apo summicron 90mm, but it's hard to focus on rangefinder camera.
Click to expand...

As has been pointed out, the “ugly fork” is to couple the aperture ring to older, pre-AI Nikon cameras. AI cameras (1978 and newer) don't use it, and many lenses have it just to be able to work on the older Nikons. The F6 doesn't use it. Neither do the F5, F4, or F3. Earlier versions of the F2 used it, but the later versions, the F2A and F2AS, do not.


One thing I am wondering, from your post, is if you understand that different manufacturers use different mounts, and that in order to mount a lens on a Nikon, it needs to have a Nikon F-mount. If this “Zeiss Otus” is made to mount on your Leica, then it won't mount on a Nikon; nor will a lens made to mount on a Nikon mount on a Leica. If the lens in question has a Nikon F-mount, then it will mount and work just fine on the F6, with or without the “ugly fork”. The one caution is that if the “ugly fork” is solid, that is, if it does not have the holes shown on the one in your picture to either side of the slot, then it's a non-AI lens, and I am given to understand that some AI bodies can be damaged by attempting to mount a non-AI lens.
 
L

LeicaR9

Senior Member
Bob Blaylock said:
One thing I am wondering, from your post, is if you understand that different manufacturers use different mounts, and that in order to mount a lens on a Nikon, it needs to have a Nikon F-mount.
Click to expand...

That's the thing they all are same nikon F mount called "ZF.2"

55mm 1.4 - no fork here http://nikonrumors.com/wp-content/u...-APO-Distagon-T-ZF.2-lens-Nikon-F-mount-7.jpg

85mm 1.4 and 35mm 1.4 - also no fork https://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisbouvier/12622934153

35mm 2.0 - no fork https://www.flickr.com/photos/tianlianghau/6949048429/

I went to my local retailer and all ZF.2 models had this fork on them.
 
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