I have the following lenses which I use with my Nikon D80 and D3.

I plan to purchase a Letus Extreme Starter Bundle for use with my PMW-EX1 but am not familiar with the ins and outs of lenses enough to know whether they will work well or at all.

There are a few discussions about AF lenses not being ideal or successful so maybe I'm out of luck. And the DX ones may be completely useless? Is that right? I've also read that primes are better than zooms? Why's that?

Here are the lenses I have; please let me know whether any of them will/won't work or whether there's something negative about their use.

Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF AF
Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S
Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX
Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX
Nikkor VR 70-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF G-AFS
Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D AF
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

Thank you so much for your help,
-- John.

Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D IF AF
will work, very usefull lense
Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S
will work

Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S DX
wont work, no aperture on lense

Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX
wont work, no aperture on lense

Nikkor VR 70-200mm f/2.8D ED-IF G-AFS
works perfect, very usefull

Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D AF
works, perfectly

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D
works also

primes are considered better since the maximum aperture is bigger, resulting in shallow DOF and working in low light situation. Alsom opical they are better but wth a DOF adapter the resolution is dictated by the resolution of the adapter ground glass
good luck
jaap
-- John.

Thanks Jaap,

So you've said that a few of them are 'perfect' - the ones that you've just said "will work" - are they not as optimal as the 'perfect' ones?

Also, that means that I have

14-24, 50, 70 - 200mm covered.

The only gaps I have then are between 24 - 50 and 50 - 70.

Which lens/es should I be looking at to fill the gap?

Thank you so much,

-- John.

John,
by saying perfect I mean that this is a fast lense and perfectly fitted fot the LEX. So a 1.4 /50 mm is more usefull that a 1.8/50mm. But of course the 1.8/50 will work also.
I think the only lense you might need is a 1.4/35mm or 2.0/35mm.
I also hvce a TC200 Nikon 2x teleconverter. One stop light loss, but a 1.5/50mm becomes a 2.0/100 mm. I find it very usefull and you can find them cheap on the web
good luck
jaap

Post edited by: jaapvanhoewijk, at: 2008/10/03 02:31

Post edited by: jaapvanhoewijk, at: 2008/10/03 08:22

Jaap,

when you say that they dont have an 'aperture on the lens', do you mean that you can not change the lengh of the DOF?

I am new to this and would appreciate your feedback on this.

My understanding is that, if there is a manual aperture ring on the lens, then it means that I have control over how much of the field i want to have in focus and change it during shooting? (as in more shallow or wide)

Please advise me if my understanding is correct.

Many Thanks,

Tach.

DOF is only controlable through the iris. Some new lenses for the Nikon DX format do not have an iris,since the iris is controlled though the camera body. On the LEX these lenses do not work since the iris needs to be controlled manually