Canon or Nikon? The aperture ring question!

[truthrocket]

I am in the market to get a 35mm adapter for my DVX. However, when I was researching lenses I noticed that the only company that has lenses with the aperture ring still on it is Nikon. Now I have never used Nikon lenses before, but have had great experiences with Canon lenses for still photography. My question is what do you guys think about Nikon lenses? Which do you think will produce more of a film like look? Which brand is the most popular amongst young filmmakers, and which brand is easier to find in the market place both used and new? I thank you guys for your help in advance.
TR

 

[Gabriel Berube]

I'd say Nikons are on par with Canons in term of image quality : some lenses are better, some are worse. What's great with Nikons though is that there are plenty of used one everywhere in pawn shops and over eBay that are stll in great shape and go off really cheap. And since the Nikon F mount has been about the same for about 40 years unlike Canon's mount designs, you can get a wide range of old and new lenses availaible to use on 35mm adapters.

Sigma is another manufacturer who still makes almost all of its lenses with an aperture ring, even on their professional EX series. Although they're not as good as Nikons or Canons in terms of quality, they give pretty good images and are solidly built. They can come in either Nikon, Canon, Pentax or Sony mounts for most of their lens designs.

The big problem though is that while some of their primes have very fast apertures for their focal length and have good center sharpness, corners' sharpness comes only after about 2 stops, around f/2.8 (I'm talking mostly about the 20mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/1.8 here, but I know others have the same issue). Some prefer fast lenses, whatever the images qaulity, but on 35mm adapters, this might be a big issue for those who prefer edge-to-edge sharpness.

For the price though, they are often great deals in terms of price/quality.

 

[Huy Vu]

Canon FD lenses (their older mount for film cameras) have iris rings. All that is needed is a simple one time modification that anyone can do. I use them and they're great.