Can you use an SLR zoom lens on the F3?

J

jokerzd

Member
If you buy a PL to EF or Nikon adapter, and buy regular zoom lenses, can you control zoom, f-stop manually from the outside? If not, is that only doable on prime lenses? Also, when you adjust the f-stop are you adjusting the iris? Thanks.
 
Yes, it's possible to have full control of a cheap SLR zoom lens, with some significant caveats:

  • Canon EF lens have an internal iris, and therefore require an electronic mount to adjust iris. I beleive MTF offers one, Birger may at somepoint. Without one, you'd be forced to remove the lens and attach it to a Canon SLR camera each time you wanted to change the aperture.
  • By contrast, Nikon mount lens have external manual iris control. Frequently these have click stops on common f-stops, and don't rotate freely. Usually, lenses can be declicked with a minimum of hassle.
  • Cheap SLR zoom lens don't tend to be par focal. Meaning - they don't hold focus at the same point during zoom travel. Since this feature isn't required when taking still photos, manufacturers don't bother to support it. This can be a deal breaker if you're looking to doing zoom shots (as opposed to using the lens as a variable prime).
  • Cheap SLR zooms may also telescope. Meaning - the length of the lens barrel will change when zooming the lens in or out. This is not friendly to rail mounted matte boxes.
 
I have rented Nikon back lenses from lensrentals.com, mostly the Nikon 70-200 and Tokina 11-16, the F3 mtf adaptor has a small screw lock lever on the side that allows you to control the iris, not as good as my Zeiss lenses but they work well when you need a inexpensive option.
 
As you learned above the F3 can use SLR lenses, and quite well. The good ones are as sharp as cinema lenses costing ten times as much, but have draw backs in the mechanics. (breathing, non-parafocal, etc.) For Indies the cost of a good set of SLR lenses is the cost of one PL lens. The money can be spent elsewhere.

The MTF, Adaptimax, Prolock, etc adapters allow you to control the aperture (f stop) through the adapter. In addition, many Nikon zooms have external aperture rings, such as:

17-35mm F2.8 AF-S ED
28-70mm F2.8 AF-S ED (telescopes about 3/4")
80-200mm F2.8 AF-S ED
and many others
 
Hi,
Been working for a while now with mtf adapter and nikons.. Ok with a follow focus (use a trusmt FF which works great)
Ordered samyang/rokinon primes for they have a wondeful quality and a decent focus throw
Which helps a lot!
 
+1 I have a set of Zeiss ZF's and Nikon's and they are razor sharp and look great. And the best purchase ever, is the Arri MM-1 follow focus that can be reversed for backwards focus rotation. It also has 2 bump stops for focus rings that have no stop. This thing is like and night and day on focus pulling, so much easier. It's expensive but the only really good option for reversing direction, others that add an extra gear for reversing just add more slop.
 
I have been using the MTF with my Nikons
10.5 t2.8
17-55 t2.8
12-24 t4
24-70 t2.8
70-200 t2.8
50 t1.2
20 t2
24 t2
28 t2
35 t1.4

the MTF was a little tough to work with, sticky and I never really knew what stop I was at but now I am working with Optitek Prolock and its really good, smooth and because I shoot a lot of 2
cameras we can match stops easier.
 
The mtf adapter works great on or Nikons. The "zooms" are really variable focal length length because in most cases they won't hold focus thru-out the zoom. Pictures are great
 
scocklin said:
I have rented Nikon back lenses from lensrentals.com, mostly the Nikon 70-200 and Tokina 11-16, the F3 mtf adaptor has a small screw lock lever on the side that allows you to control the iris, not as good as my Zeiss lenses but they work well when you need a inexpensive option.
Click to expand...

Of all of them the Prolock has the best aperture control. Its a ring with a F stop indicator. The others require you to guess what F-stop you're at.
 
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