The legacy glass

Using the old lenses
I have tried a few of the older Nikkor film lenses, and they have become an important part of my photography experience. It may seem weird in this modern era of full auto cameras to twirl the focus and aperture rings yourself. But, doing this manually slows the artist down, forcing them to think carefully about what they are doing. 

The best manual lenses to attach to the V1 are fast primes with good center sharpness. The 50 mm f1.8 ais is my favorite. It is the lens that came mounted on the Nikon F2 camera 30 years ago. With the 2.7 crop factor, this lens acts like a 135 mm  f1.8 lens.  The 135 mm lens that Nikon sells now is the 135 mm f2, and it costs 1400 dollars. That lens weighs as much as the V1 body and a bunch of little lenses! And you need a full frame body to use it!

Another surprising lens is the 75 - 150 mm f3.5 series 'E' lens. The zoom range sounds very small by today's standards, but this gem is sharp at each focal length, focuses very close [1 meter], and has a silky push and pull zoom. It is clearly better made, and much smaller than modern zooms. With the crop factor, you have a 200 - 400 mm equivalent with decent macro ability. The constant aperture is a huge bonus, as the image does not change brightness as one zooms.

Here is the procedure for using these manual lenses on with the 20 dollar 'dumb' adapter from fotodiox. 

Mount the lens to the adapter, and attach both to the body. [In fact, it is better to order an adapter for each manual lens and leave it on there with a series on rear lens cap]. If you are not in the manual exposure mode, you will see the complaint: 'check the lens. Pictures can only be taken with a lens attached.'

Go into the menu, and select exposure mode - manual. Now you can shoot movies and stills by selecting the shutter speed on the body, and the aperture on the lens. 

Open the aperture up full to reduce the depth of field. Only a small area of the scene will be in focus. Turn the focus ring so that your area of interest is in focus. Then, close the aperture to let in less light, and make the zone of focus larger. Select a shutter speed with your left thumb using the flippy switch on the upper right of the camera's back. try a shot and adjust shutter and aperture. Repeat as needed. 

If you are like me, you will be overjoyed when you realize that these manual lenses stop focusing at exactly infinity! This makes shooting landscapes easier than with autofocus, where the camera will sometimes focus on an object close to you. 

Here are some hints for more crispy shots:
When using a very slow shutter speed, run the camera at 5 or 10 frames per second while holding as still as you can [or following the subjects motion]. Later, you may find an exposure where you and the subject held fairly still. Otherwise, there may be a slightly blurred shot that you like quite a bit!

If you are using the lens with a large aperture, and are having trouble getting your subject in focus, run the camera and move slightly back and forth, or slowly turn the focus ring. 

You can not bracket your exposures using the menu on the V1, and this is the biggest drawback of the camera body to many avid photographers. It is super easy to twist the aperture ring on a manual lens and you should be able to do that while shooting. If you see a fleeting event, and do not have time for the trial and error exposure process, you may still get a well exposed shot. For HDR images, you actually want to vary the shutter speed rather than the aperture. so, you will be thumbing that flipper thingee on the back of the camera with your right thumb.

I will have a section on High Dynamic Range photography, which is quite important with a small sensor.

In fact, since the owners manual covers the ordinary operation of the camera with it's native lenses, why don't I talk about these techniques for milking the most image quality from the CX sensor?