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Nikon's lens/body compatibility matrix is horrendously complicated. https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/compatibility-lens.htm

Whereas I think "no metering" is never a problem on Canon.

Over the decades as a DSLR shooter (on Canon), I even saw Nikon shoot themselves in the foot not once but twice.

* When Nikon introduced "E" lenses (electronic aperture, like Canon and all modern designs), very few bodies were compatible with it. They didn't have the foresight to introduce compatible bodies before any lenses with E were released. For example, this was released in 2008 ( https://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/24mm-pc.htm ), and the earliest compatible body is from 2007. It doesn't work with tons of crop (DX) bodies like the D90, as well as any film camera.

* When Nikon introduced "AF-P" (stepper motor) lenses in 2016, there were no compatible bodies before 2013. Again, not enough future-proofing.

Meanwhile, Canon took a different approach. They pissed off users twice - when transition from the FL mount (1964) to FD (1971), and FD to EF (1987). They basically got it all right with EF - fully electronic, no aperture slider, no focus screw, big diameter.

I have even successfully used a year-2017 Canon lens with Ring USM AF and IS on an original EOS 650 film body (released in 1987), and both AF and IS work perfectly. Mind you, both of those features did not even exist at the birth of EOS. Presumably the AF electronic protocol is agnostic of what motor technology is in the lens, and IS can be a lens-only thing without the body knowing.

Nikon's compatibility gotchas don't hold a candle to Canon's excellent (albeit imperfect) compatibility. Nikon keeps making the same mistakes over and over again, such as not having a screw-drive motor in the F to Z mount adapter; the company really seems to hate people with old lenses and bodies. Oh and this is not new either; Nikon's F to 1 adapter (does anyone remember that highly cropped mirrorless camera?) also lacked certain features.




This third party company announced a Nikon F to Z lens adapter that will autofocus with older screwdriver autofocus lenses. They already had a Nikon F to Sony adapter and now they have a Nikon F to Nikon Z adapter.

https://nikonrumors.com/2025/02/28/monsteradapter-la-fz1-off...

I've been using my old 85mm f1.4 "D screwdriver" lens and others in manual focus mode on my Z8 and Z5.


What annoys me is that the AF-P could probably be supported on a lot more cameras, they did add it to the D3300 with a firmware update. They just didn't do it for more cameras...




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