Keeping Old Lenses in the Mix

35mm lens on a crop sensor DSLR

I bought my DSLR with the goal of being able to re-use my older Nikon lenses. The lenses I had from the 1980s are all excellent and the D5600 lets me take complete manual control of the exposure with manual lenses.

I don't mind that the APS-C image sensor in the camera presents the picture as 1.5x closer. Nikon uses a 1.5 factor to come up with equivalent focal length. Thus a 35mm lens would be 35mm x 1.5 = 52.5mm lens in a full frame 35mm film camera. It would be much easier if we could express lens+sensor in degrees of view rather than 35mm film equivalent.

DP Review article about equivalence, the effect of sensor size on exposure and focus depth.

I took the camera and 35mm f2 lens on my walk the other day. No automatic exposure, focus or stabilization. The ability to shoot wide open

Photo of the Day

Depth of Field Demo - Nikon 35mm f2 lens shot at f2

The Pride of Madeira are starting to bloom. This picture of the blooming flowers against a background of a yellow daisy bush was taken during a walk. I opened the lens wide and focused on the left stalk, causing foreground and background to fall out of the depth of field into a nice soft blur.