help! 50mm differances from manual to AF to D

[Steviegee1964]

Hi all, I have a problem that may have been asked before, I currently have 3 Nikon 50mm Prime lenses. The first is a manual f1.8 with the numbers 3257703 on the front of the lens no idea if this is AI AIS or what the numbers stand for as no newer lenses has these numbers, (I have a old non af Tamron 200mm 3.5 has a set of numbers 6107997). Secondly I have a AF 50mm f1.8 and recently purchased a nice shiny new 50mm f1.8 D lens. Now please can someone explain as to whether there is a big differance as the reason i got the D lens was because it wont work properly with the metering on a Nikon D80 and the fill in flash on a SB600.:shrug: The original non af lens was given to me but I dont know what AI or AIS is. If anyone can help with my quest to soolve my lack of knowledge on this subject it would be appreciated.
Thanks
Steviegee

 

[puddleduck]

Your 50mm is an AI-S (unless it specifically says Series E on it)

AI and AI-S are operationally almost identical, both are auto indexing and will fit to any Nikon body.

Your non-D 50mm is an AF-N. The "D" info on your current version may or may not help the flash issue. I suspect you won't see a difference, but it may well help in iTTL-BL.

 

[Nicos Rex]

Your MF Nikon lens is likely to be AI, AIs or series E.

It is series E (for economy) if it says so on the front and it lacks the "rabbit ears" metering prong on the aperture ring.

If it is AIs the smallest aperture will be etched in orange, if it is AI it will be white.

On your D80 you would notice no difference in operation between any of the above (unlike on my F4s where AIs gives me an extra mode).

As for the difference between the D and non D, my understanding is that this is supposed to improve the accuracy of exposure metering especially with flash as the lens gives the camera's computer information about the distance to the point of focus. How significant an advantage this is I have no idea!

 

[Steviegee1964]

Thanks for the Info, much appreciated. Think I might try a little experiment and take exactly the same photo with each lens same settings etc and see how much differance there is between each lens manually and auto. Then I will prob stick the two i dont want on fleabay. No point keeping 3 of the same lens. Thanks again