Lens Compatibility - Nikon D300 Complete Manual

Hide thumbs Also See for D300:

Table of Contents

might have a simpler specification, such as: Nikkor 28mm f/2

AI and AI-S refer to a manual aperture indexing scheme

Nikon used to use to get the lens aperture information to the

camera (all autofocus lenses and lenses labeled AI-P use an

electrical connection to convey this information). Again, see

the article on my Web site for a full list of all these arcane

abbreviations and what they mean.

Lens Compatibility

Now that you know a bit about the naming scheme Nikon

uses with lenses, let's put that into use.

All Nikon D-type, G-type, AF-I, and AF-S lenses are fully

compatible with the D300 and allow unlimited use of any of

the camera's features. Most third party lenses currently being

made also tend to fall into this category

Other Nikon lens types, and a few specific lenses, either limit

the features that can be used on the camera or should not be

used at all:

Non-D and Non-G type Nikkor autofocus lenses

3D matrix metering is not performed (i.e. distance

information isn't used in the meter's decision).

Dust reference photos can't be taken.

Nikkor AI-P lenses

Autofocus is unavailable and the focus confirmation in the

viewfinder only works with lenses with maximum

apertures of f/5.6 or larger.

Most third party lens makers have to reverse engineer Nikon's communication

between lens and camera. I've seen plenty of small anomalies occur because of this.

For example, the very nice Tamron 18-50mm f/2.8 lens doesn't supply the correct

distance information to the camera when flash is used, so flash exposures tend to be

Thom Hogan's Complete Guide to the Nikon D300