According to my Nikon instruction manuals, The 200/3.5 F3AF lens can be safely used on the F4 but not the F100. WHY!! If the A/M switch on the lens were set at M could the lens be safely used on my F100?? Someone please help as I would like to use this lens on both cameras.

-- Alan Wilder (ALWeyedoc@aol.com), January 13, 2002

Answers

I'll give you what information I can, Alan, but there is inevitably a level of speculation in what I write, since I do not have the lens myself. If you don't get any better information here, may I suggest that you ask your question on the NikonAF list?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NikonAF/

or possibly on the NikonMF list, where the F3 geeks hang out?

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NikonAF/

(You will probably have to join Yahoo! Groups to manage these lists conveniently.)

Isaac Chan from that community fitted both the 80mm and 200mm F3AF lenses to an F5. They worked though they did not autofocus. The F3AF teleconverter was too bulky to fit on the F5 -- there was not enough clearance below the lens mount.

Focusing for the lenses for the F3AF was driven by a motor in the lens which took its power from the DX-1 viewfinder on the F3AF. The contacts for supplying this power were repeated on the F4 but not on other cameras. (I would suspect that the TC-16 would fit on the F4 only with an MB-20 battery pack -- the others would get in the way just like on the F5.)

So you won't get AF on the F100. But, looking at a photograph of the 200mm lens, I can see what looks like a standard AI lens mount plus half-a-dozen electrical contacts. If these don't foul the new AF contacts on the F4, then they will probably not foul the AF contacts on the F100 either. So I'd expect the lens to work, without autofocus.

But remember, I have never tried it myself, and I issue no guarantees.

Later

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), January 14, 2002.

Dr. Owl, thanks for your input. I've got no problem with focusing the 200/3.5 F3AF manually on my F100, but my concern is possible electrical damage to the camera body due to an electrical short using this combination. I base this solely on 1) Nikon technical support reiterating the warning of camera or lens damage and 2) comments made on this web site of damage using an AF-S lens on an F3AF resulting from an electrical short. Am I drawing wrong conclusions here or when Nikon released there current AF bodies to accommodate VR and AF-S technology, did they change the function of the body's CPU contacts? I do not own the lens in question but have an opportunity to purchase one. I'd think with TWO ED elements and a similar configuration to the 180 ED AF it may be the sharpest lens in its class. Can anyone confirm my suspicion of the optical superiority of this lens or is it a distinction without a diference compared to the current 180?

-- Alan Wilder (ALWeyedoc@aol.com), January 14, 2002.