Are Lens/Camera interfaces becoming too proprietary?

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In a few recent questions on photo.net, the issue of compatibility between third-party lenses and camera bodies has been raised. Comments such as camera manufacturers wanting to keep up their own lens sales, advancement of features, potential damage to electronics, reverse engineering by the third-party manufacturers, anti-trust, etc have been mentioned.

It seems that as computers become more prevalent in every aspect of society, compatibility becomes more difficult.

I do not necessarily feel that the camera manufacturers deliberately want to stop the third-party manufacturers, as this would surely harm sales of the cameras themselves. However, I'd like to know where we are heading.

I have a Nikon F90 (N90). The body has 7 electronic contacts within the mount. Both my AF lenses have 6 contacts on them, yet photos of the new AF-S Nikkors show 10 contacts. Presumably, the extra contacts are for some yet-to-be released features (unless newer bodies like the F100 have more than 7 contacts themselves - I haven't seen one "in the flesh").

What are the extra contacts for?

Is there any real danger in attaching a lens while the camera is turned on? (ie. could the contacts on the lens cause an electrical short when it is twisted across the contacts?)

Can any harm be done by older MF lenses lacking any contacts?

-- Tony Gorell (anthony.gorell@eds.com), April 06, 1999

Answers

Don't know much about the different numbers of contacts,

but ... my user manual for a Nikon N50 "definetly" states to turn the power off before mounting the lens. But I think that's only for the CPU type lens.

Also, could someone explain all the different types of lenes and what the letters mean, like AF-S, AF-I, AF-P, etc ....

-- Kevin Lowman (k.lowman@cwix.com), April 08, 1999.


I have taken double exposures with my Canon EOS Elan which required two different lenses. Turning the camera off while changing lenses would have ruined the double exposure. No problems to speak of. Perhaps this is different with the Nikon mount -- I'm not sure.

-- Russ Arcuri (arcuri@borg.com), April 08, 1999.

Kevin, check the Nikon FAQ concerning questions about non-AI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, AF-D, AF-I and AF-S .

-- Shun Cheung (
shun@worldnet.att.net), April 08, 1999.

Ooops, I made a mistake in the HTML. Let's try it one more time. If it still fails, use this URL:
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/bmtong/nikon/3.html#3.1
Kevin, check the Nikon FAQ concerning questions about non-AI, AI, AI-S, AI-P, AF-D, AF-I and AF-S http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/bmtong/nikon/3.html#3.1.

-- Shun Cheung (shun@worldnet.att.net), April 08, 1999.

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