Can a Vivitar 52mm macro lens be used on a Nikon D5300?
Asked 7/23/2020
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I have a Nikon D5300 and was given a Vivitar 52mm macro lens. From the rear mount, it appears to be a Nikon F-mount lens. Do I need an adapter to use it on the D5300, and if not, what camera functions will or won’t work?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
5y ago
2 Answers
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That depends on what you mean by "make it work."
Vivitar made lenses in a wide variety of mounts, including Nikon F. This appears to be a Nikon F mount lens.
The lens will mount, but the camera cannot control any aspect of the imaging process because the D5300 does not have meter coupling/aperture indexing nor the ability to input non-cpu lens data.
It will be full manual exposure mode, manual aperture control by the lens ring, manual focus, and sunny 16 rule (or a handheld/secondary meter). There will also be no ability to use TTL flash for macro work. And because of the smaller apertures/reduced light and the new style focusing screen, I suspect manual focus will be quite problematic. Manual focus is always a problem for me (eyesight) and I do not think you will find the in-focus indicator accurate enough for critical/macro work... there is no adaptor that will change any of this.
It may be marginally easier to use with live-view.
Originally by user70370. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user70370
5y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
If the lens is indeed Nikon F mount, you do not need an adapter to physically mount it on a Nikon D5300.
However, on a D5300 an older manual/non-CPU Vivitar lens will be very limited in operation. You should expect:
- manual focus only
- aperture set on the lens itself
- manual exposure only
- no camera control of the lens
- no metering support for non-CPU lenses on the D5300, so exposure may need to be set using trial and error, Sunny 16, or an external meter
- no TTL flash support for macro use
Also, manual focusing can be difficult on the D5300, especially at smaller apertures and for macro work.
If the lens turns out not to be Nikon F mount, adapting most SLR lenses to a Nikon DSLR is usually impractical because Nikon’s flange distance is longer than many other systems, which can prevent infinity focus.
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