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Focusing a 300mm28 AISnikkormat FT2

R

ramer

I've recently become the proud owner of a 300/2.8 AIS nikkor, and a nice lens it is too. I want to use it for cricket photography with a teleconvertor (gives equivalent 600mm/5.6) which I have, and have recently shot a couple of rolls of film and can see that I'm not consistent with focus; some pics are sharp 60-70% are not sharp enough...

I put this down to the focusing screen which is the original nikkormat FT2 screen; split focus centre with a fresnel ring. There are no problems with camera shake - with a 2.8 speed and 200ASA film I can get a good shutter speed (500th).

What can I do to improve focusing? I have a horrible feeling I'll have to change to a newer/different body that allows me to put in a different focusing screen. Is there a preferred type of focusing screen for long telephoto/manual focus. Or is the focusing screen on a nikkormat ft2 changeable???

Many thanks for any help.
 
did you use a tripod? especially when you use with the teleconvertor? Whem I use my 300mm, I found great improvment using a tripod, even with shutter speed at 1000th sec!

Ben
 
yea i gotta agree ........ i'd at least be shooting from a mono-pod ........... the weight .......... your coming in real tight and the 2x will cost some quality with little dept of field...........

shoot on ............

do enjoy the ride.......

gazer
 
I did use a mono-pod before, however the effects were similar with handheld (not that i did a fair comparison with this two conditions) I think the problems is that my lens is fairly heavy, yet the len is not design to mount on the pod, as a result, because the weight of the camera altogether, the monopod is not stable and hence bad result. I think telephoto with good tripod is necessary.
 
Like I said in the original post - there are no camera shake problems (yes, I'm using a tripod as I'm at 600mm with the telecon; I don't know anybody who'd hand-hold a lens that long).

Looking through the viewfinder its just plain tricky to nail the focus...
 
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