Be careful with lenses older than AI, it might damage your camera. Use AI-S or AI lenses to be sure. There's an aperture indexing tab that might get ripped off it it's pre-AI.

For the most part though, basically anything would mount.

Welcome to the forum forum_member! Yes this is exactly the place to ask such questions, although you will normally find that unless you are posting a particularly obscure query, that it may well have been asked before. Use the search box above to bring up the most likely results, but if you still can't see anything that relates to your question, don't be afraid to ask it afresh. If we know it's come up before one of us will probably point you in the right direction, and don't be offended if one of the mods closes your thread, they're only trying to bring some order to us rowdy bunch :-)

sevencrossing said:
An AI lens can be used, when focusing manually, on almost all Nikon D-SLR cameras, but can only meter through the lens when paired with the higher end D-SLR models"

That's nice and vague isn't it! Hmmm - 'higher end' - does that mean D90/D7000 or D300s/D4 full pro bodies?

Thank you all for your responses! Very much appreciated! :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_F-mount#Designations

Very detialed

Yes I am pretty sure you are correct

This is what Nikon say

type An AI-P lens is a manual lens that has a CPU (basically a computer) built into it; which is used to transfer metering data from the lens to the camera.

"An AF-I lens uses a built-in D/C coreless focus drive motor for speedy autofocus operation and were Nikon's first lenses to offer the now popular M/A focusing mode.

So regardless of the other abbreviations you may see on NIKKOR lenses, certain consumer Nikon D-SLR cameras require the use of AF-S lenses for full functionality. The higher-end pro D-SLR camera bodies need only an AF lens for autofocus functionality. An AI lens can be used, when focusing manually, on almost all Nikon D-SLR cameras, but can only meter through the lens when paired with the higher end D-SLR models"

forum_member said:
AF-S G ED lenses are the higher end lenses and they can AF without an AF motor in the body whereas AF lenses need an AF motor in the body.

AF-S G ED are mainly just the latest lenses. The higher-end lenses are further distinguished by a gold ring round the lens.

AF-S: don't need motor in body
AF and AF-D: need motor in body
G: No aperture ring, so won't work on older cameras
ED: Extra-low dispersion glass

Unless a lens is specified as DX, it means it is FX.

Yes.

Hello,

Not sure whether this is the right place to post my question so my apologies in case I am mistaken... I am relatively new to photography and trying to learn about the abbreviations used on Nikkor lenses. Just wanted to confirm my understanding on the following:

AF-S G ED lenses are the higher end lenses and they can AF without an AF motor in the body whereas AF lenses need an AF motor in the body.
Unless a lens is specified as DX, it means it is FX.

Could anyone confirm?

Thanks!