Rollei 80-200/4 zoom lens adapter for a Nikon D3100?

[LoVeBar]

Hi all, I am new here and not an 'expert' by anyone's imagination so please bear with me.

My dad left me his cameras and his Rolliflex SL 35 M has a telephoto lens: Rollei 80-200/4 (hope that is how you write it). The camera no longer works right - the shutter sticks and the shop I sent it to was unable to repair it, unfortunately. It did take amazing photos though - even as an amatuer photographer.

The lens is in great shape however, and I have been trying to find out if I can adapt it to fit on my new Nikon D3100. Since I only have the AF-S Nikkor 18-55 lens that came with the camera it would be great to be able to use the telephoto.

My preliminary research on the net the last couple days hasn't turned up an adapter that would work. From what I can tell the Nikon has an 'F' mount and the Rolleiflex 35mm is a Rollei QBM mount.

Anyone out there who can point me in the right direction or give me the bad news?

Thanks

[TheMoons678]

Originally Posted by LoVeBar

Hi all, I am new here and not an 'expert' by anyone's imagination so please bear with me.

My dad left me his cameras and his Rolliflex SL 35 M has a telephoto lens: Rollei 80-200/4 (hope that is how you write it). The camera no longer works right - the shutter sticks and the shop I sent it to was unable to repair it, unfortunately. It did take amazing photos though - even as an amatuer photographer.

The lens is in great shape however, and I have been trying to find out if I can adapt it to fit on my new Nikon D3100. Since I only have the AF-S Nikkor 18-55 lens that came with the camera it would be great to be able to use the telephoto.

My preliminary research on the net the last couple days hasn't turned up an adapter that would work. From what I can tell the Nikon has an 'F' mount and the Rolleiflex 35mm is a Rollei QBM mount.

Anyone out there who can point me in the right direction or give me the bad news?

Thanks

Don't bother. Just shell out the money for a nikon lens. Not sure if a mount adapter exists, it wouldnt autofocus, possibly not even meter.

Nikon AF-S 55-200mm VR 1:4-5.6 $140 used
Nikon AF-S 70-300mm VR $350 used

[inkista]

Bad news. It's unlikely you can adapt this for Nikon F without altering either the lens or the camera mount. You CAN put it on a Canon EOS mount with an adapter ring, though, so if you decide to shoot Canon someday, it can still be useful, and selling it might still net you some cash from Canon shooters who are nuts enough to adapt Rollei QB (most of them, though, are after the Zeiss glass. Particularly the Distagon 35/1.4 HFT: some folks are nuts about the peculiar triangular bokeh from the three aperture blades.

The basic issue is that the QB mount sits closer to the sensor than the Nikon F mount does. When you place a lens farther away than its designed distance from the image plane, you can still use it, but your ability to focus farther away is limited. It's like using an extension tube. The Nikon F mount is deeper than nearly every other SLR mount out there (only Leica R was deeper). So, when you try to adapt a lens from a shallower mount on it, the problem is that you can't just jam the lens further back into your camera body. Canon EOS's mount is shallower than most of the other mounts, so a simple adapter ring can be used to hold the lens farther away from the mount and make up the difference. The mirrorless compact systems, like micro four-thirds, Samsung NX, and Sony NEX are the absolute best at doing this trick, and can even use old rangefinder, half format, and cine lenses like this.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by TheMoons678

Don't bother. Just shell out the money for a nikon lens. Not sure if a mount adapter exists, it wouldnt autofocus, possibly not even meter.

But not autofocusing or not metering are no reason not to use a manual focus lens, particularly one as nice as the OP is talking about. There are reasons to go for third-party or old Nikkor non-CPUed lenses, and a lot of people do do this. Check out the Leitax website or the Fred Miranda alt. gear forum sometime. Granted, it's not for everyone.