An advantage of the long Nikon register distance

Richard_D · Joined: 21 Oct 2007 Posts: 2378 Location: Faversham Kent UK

Obviously us Nikon owners never mutter under our breath about the problem the long register distance causes us in terms of mounting other makes of lenses, but this morning I came across an advantage of the register distance I hadn't thought of. It means the lenses are naturally more telecentric than most others which is theoretically an advantage with a digital sensor. Found in last weeks British Journal of Photography, amongst a rather thin review of current Nikkors...

peterqd · Expire: 2014-01-04

Orio · Expire: 2012-12-04

This is true. And it's the reason why for instance it's harder to build sensors for rangefinder cameras, due to the proximity of the lens to the sensor.

On the other hand, it is also true that at least for film, the nearest the lens to the film plane, the higher the optical quality that it possible to achieve without compromises in a lens. With this regards see this Zeiss article about the reasons that pushed them to create the ZM line of rangefinder lenses:

http://www.zeiss.com/C12567A8003B58B9/ContentsWWWIntern/126DD8618C84E339C12572290055A5D7