[ZombieArmy]

My friend recently acquired a good condition Nikon FE film camera and wants to get better glass for it. I was wondering if the Samyang F mount manual lenses like the 50 or 35 have the proper manual aperture control for that camera to function.

[tonyzoc]

I don't think they have AI pins for open aperture metering. He'd have to use stopped down metering. I wouldn't even consider these lenses since excellent quality Nikkor AI and AI-s lenses can be found cheaper and are probably better lenses. I purchased the 50mm f/1.4 for about $100 and the 35mm f/2 AI-s for $130.

[Thwyllo]

Belated response but the FE has a flip down aperture coupling pin so works with every Nikon SLR lens ever made back to 1959 - with automatic exposure. That gives you access to some of the best 35mm lenses ever made at very affordable prices.

[tonyzoc]

Belated response but the FE has a flip down aperture coupling pin so works with every Nikon SLR lens ever made back to 1959 - with automatic exposure. That gives you access to some of the best 35mm lenses ever made at very affordable prices.

Yes, but you will need to keep the stopped down lever pushed in when shooting to get proper shutter speed selected in auto mode. Similarly in manual mode, metering needs to be stopped down. Not a big deal overall as you can use any F mount ever made (except the early Nikkor-O 2.1cm that requires mirror lockup and FE/FM variants do not have mirror lockup).

[TwoUptons]

In looking at some photos online, I saw images that implied both yes and no…

It looks like some of the 50mm Samyangs have the notches in the aperture ring required to meter on a FE, but some don’t. Photos of the 35mm f1.4 all seemed to.

That notch is what works, not the prong things on older lenses. You also don’t need the electronic pins from the newer lenses. So the aperture ring about where the numbers are will have what looks like a notch about 2-3cm long cut out of the back of the ring.

I don’t know why anyone would make a Nikon F-mount lens with a mechanical aperture ring and not have it meter with a FE (and so many other older cameras).

I will note that Samyang (and their sellers) have a nasty habit of posting photos of the wrong mounts on their web pages.

-Eric