One of the great advantages of SLR cameras is customization. You can choose for a wide range of lenses to bring your creative and photographic visions to life. The digitalization of SLR cameras has only increased the creative freedom as cameras hold thousands of shots at a time instead of only a few, allowing for experimentation and instant feedback. Lenses designed for film SLRs can work with DSLRs, although not exclusively.
About the Nikon N90 and D60
The Nikon N90 is a film SLR camera with interchangeable lenses. Nikon released the N90 in the mid-1990s. The D60, by contrast, is one of the company's prosumer digital SLR cameras. This line of digital cameras, which also includes the D50, D40 and D80, were introduced to bring DSLRs into a consumer price range: the under-$1000 market. The D60 is therefore not as powerful as some of Nikon's higher-end DSLR cameras and lacks some functions that allow for maximum lens compatibilities. Most notably, the D60 doesn't have a built-in auto focus drive motor, which limits your lens choice.
Lens Mounts
Nikon's lens compatibility is foremost defined by the lens mount. Both the N90 and D60 use the Nikon F mount system, which means at the very least that you'll be able to attach those old lenses to the D60. But whether the lenses will work fully is another question.
N90 Compatible Lenses
Different photographers will have used different camera lenses on the N90, and there weren't any lenses developed specifically for the N90. The camera was compatible with Nikon AF lenses AF-D, AF-I and AF-S and some G lenses. AI lenses functioned on the N90 is aperture priority or manual mode, but not in any of the automatic modes.
D60 Focus Issues
As mentioned, Nikon removed the focus motor from D60 camera to save on production costs and, ultimately, to lower the market cost of DSLR cameras. In order for a lens to work fully on the D60, it needs to have its own autofocus motor built in. In practical terms this may not matter to many photographers, who can just use the lens on manual focus mode and one of the programmed settings on the D60: shutter priority, aperture priority or manual.
Crossover
The N90-compatible lenses will all work, to some extent, on the D60. Even old screw-mount lenses will attach to the D60, although the autofocus mode won't be available. AI lenses are okay, but the metering functions won't work and you'll have to shoot in full manual mode and adjust shutter and aperture. AF-D lenses function in program, shutter, aperture and manual modes. AF-S and AF-I lenses are fully functional on the D60. The bottom line is that you won't hurt your camera trying your old lenses (except with invasive fisheye lenses, which will break your sensor mirror); in fact, you'll be given a new photographic challenge by having to figure out use the manual modes on your DSLR.
Tags: lenses will, aperture priority, aperture priority manual, digital cameras, DSLR cameras, lenses will work, manual mode