It will be great if this comes to fruition. I’ve got a big collection of vintage Nikons and some legendary Nikkor lenses. DSLRs never appealed to me because they seem so complicated. I understand film, shutter speeds, F-stops, and mechanical cameras. I have trouble wrapping my mind around digicams but if one of my old cameras could “go digital” I’d sure be willing to try it. In the meantime, I’ll stick with film.
That’s one of the beauties of this cartridge: It’ll let you switch easily between digital and film and back again. You’ll always be able to swing both ways.
You should consider getting a newer Nikon dSLR because some of them will mount your old lenses. I have a Nikon D5000 that will mount even the pre-AI lenses. Everything is manual, even the exposure, but they are loads of fun. I also have a Nikon D7000 that will mount every Nikon SLR lens from AI to present day and the D7000 will vary the shutter speed to get the right exposure (use aperture priority).
My favorite lens is a Vivitar Series 1 with a Nikon AI mount, 28-90mm, f2.8 dating from the early 1980s. A nice bonus is all the weight training you can get in while taking photos!
Nice thing about DSLRs is that you can experiment on the fly and see your results without having to wait for a contact sheet.
A lot of the DSLRs on the market have those features especially the models that have a full manual mode where you set the shutter speed, ISO, f-stops, etc.