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What is your favourite Nikon Film camera?
- Thread starter waloshin
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FE2. Delightful to shoot. Must be some consensus as the used prices tend to be high (for a film body).
For 20 years I used a couple of Nikon FE bodies (one black for transparency film, the other silver for b/w or high-speed film). Lovely little cameras with very solid build. The best? I don't know. But they served me well...
F100; was the only serious film camera I ever owned and I cannot count the many rolls of Velvia I shot with it. It is not one of the older Nikon work horses but a nice body none the less.
On a side note I recall when digital was new and how long it took for digital to catch up to fine grained film. When I first switched to digital I missed the sound of the film auto winding back into the cartridge.
On a side note I recall when digital was new and how long it took for digital to catch up to fine grained film. When I first switched to digital I missed the sound of the film auto winding back into the cartridge.
IMO, the F3/HP is the best handling film Nikon, though there is a bit of a soft spot in my heart for the plain prism F.
I've owned F, F Photomic, F Photomic TN, F Photomic FTn, F2 Photomic, F3, and EL2 and have used F2, FM, FE, FM2, FE2, FA, EM, FG, FG-20, N8008, N2000, N2020. I've also handled and very briefly used several other Nikons. I've also owned or used many (>30) other 35mm SLRs, not to mention RFs and other format cameras, over the last half century.
I've owned F, F Photomic, F Photomic TN, F Photomic FTn, F2 Photomic, F3, and EL2 and have used F2, FM, FE, FM2, FE2, FA, EM, FG, FG-20, N8008, N2000, N2020. I've also handled and very briefly used several other Nikons. I've also owned or used many (>30) other 35mm SLRs, not to mention RFs and other format cameras, over the last half century.
I liked the handling of the F3, but the metering display in the viewfinder was awful. +/- just wasn't enough information. If I could have had an F2 with the HP viewfinder, that would have been nice. The F4 was my favorite, though.
I bought my first Nikon when the Nikkormat line was phased out. My choice was between an Olympus OM-1 and the Nikon FM. I ended up with the Nikon primarily for lens reasons. I will say the FM and FE line remain my favourite to this day. In fact I have one FM2 that is in near mint condition that I keep as a personal remembrance of those days.
Kodak did it a long time ago with their DCS series of cameras. http://www.nikonweb.com/files/DCS_Story.pdf
wow, thanks for that.
those things were huge, but what the hell it was the 90s... I bet today it could be done in something the same size of the film door even with a LCD.
market would probably be too small tough, not many high end cameras like the f3/f4 around these days. sad
those things were huge, but what the hell it was the 90s... I bet today it could be done in something the same size of the film door even with a LCD.
market would probably be too small tough, not many high end cameras like the f3/f4 around these days. sad
F3HP......but that is all ancient history. Today I only do mirrorless.
They were huge and the DCS 460/560/660 cost somewhere around $25-30k. The integration with the body that current digital cameras offer is a massive improvement over trying to put a back on a film camera.
I was astonishingly lucky last year when my wife's uncle was clearing out a cupboard. I scored an excellent Nikon FM and a Canon AE1. They are in fantastic condition.
As silly as this sounds, i havent shot a full roll of film through them yet. Intend to take a shot now and then and havent done the 72 as each one feels like I have to be really selective. No digital run and gun allowed.
They are lovely pieces. Both fitted with 50 f1.8 standard lenses. The canon makes a weird screech which apparently is a known problem on them.
Thing is, it is so wierd how much harder it is - for me anyway - to shoot film.
And I had that daft moment when fitting the film for the first time. I wound the rewind level and took the unused £7 a roll film and wound it backwards back into the spool thus making it a useless lump of plastic.
oops.
I am better at it now.... i think.
So I think the FM is my favourite of the 2 mainly because it doesnt make the noise and the focus screen is easier to work with.
As silly as this sounds, i havent shot a full roll of film through them yet. Intend to take a shot now and then and havent done the 72 as each one feels like I have to be really selective. No digital run and gun allowed.
They are lovely pieces. Both fitted with 50 f1.8 standard lenses. The canon makes a weird screech which apparently is a known problem on them.
Thing is, it is so wierd how much harder it is - for me anyway - to shoot film.
And I had that daft moment when fitting the film for the first time. I wound the rewind level and took the unused £7 a roll film and wound it backwards back into the spool thus making it a useless lump of plastic.
oops.I am better at it now.... i think.
So I think the FM is my favourite of the 2 mainly because it doesnt make the noise and the focus screen is easier to work with.
Yep, those Nikkormats are tough. I had bought mine back in the early 70s and while on vacation in upstate NY I had left the camera in its case on top of car, I got distracted packing the kids into the car
, and we took off to town. The road had some sharp curves and on one of them I heard some thumping but I didn't see anything in the rear view mirror or feel anything in the way the car drove so I continued driving to town. It wasn't until we got there and we started our walk that I realized I had left the camera on the car roof. At that point I guessed that the thumps I heard was it flying off and so I got back into the car and drove back to the spot. After a quick search I found the camera in a cow pasture off the road. The leather on the camera case was ripped but the steel case underneath was only scratched up a bit. Opening up the case I found that the lens had popped off but after putting the lens back on it appeared that the camera was still functional. When we got back home I sent the Nikkormat off to Nikon for a check up and the only thing that they had to do was recalibrate the built in meter, everything else was fine. What a tank for a consumer level camera.