[nickthetasmaniac]

The F3 was designed by famous Italian car and industrial designer Giorgetto Giugiaro and it clearly breaks the look of the F and F2.

A lot is made of the design credentials of the F3, but I still reckon it looks like a black blob early AE body, same as all the other black blob early AE bodies of the era

Personally I think the F2/DE1 was the high-water mark for Nikon 35mm SLR design.

To me the most egregious design feature was the disabling of the shutter speed control when loading a new roll of film until the frame count gets to 1.

This would drive me nuts. I carefully load and shoot all my 35mm bodies from '0'. I can't remember the last time I 'only' got 36 shots from a roll.

[LesDMess]

A lot is made of the design credentials of the F3, but I still reckon it looks like a black blob early AE body, same as all the other black blob early AE bodies of the era

Personally I think the F2/DE1 was the high-water mark for Nikon 35mm SLR design.

This would drive me nuts. I carefully load and shoot all my 35mm bodies from '0'. I can't remember the last time I 'only' got 36 shots from a roll.

I really like the look of the plain prism F's but they don't have meters. With the F3 they could have finally made a plain prism with a meter but they elected to go a more "forward" looking design.

Yeah I am certain I got 39 or maybe 40 frames on my last two rolls of Kodachrome. I opened the cannister and put the new rolls into my camera in complete darkness in order to maximize the frame count . . .

Well at least Nikon fixed all that was wrong when they surprised the world releasing a full manual camera in 2001.



It was fully functional even before frame 1, you only need one control to open the back and it had the look of the plain prism F and F2. And the icing on the cake, it has aperture priority but the full shutter range is available when batteries die!

[Sam_I_am]

I just want to say that while I love the pics, the discussion of all the fine points is incredible. While some go over, some go through, and some just glaze my eyes, the ones that stick are really appreciated. So keep it up please.

[Huss]

..
Well at least Nikon fixed all that was wrong when they surprised the world releasing a full manual camera in 2001..

Almost perfect. Almost because it didn't have multiple metering patterns but more importantly, they went with that awful font for the logo instead of the oh so sweet traditional one on the old FM2n.

[Baard-Einar]

Why not have both a big and a small Pentax?

[TwoUptons]

A lot is made of the design credentials of the F3, but I still reckon it looks like a black blob early AE body, same as all the other black blob early AE bodies of the era

Personally I think the F2/DE1 was the high-water mark for Nikon 35mm SLR design.



This would drive me nuts. I carefully load and shoot all my 35mm bodies from '0'. I can't remember the last time I 'only' got 36 shots from a roll.

Once you get used to it, it’s fine. It took me several years to get back in the habit of having bonus photos...

I always liked the design of the FG, which I know is heresy, but it’s functional, everything is in the right place, and it has no pretense.

I also really liked the 6006 in the 2nd autofocus generation for the same reasons.

-Eric

[stevebrot]

Why not have both a big and a small Pentax?

And VERY BIG FILM too!


Steve

[Lord Lucan]

And VERY BIG FILM too!

It's for this :-

[g026r]

It's for this :-

You should see it with the 250 back attached!

[TwoUptons]

I dunno, as much as I used to like the meterless F prism, I always figured people bought them so they could say their camera wasn't broken when the prism meters gave out.
Now I think I prefer the metered prism, despite the fact it is an asymmetric disaster, style-wise... it's just a product of its time and purpose... and it has that goofy meter coupling (that's still better than the disaster on the Nikkormat; what do you mean f5.6 to mount the lens? whose idea was this?)

Here's my F, with the shutter completely locked up and a newer 50mm Nikkor;
Next is the K1 for scale, wearing the extremely rare seven-element 50mm f1.4 Super-Takumar (nobody ever talks about it, but those 8-element ones are all over the forum... );
Next to a Konica Pearl II 645 camera with its 75mm f4.5 Hexar.

I think the Konica is the smallest "real" medium format camera I've ever used (645 or bigger image).
The Konica is much smaller than my Mine Six, but that's really a 6x6 camera that cheats with a mask to do 645 (and does so admirably, if I may say), so not a great comparison.
But the Hexar might be a better lens than the Takumar on the Mine; it needs more investigation, that last roll from the Mine did pretty well.



I remember when I thought the Fs were HUGE...
I want to get this one fixed, but it's not high on the list as long as the Nikkormat is working...

Oh, and 250 frames? That's nothing...
This thing had a 16,000 ft film magazine (of 70mm, even...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)

-Eric

[LesDMess]

I dunno, as much as I used to like the meterless F prism, I always figured people bought them so they could say their camera wasn't broken when the prism meters gave out.
Now I think I prefer the metered prism, despite the fact it is an asymmetric disaster, style-wise... it's just a product of its time and purpose... [/url]

Couldn't agree more!

I've had the good fortune of acquiring perfect working cameras as it was my requirement in order to experience them. I tried to piece together how their features came about as part of my immersion. My Nikon F Photomic T came from a retired pilot who flew in Vietnam where he bought it from a local BX. I ended up scanning some of the film he had taken with it - all Kodachrome, in exchange for the camera. Was an equally beneficial exchange.



Shooting meterless during daylight hours with the extreme latitude of most color and b&w films is so easy that sometimes I don't even use the working meter. For instance in this scene, the meter recommended 1/60 but I needed 1 second to smooth the water and that's the speed I used and Kodak Ektar 100 handled it just fine with most minimal post work.

[Huss]

.

I always liked the design of the FG, which I know is heresy, but it’s functional, everything is in the right place, and it has no pretense.

I love the FG! I've always been on the look out for a perfect black one, with the little finger grip.
I also really like the N2000, which is basically an updated FG with built in winder and a few other improvements. Got one of those while waiting for an FG.

[Jonathan Mac]

I realised that tele lenses are under-represented when posting photos of classic cameras.


Pentax MX & K 200mm f/4 by Jonathan MacDonald, on Flickr

[WPRESTO]

It's for this :-

What do you suppose a lens to give the equivalent of 500mm on FF 35mm would look like, and cost, for that camera? It would be a costly Canon cannon.

And to think, old time photographers used to scoff at Leica, Canon, Nikon and others as "miniature cameras."

[tonyzoc]

I dunno, as much as I used to like the meterless F prism, I always figured people bought them so they could say their camera wasn't broken when the prism meters gave out.
Now I think I prefer the metered prism, despite the fact it is an asymmetric disaster, style-wise... it's just a product of its time and purpose... and it has that goofy meter coupling (that's still better than the disaster on the Nikkormat; what do you mean f5.6 to mount the lens? whose idea was this?)

Here's my F, with the shutter completely locked up and a newer 50mm Nikkor;
Next is the K1 for scale, wearing the extremely rare seven-element 50mm f1.4 Super-Takumar (nobody ever talks about it, but those 8-element ones are all over the forum... );
Next to a Konica Pearl II 645 camera with its 75mm f4.5 Hexar.

I think the Konica is the smallest "real" medium format camera I've ever used (645 or bigger image).
The Konica is much smaller than my Mine Six, but that's really a 6x6 camera that cheats with a mask to do 645 (and does so admirably, if I may say), so not a great comparison.
But the Hexar might be a better lens than the Takumar on the Mine; it needs more investigation, that last roll from the Mine did pretty well.



I remember when I thought the Fs were HUGE...
I want to get this one fixed, but it's not high on the list as long as the Nikkormat is working...

Oh, and 250 frames? That's nothing...
This thing had a 16,000 ft film magazine (of 70mm, even...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona_(satellite)

-Eric

I used to own a Konica II rangefinder with the Hexanon 50/2.8. It's a gorgeous camera and a really good lens...I don't know why I sold it.