A Love Letter to the Nikon F: Almost 70 years of Analog History and why I still shoot it daily.

[Alpsman]

I find it very hard to pick between mine but I do like the uncluttered viewfinder of the F. I also like the F36 sounding like a Gatling gun. I'm that mad I've even used it for street work.

Sadly, the quality of the painting of the battery pack is not the same as for the camera.
But that's something you can live with and it doesn't affect the function or the sound.

 

[hermank]

Big fan of the F. As a collector and as a user. One is always loaded with slide film, and always with the eye-level finder. Most beautiful to see, most convenient to work with.

 

[Vince Lupo]

I’ve had a number of Fs over the last forty or so years, but for some reason I never held on to any of them. Dunno why - maybe because they’re not weird enough?

Two stand out in my memory — a black FTn with an F36 motordrive that I had during undergrad in the early 1990s, and a chrome F (can’t remember which iteration) that a former journalist bought during the Vietnam war somewhere near the Cambodian border. I seem to recall that he also had quite an amazing collection of Colt 45s in a glass case. Funny the odd memories that stick out in your mind.

This is the last one that I had which I sold last year. 71xxxxx, Original box and instructions and I believe the original 50mm lens, accurately-working meter. I never ended up running any film through it.

Who knows, maybe I’ll try again in a few years with another F — a black plain prism version if I had a choice.


Nikon F1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr