My Undying Affection Towards The Nikon F2

Affection for a specific, and not just any camera?

A camera that sparks passion?

A specific camera with which you bond?

Wow, is this even possible? 😃
 
Jake, I've admired the F2 since it was introduced. I never actually got one, though. I can sure agree with you about match-needle metering. Being able to see subtle movements of the needle feels much more precise than LEDs.

When I came back to the US from Portugal, in 1981, I had no money. I was given a Minolta, and I just built on to that system, though I never went autofocus. Then I migrated to TLRs and medium format. I have had many TLRs, but my favorites, by far, are the Mamiya C330f system and the Minolta Autocord.

- Murray
 
I got an F2 with the basic prism finder a few years back. I love the thing, although it’s a heavy beast. I’ve built up a Nikon kit for landscape photography; in addition to the F2, I recently picked up an F in excellent condition (also w/ the prism finder), and an FM2n. I have a couple more bodies that I will sell off in 2025 (a Nikkormat FTn and an Nikon FM). One great advantage of the F and F2 is the 100% viewfinder, great for precise composition. And the cameras are incredibly rugged.
 
I'm a wee bit older than most of you, I think. And started a wee bit younger too. I started High School in 1968; my mom gave me her Argus C3 and my grandfather loaned me the same 1949 Rolleiflex that my uncle had learned photography with.

But as 1969 and my sophomore year dawned, I knew that I needed a modern camera to do the Photo Staff work I wanted. Of course, I had no money ... I kept looking at the NY camera shop ads and hoping I could put the money together for what was then, new, a Minolta SRT-101 ... on sale with 50mm f/1.7 lens for $159.95! For me, at age 13, that was an amount of money beyond my wildest dreams. So I worked odd jobs all that Summer and managed to put together about $90. Sigh.

My uncle came by one day. "I hear you're looking for a camera."
"Yeah, but I haven't got the money and school is starting next week." I sighed.
"Hmm. How much did you make this Summer?"
"About $90. But the Minolta is $160."
"Eh. You don't want that junk. Give me your money and I'll get a camera for you."

He showed up the next Sunday with a box for me. In it was a Nikon F Photomic FTn with Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens.
"How much was that? I don't have any more money!"
"It's yours. You don't owe me nothin'."

I lived with that camera for the next five years and made thousands of photos with it. I sold it to a good friend at some point in the middle 1970s and moved on to other Nikons (F2, F3, FM, FM2, FE2 ...), and Leicas, and Mamiya medium format cameras, and another Rolleiflex. Forty years later, a friend sold me his black Nikon F Photomic FTn and I realized just how nice it was. But i had plenty of other cameras by then, and I gave it as a gift to a High School friend who had always wanted a Nikon like mine. Another decade past and a guy on another photo forum sends me a note.

"I found a Nikon F that my friend loaned me and I'd forgotten about. It's been sitting in a box in the basement for the past dozen years ... I can't find the lens ... and he passed away. His wife doesn't want it. Would you like it?"

"Sure. Better than throwing it away." It's a 1963-64 Nikon F plain prism. I have the selenium cell clip-on meter too, the selenium cell is dead and needs to be replaced. I had it cleaned, serviced, and dug up a Nikkor 28mm f/2 and a MIcro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 for it.


Early Nikon F plain prism, Nikkor 28mm f/2 AI
Approximately 1963-1964 vintage for the body, 1971 vintage for lens​

That was a dozen or so years ago. Still have it, still occasionally take photos with it. Still feels like the perfect 35mm SLR. For me, for my old muscle memory. 😉 Funny how these things can get under your skin and bring back memories of a lifetime ago!

G
 
U82583I1533873751.SEQ.0.jpg


If anyone ever tells me you need a discreet camera for street work I take out the F/F36 just to be contrary. It sounds like a Gatling gun...
I like the F2 but a lot of my earlier photos were taken with an F Ftn and I still like these with a 35/2 Nikkor.
 
I'm probably the odd man out here, but not a fan of the F2. I switched from Canon to Nikon in the mid-1990's so the F2 was already old news. I finally got one about ten years ago off the auction site, and it was a dud. Had it in for service numerous times for a shutter bounce issue, and when, after almost two years, it was finally fixed, I sold it, because in the meantime I had acquired a Nikon F and fell in love. Have used a plain prism F and an FTN equipped F, and found them both to be great cameras.

Best,
-Tim
 
I still own two Nikon F2 bodies. Number One was the first new camera I ever bought. It's a black plain prism body. I bought it in 1974 to go along with my two Nikon F bodies and my plans to try and get a photography job and quit my then current job. Eventually I did get a photo job and I used that black F2 for a decade and a half shooting news, sports and general newspaper stuff. It's a solid brick of a camera and I'll keep it forever. (The two Nikon F cameras were stolen at some point along the way.) Number Two was the last camera I ever purchased as a working photographer. It was the standard chrome F2A. Also solid, dependable. Not as many stories as Number One but it was/is every bit as great a camera.

I haven't used those cameras in years. But I'll never get rid of them When I quit as a working photographer I bought Canon cameras for their AF abilities. I used Canons right into digital. They were all solid cameras as well but none of them ever took the beatings of Old Number One and Two. Along the digital way I found lots of good cameras and I eventually made it back to Nikon. I'm happy with my Nikon and Fuji digitals and I think they're dependable and solid. But not as brick-like, hockey puck-like, Kevlar vest-like as the F2.
 
I had one F2 ... a chrome plain prism. It was more "advanced" than the F and had a better shutter release placement, hinged back for loading, but my fingers had already learned the muscle memory for the F and refused to get comfortable with the F2 shutter release. They're like that, sometimes.

I remember being up a ladder with the F once upon a time, shooting rehearsal photos for the newspaper at the college theater. The ladder was old and rickety, and started to separate as I was shooting and moving around too much... as it was about to come apart and fling me 10-12 feet to the ground, I just grabbed the F by the lens and hammered the rungs below me back together with the base. The stage manager was horrified: "Hey, did you just screw up your camera?!?" he shouted.

"Naah! These things are just hammers..." I shot another five rolls of film with it that day, and banged the dents out of the back/baseplate when I got back to the Photo Lab. 😉

I loved that camera.😍

G
 
Godfrey said:
I had one F2 ... a chrome plain prism. It was more "advanced" than the F and had a better shutter release placement, hinged back for loading, but my fingers had already learned the muscle memory for the F and refused to get comfortable with the F2 shutter release. They're like that, sometimes.

I remember being up a ladder with the F once upon a time, shooting rehearsal photos for the newspaper at the college theater. The ladder was old and rickety, and started to separate as I was shooting and moving around too much... as it was about to come apart and fling me 10-12 feet to the ground, I just grabbed the F by the lens and hammered the rungs below me back together with the base. The stage manager was horrified: "Hey, did you just screw up your camera?!?" he shouted.

"Naah! These things are just hammers..." I shot another five rolls of film with it that day, and banged the dents out of the back/baseplate when I got back to the Photo Lab. 😉

I loved that camera.😍

G
Click to expand...
HAH! The only other camera you could do that with would be Nikon's inspiration - the Contax II. Those too were solid freaking cameras.
 
@Jake Mongey - While I have never owned a Nikon, I can still appreciate your enthusiasm for the legendary F2. But what I’m really thankful for is that you elected to share images that you’ve created with the use of your F2 rather than just images of your F2 itself. (Though the shot that you included of your own F2 was a real humdinger!) Until looking at your pic of the bass player — really nice capture by the way, I was unaware that Gibson issued a bass version of their Les Paul guitar. (Or rather they issued multiple versions of the Les Paul bass that is, just as with their Les Paul guitars — thanks Wikipedia.)
 
I'm sure I have some prints of photos I made with my original F somewhere ... Maybe even some negatives! Finding them would be a project at this point in time... I have 20-30 binders of 35mm negatives that I have been planning to scan "when I am retired and have the time" for the past thirty years or more. I've been retired for 8 years now, and I still haven't found the time!

G
 
Here's mine, I bought it from a friend back in about 1995. I really haven't used it as much as it deserves to be used, and now it needs new foam seals. I remember looking for a long time before buying this one; the used ones available at the time were mostly very high mileage. One time I was at Helix Camera in Chicago, and they'd just gotten in (as trade-ins) a bunch of F2s from the Chicago Sun Times. They had tons of patina but supposedly they all still worked. Years later I kind of wished I'd gotten one just for the history behind it.

ZpHf56.jpg
 
@Sonnar Brian : I knew that Nikon had updated the mirror lock up on the F at some point but i'd never actually seen one before. That's really neat! 🙂

I think my original Nikon F Photomic FTn had either 69xx or 70xx leading digits on the body serial number. What are the leading serial number digits on those two? The plain prism F I have now has leading digits 64xx, and the folks at the Nikon club told me it is either late 1963 or early 1964 vintage.

G
 
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