What's your favorite film Nikon F Series ?

Started with a FTn in 1972. Bought and sold more than I can remember but they either the F or a Nikkormat. Sold off the last of the Nikons earlier this year but the one lens I kept was a 55 2.8 Micro-Nikkor Ai-S. Paired it with a Sony A6000 for film scanning.
 
Nikkormat FTn, Nikkor H Auto 50mm F2, 400-2TMY/AdoxMCC110.

Erik.

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I use a black Nikon F that I have had since 1972, I still have my original lenses 35mm f2, 50mm f1.4 and 105mm f2.5. I used this F in high school, college at Brooks Institute of Photography. Now I have seven F's, three with standard prism and the rest with different Photomics, makes a cool display. When I shoot candids at weddings or some other event I receive a lot of complements on the F. Never had the urge to upgrade. I may add a F2 one of these days.
 
The combination of Nikon F lenses, Kodak Tri X Pan and D76 developer in the 1970's was just wonderful. This was shot in 1974 with a Nikkormat FTn and a Nikkor H Auto 50mm f/2. The print is modern: a split grade print on AdoxMCC110.

Erik.

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I've owned a few Nikkormats, FM, FM2, FE2, F3, F90 and an F70 which I'm shooting this week.

I guess the only pro body was the F3, but I never liked the viewfinder and it froze up on me in the Wisconsin winter. This thread is making me want a plain prism F! Though they're selling for more than I expected.
 
I have two plain prism F bodies. A chrome one my parents bought for me in 1965, and a black one I bought a few years ago. I bulk load short rolls of film, usually 12 exposures, and find the Nikon cassettes far and away easier to work with than the cheap modern ones. Nikon also made cassettes for the F2 but they are rare and expensive. They did not make cassettes for any of the later F cameras.

My main cameras are Barnack Leicas (with FILCA cassettes). The F's are much easier to load.
 
Doug A said:
I find the Nikon cassettes far and away easier to work with than the cheap modern ones.
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They also fit the rangefinders. I have a couple of them. In fact they fit the rangefinders better than the modern ready bought cassettes; I always open up the ready bought ones and put the rolls into the Nikon cassettes to use them in my S2. When I use the modern ready bought cassettes in my S2 the perforation will be damaged slightly.

Erik.
 
Nikon F with a plain prism is so pretty, but I'm spoiled by the AE in the F3 - love the size, etc as well - but then the FE2 does everything I want an F3 to do, in a more compact factor - also love the simple FE2/FE shutter lock (I cry everytime I reach into my camera bag and accidentally fire off a shot with expensive Fuji slide film in it)
 
GarageBoy said:
... also love the simple FE2/FE shutter lock (I cry everytime I reach into my camera bag and accidentally fire off a shot with expensive Fuji slide film in it)
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Heh. I hate the shutter locking via flush wind lever. I suppose it's all subjective.

Starting with Pentax, Canon, and the pro Nikons, my first camera that had this feature was a new FM3a. Since my instinct is to wind and hold the lever flush, I sweated like crazy because I thought my new camera was broken.

None of the pro Nikons had this. The original FM (with knurled shutter release shroud) didn't have this, but later FM's did.

I never wasted a frame accidentally that way - - but then I operate more slowly and deliberately.
 
I confess I have both FILCA cassettes for my Barnack Leica and cassettes for the F2 but never used them. Bulk loading short rolls of film is a great idea and use for them.

Doug A said:
I have two plain prism F bodies. A chrome one my parents bought for me in 1965, and a black one I bought a few years ago. I bulk load short rolls of film, usually 12 exposures, and find the Nikon cassettes far and away easier to work with than the cheap modern ones. Nikon also made cassettes for the F2 but they are rare and expensive. They did not make cassettes for any of the later F cameras.

My main cameras are Barnack Leicas (with FILCA cassettes). The F's are much easier to load.
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Pál_K said:
Nikkormats are totally underrated and underpriced today; they're a bargain compared to the overhyped K1000.
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I always thought the K1000 was horribly overrated, and without DOF preview kind of sucked as a teaching camera. I'd rather have a student with something like a Ricoh SLX 500 with a whopping five shutter speeds. Never had a Nikkormat before, but I have one on the way from eBay right now (a black FTN with a 50/1.4).
 
Nikkormats are absolutely professional cameras, now, more than fifty years old, they usually work like new.

Nikkormat FTn, Nikkor H Auto 50mm f/2, TriX/D76 printed on AdoxMCC110 (1974).

Erik.

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drumminor2nd said:
I always thought the K1000 was horribly overrated, and without DOF preview kind of sucked as a teaching camera. I'd rather have a student with something like a Ricoh SLX 500 with a whopping five shutter speeds. Never had a Nikkormat before, but I have one on the way from eBay right now (a black FTN with a 50/1.4).
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Back in the 1970's when I got my first "real camera" the group of young photographers I was with all had either Canon TX's or Pentax K1000's. Being happy with my Canon TX, I never tried one of their K1000's but they seemed happy enough with how they functioned. Of course, at that time, none of us really knew what we were doing.

Best,
-Tim

PS: And I agree, one of the many things about the FM2N that I never came to terms with is that advance lever/shutter lock feature. Another reason I only used it with the MD-12 attached.
 
Timmyjoe said:
Back in the 1970's when I got my first "real camera" the group of young photographers I was with all had either Canon TX's or Pentax K1000's. Being happy with my Canon TX, I never tried one of their K1000's but they seemed happy enough with how they functioned. Of course, at that time, none of us really knew what we were doing.
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K1000 was my first camera, so I'm biased, but I still find the build quality and functionality difficult to match. Mine got its first CLA this year; it really is a smooth machine. I acknowledge it's short on extras though, so the price difference between a K1000 and a Nikkormat, etc. doesn't really make sense.

Also, Erik keep the Nikkormat images coming!
 
drumminor2nd said:
I always thought the K1000 was horribly overrated....
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I had one which I got in H.S., and eventually everyone else in the family had them too and even several aunts and uncles and in-laws. We were a K1000 family! Then something weird happened. The meters on almost all of them died; mine being the sole exception. Obviously the camera still works even without the meter but it really makes me wonder how many dead K1000s there are out there, in drawers or in landfills.
 
twvancamp said:
...the price difference between a K1000 and a Nikkormat, etc. doesn't really make sense.
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Someone else here pointed out that there was another model (K2 I think?) made at the same time as the K1000 but it had a self timer and DOF preview, and it sells for a fraction of the price as the K1000 because it doesn't have the word-of-mouth mystique that the K1000 has, and this is even despite being produced in numbers just a tiny fraction of those of the K1000. Strange how the camera market goes!
 
Erik van Straten said:
Nikkormats are absolutely professional cameras, now, more than fifty years old, they usually work like new.
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Yet, Nikon designated them as consumer camera.


I can't recall any Soviet professional camera (maybe in LF format), but I beat any wedding, school photog in USSR would use Nikkormat instead of any Zeniev.
 
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