The Nikon F - Third Time’s The Charm

I have had an odd relationship with the Nikon F since I began seriously dabbling again in film photography. I believe I have owned three of them since 2010. The first, a Photomic FTN was given to me and was a hopeless wreck of a camera. Jammed shutter, dead meter and a bit of fungus inside. I sold it for parts on eBay. The second I found at a camera store. A lovely black body with the FTN finder. I sent it off for a CLA and it came back good as new. I shot one roll with it and just did not get along with the weight and size. It was a nice camera though and I sold it for enough to recoup my original cost and the service.

I assumed that was the end of my flirtation with Nikon’s original SLR until I happened to be scrolling on Facebook and came across a gentleman in the midwest who restores Nikon F bodies as a hobby and sells them at a reasonable cost. He specializes in the F with the standard eye-level prism finder, a configuration I had never given much thought to before. Mostly because I am lazy and love having a meter in the body of a camera, especially one that allows aperture priority auto exposure. But I’ve certainly shot Sunny 16 many times and there’s a box in the closet with a half dozen or so hand held light meters. So I kept scrolling back to his post and an especially nice looking chrome body. You’re never quite over gear acquisition syndrome and mine kicked in. A little PayPal and a few days of waiting, and my third F landed on the front porch.

For no reason other than I am nut, I wanted an F with the Nippon Kogaku Tokyo logo on the top plate rather than “Nikon”, which this 1963 model has.

Handling the F with the eye-level prism was a bit of a revelation. While still heavy, the camera is smaller and feels very well balanced with my Nikkor-H 50mm f/2 lens mounted. A freshly serviced Nikon F has a very pleasing shutter sound and smooth film advance. I tend to bond with a camera pretty quickly and this one inspired me to want to get out and take some photographs…which is what a camera is supposed to do

I am trying to shoot up all of the expired black and white film in my refrigerator, so I grabbed a 24 exposure roll of Kodak T-Max 400 with a 2020 expiry date, tossed the F in my camera bag and took the dogs to the beach for a bit of splashing around.

Nikon F, Nikkor-H 50/2, 1901 Eggleston leather strap, Think Tank Retrospective bag

As is usual, the Sonoma California coast was a mix of fog with occasional sunlight poking through. These wonderful shafts of sunlight in breaking fog are called “fogdogs”, the inspiration for the name of my blog.

I set the F’s shutter speed to 1/500th of a second and messed around with apertures from f/16 to f/11. The viewfinder of the Nikon F is big and bright and it was refreshing to have only the scene in front of me in the viewfinder. No distracting needles or LEDs. It was carefree shooting. I really didn't think I would nail my exposures, I was just having fun shooting. And the dogs were enjoying themselves too.

There were a decent number of folks walking and enjoying the day. I got some interesting shots through the fog and sea spray.

I have to admit, it was really very liberating to shoot with this basic, minimalist camera. It is easy to see why the Nikon F is a legendary camera and a game changer when it came out in 1959. It certainly took me many years and three bodies before I found the Nikon F configuration that speaks to me. And it was nice to know that I could still rely on my brain to meter my shots.

Of course, I finished off the roll with a mirror selfie.