The amazing Nikon F3
Written: Nov 17 '00 (Updated Nov 17 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Tough, outstanding light meter, excellent controls
Cons: Heavy body, expensive to buy new, overpriced flashguns and flash accessories
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| 6foot3's Full Review: Nikon F3/T Film Camera |
>When I was in the market for a new single lens reflex camera I was looking for a camera which would be big enough for my large hands to hold, was mechanically strong and with some kind of automation. While out in London looking for a suitable camera I spotted a second hand Nikon F3. It was the camera I chose over some autofocus rivals from Canon and Pentax. I have been very impressed with it's performance so far.
>The Nikon F3 is a very well specified manual focus camera. It has aperture priority, mirror lock-up for slow shutter speeds to reduce vibration for clear pictures, exposure compensation to +-2 stops, self timer for 10 seconds, depth of field preview, automatic exposure lock to name a few of it's many features.
>It is a heavy camera body but the 28-200mm lens I use on it is very light so it is fairly manageable on long journeys or on holidays, like my recent trip to Greece where it's performance was outstanding. It also has a protruding grip on the right hand side to aid stability.
>The Nikon F3's controls are very well engineered, the wind-on lever for the film is lovely and smooth, the shutter dial is very easy to turn and is high above the other controls so it can be used with gloves on etc. The film rewind crank is a little hard to grip as it is quite small but this the exception of the F3's otherwise excellent controls.
>The exposure meter is the highlight of the F3. It takes 80% of the total light reading from the centre of the picture so you can be assured that it can cope with backgrounds that are lighter or darker than the subject. The exposure meter has not let me down in the 3 months I have owned it. The light sensor is contained within the body itself so it can still take readings when a waist level DW-3 viewfinder is attached, which is not possible on many expensive medium format cameras.
>The fact that it is a Nikon means that there are a great many lenses available for it so you do not have to search for them. You can also attach motor drives, different film backs and flashguns.
>The Nikon F3 has one problem which is very irritating. Buying flashguns to fit on top of it are rare and fairly expensive (in my native England they are). The camera also has a slow synchronisation speed for the flashguns, 1/80th of a second. However it can use cheap SR44 batteries in place of the expensive ones used in many automatic cameras today.
>Problems aside the Nikon F3 is a very capable camera with good quality lenses and accessories. It would be an ideal camera for sports photographers as it has aperture priority, which became very useful at the school football competition. It may be a bit pricey for a manual focus camera but in my opinion it beats autofocus cameras which rival it hands down, despite being a 20 year old design.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
6foot3
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Member: Justin Webb
Location: London
Reviews written: 13
Trusted by: 3 members
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