Nikon F
The Nikon F is probably the most famous 35mm SLR ever made. Highly innovative for its time and extremely reliable, it immediately became the most popular camera among professionals, especially those dedicated to photojournalism. Today, over 60 years after its appearance on the market, the F is still highly appreciated on the used market, both by collectors and by many enthusiasts of analog photography.
The arrival of the Nikon F
By the late 1950s, 35mm SLR cameras were by no means a novelty. Ihagee had already been producing the Exakta since 1934, a line of SLR cameras that two years later would adopt the interchangeable viewfinder. In 1948, the Rectaflex appeared (the first and only 35mm SLR made in Italy) which four years later was joined by a model featuring a three-lens turret, a design long used in cine cameras. In 1949, Zeiss Ikon of Dresden introduced the Contax S, the first 35mm SLR equipped with a pentaprism, allowing for a non-reversed left-right view. Then, in 1954, the Japanese Asahiflex became the first SLR to feature an instant return mirror (a seemingly minor advancement, yet a crucial one, as previously, the mirror remained raised after shooting and would only return to its lowered position when the film advance lever was engaged).
Before the F, Nikon had not produced any other SLRs. However, it had earned an excellent reputation thanks to the reliability of its rangefinder cameras 1 and the quality of its lenses, to the point that it had begun to compete with Leica and Zeiss Ikon, the renowned German companies that in the 1950s were the point of reference for professionals 2.
It was precisely reliability that was one of the strong points that determined the success of the Nikon F in the professional field. The Nikon F was designed and tested to operate in extreme environmental conditions. Just to give an example, its shutter had been subjected to tests that included up to 100,000 operating cycles 1. No competing product was able to guarantee such reliability.
Another key factor in the success of the Nikon F was its expandability. The camera body was in fact at the center of a complete system of accessories that included viewfinders, lenses, focusing screens and much more. This was a huge added value for a professional, who could compose and update his equipment according to his needs.
When it was introduced to the market in March 1959, the first version of the Nikon F had some very advanced features for its time. The shutter, thanks to titanium curtains, could reach up to 1/1000 s. The lenses had a bayonet mount, rather than the traditional screw mount, and could therefore be changed much more quickly. The interchangeable viewfinder offered enormous versatility. The automatic diaphragm was not common at the time, but extremely important for single-lens reflex cameras, as it made it possible to compose the scene and focus at the maximum brightness of the lens, regardless of the set aperture, and then automatically close only when the shot was taken.
These were the specifications of the first Nikon F:
- 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) capable of producing a 24x36mm frame
- Interchangeable pentaprism viewfinder with 100% coverage of the shooting field
- Interchangeable focusing screen (the one supplied is a micro-prism with split image)
- Interchangeable lens with Nikon F mount
- Automatic diaphragm
- Vertical-travel titanium focal plane shutter, with shutter speeds from 1/1000 s to 1 s (with the possibility of reaching up to 10 s using the self-timer) and B and T exposure speeds
- Flash sync up to 1/60s
- Self-timer, with adjustable interval from 2 to 10 s
- Depth of field check button
- Instant return mirror
- Ability to manually raise the mirror before shooting (essential for mounting some lenses whose rear element protrudes inside the body)
- No battery compartment (not needed, as the camera is entirely mechanical)
- Engine preparation
- Weight: 600g (body only, without viewfinder), 685g (body with viewfinder, without lens)
- Available in chrome or black finish
The sights
The viewfinder supplied with the first Nikon F model was a simple pentaprism without an exposure meter, which is today commonly called an “eye-level finder”, to distinguish it from the waist-level finder that was available as an accessory at that time.
The new goals
Along with the Nikon F, a completely new series of lenses was designed. The lens-body pairing, called Nikon-F, would become one of the longest-running standards in the history of photography, still used today (with some improvements) on Nikon digital SLRs.
The Nikon F mount is a bayonet type, like the one used on Nikon rangefinder cameras, but with a larger diameter mount (44mm) so as not to limit the ability to use faster lenses.
On the first models of the new lenses, the wording “Auto” indicated that they were equipped with automatic diaphragm. This wording disappeared after a few years, when automatic diaphragm would become a common feature on all lenses on the market.
The first F-mount lenses were released in conjunction with the Nikon F:
- NIKKOR-S Auto 3.5cm f/2.8,
- NIKKOR-S Auto 5cm f/2,
- NIKKOR-P Auto 10.5cm f/2.5,
- NIKKOR-Q Auto 13.5cm f/3.5).
In those years, the focal length was indicated in cm. The lenses bore the designation NIKKOR, followed by a letter indicating the number of lenses (Q=four, P=five, S=six).
The Evolution of the Nikon F
The component that was most subject to evolution at that time, and which could therefore quickly determine the obsolescence of a camera, was the exposure meter. The Nikon F was designed in such a way as to completely separate the exposure metering functions from the camera body, which were instead incorporated into the pentaprism.
In this way it was possible to reuse the same camera body for all subsequent Nikon F models, which would gradually introduce increasingly advanced exposure measurement.
With the first Nikon F model, the one with the simple “eye-level” viewfinder, you needed to equip yourself with an external exposure meter: you measured the exposure, chose one of the shutter speed-aperture pairs and set it on the camera by acting on the shutter speed ring and the aperture ring.
Nikon initially made available, as an accessory to be mounted on the camera, a selenium exposure meter, called the “I-type”, which turned out to be the first in the world to be coupled to both shutter speed and aperture.3
The exposure meter was in fact equipped with its own shutter speed ring that overlapped the camera’s one and coupled to it by means of a metal pin. In this way, setting the shutter speed on the exposure meter automatically set it on the camera as well.
The information on the actual aperture set was instead transmitted to the exposure meter through a small metal fork integral with the aperture ring. When the lens was mounted on the camera body, a pin forming part of the exposure meter was inserted into this fork. In this way, the exposure meter was constantly informed of the actual aperture set. When operating at full aperture (thanks to the automatic aperture) it was in fact essential to pass this information to the exposure meter.
Once the film sensitivity had been set (in ASA, equivalent to today’s ISO) it was sufficient to set the shutter speed-aperture combination, checking that the galvanometer placed outside the exposure meter indicated that the exposure was correct.
The selenium meter did not require batteries, but had the defect of not being sensitive enough in low light conditions. Thus in 1962 the Nikon F Photomic was introduced, equipped with a pentaprism with an external metering exposure using a cadmium sulfide (CdS) photoresistor.
The bulky pentaprism, like that of later models, also housed the battery compartment (PX13 mercury, no longer produced today). The correct exposure was displayed inside the viewfinder through the needle of a galvanometer.
Since the photoresistor has a “viewing” angle similar to that of a standard focal length lens (50mm), the measurement became less reliable the further the focal length of the lens mounted on the camera moved away from the standard one. Furthermore, if filters were mounted, a manual correction had to be made by rotating the ASA ring. An exposure measurement made through the lens would have solved these problems.
We had to wait until 1965 to finally see the Nikon F Photomic T on the market, whose pentaprism was equipped with a TTL (through-the-lens) exposure meter, which measured the light through the lens.
In 1967 the Nikon Photomic FT arrived, with center-weighted TTL metering (i.e. the brightness of the central area contributes 60% of the metering, the remaining part 40%).
With TTL metering, however, a new problem arose: the exposure actually measured depended on the maximum aperture of the lens. It was therefore necessary to manually set this information each time the lens was changed. This operation (called “indexing”) consisted of setting an offset on the ASA ring, depending on the maximum aperture of the lens.
Fortunately, the Nikon F Photomic FTn helped simplify things, also arriving on the market in 1967 , a few months after the FT.
The FTn retained the center-weighted metering of the FT, but allowed for a faster indexing procedure: once the lens was mounted, it was necessary to first rotate it to a smaller aperture than f5.6 and then to its maximum aperture.
In this way, the indexing mechanism was able to semi-automatically determine the maximum aperture of the lens starting from the angular distance between the (known) position of the ring at f5.6 and the position corresponding to the maximum aperture.
However, there was the possibility of verifying, through the position of a cursor on the pentaprism, that the maximum aperture thus detected was correct.
The FTn was the last Nikon F model. It was so successful that it remained in production until March 1974, despite the release on the market in 1971 of the F2, the new professional SLR that would soon find undisputed favor among professionals.
During this entire period, from 1959 to 1974, the first Nikon F model, the one with the simple “eyelevel” viewfinder without a light meter, never went out of production, even if both the body and the pentaprism were subjected to modifications that changed its appearance only slightly. 4
In total, 862,600 Nikon F cameras were produced.5
Further insights
Debut of Nikon F ( https://imaging.nikon.com/history/chronicle/history-f/index.htm ) – The detailed and compelling story of how the Nikon was born, how it was designed and how it was brought to market (published on the Nikon website)
Nikon F instruction manual ( https://www.butkus.org/chinon/nikon/nikon_f/nikon_f.htm ) – The original Nikon F manual, available thanks to the site maintained by Michael Butkus (a real goldmine of vintage photography manuals)
Nikon F – The Camera That Changed Everything ( https://casualphotophile.com/2018/04/27/nikon-f-retrospective/ ) – The story of the Nikon F, told in a fascinating way by Josh Solomon
Focus on the Nikon F: the parts that are all available ( https://lemag.nikonclub.fr/focus-nikon-f/ ) – The History of the Nikon F, from nikonclub.fr
Nikon F Collection and Typology by Richard de Stoutz ( https://www.destoutz.ch/nikon-f.html ) – This huge collection (with images, descriptions, manuals, accessories and lenses) is an absolute reference for anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge of the Nikon F
Nikon – A Pictorial History ( http://mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/htmls/models/index.htm ) – The history and in-depth description of all Nikon products, on the Photography in Malaysia website
Lens Survey And Subjective Evaluations ( http://www.naturfotograf.com/lens_surv.html ) – Tests of the main Nikkor lenses, made by Bjørn Rørslett
References
- Nikon Rangefinder Cameras , by Nikon Corporation[↩][↩]
- Nikon F – The Camera That Changed Everything , by Josh Solomon[↩]
- Debut of Nikon F , by Nikon Corporation[↩]
- Nikon F Collection and Typology , by Richard de Stoutz[↩]
- Robin Lenman, The Oxford Companion to the Photograph, Oxford University Press[↩]