Suggest Best Nikon Film SLR?

JacksonLevi

Hello everyone,

I am totally new to this forum looking for a help. Any tips and advice regarding this would be appreciated. I am jacksonlevi, working in a Creative video production studio, that i have some time to think i was wondering, i currently have the D70 and love it, but i also long for the good old style of photography. you know, that kind that uses that forgetten four letter word: F I L M. so, what do you all think? help me please. I have serached for this but did not find any right solution. Please help

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you.

PB_PM

The F6 is by far the best film SLR from Nikon. It’s basically a D700 with film rather than a digital sensor.

mhedges

F100's were also considered pretty good, and are a lot cheaper than the F6's.

framer

I've owned F4 F5 & F6 FWIW F6 was the most modern focus, LM; however the F5 is faster and has great AF and metering and can be bought cheap. I saw a mint F5 w/box LN for $250 a month or two ago.

framer

NSXTypeR

If you have lots of money, get the F6, it works with most Nikkor lenses. Don't bother with the Nikon FM10, it's a fake Nikon, but maybe you can get it for cheap if you don't really want to put much money into it.

Personally my dad has a FM2 and although I don't really use it much, I've shot maybe 2-3 rolls of film and the mechanical precision on the film SLR really is so awesome it reminds me of fine jewelry more than a piece of equipment. Every dial clicks without any slop and coming from a D40 and D7000 that viewfinder is massive and bright. It was fun to use for a while and a nice piece to keep around.

spraynpray

Hey guys, I am going to be given an FM2 with 'a Nikon lens' and I wondered where in your opinion it sits in the hierarchy of Nikon film SLR's in your opinion?

Pistnbroke

In the same dustbin as the Z7...….or so I hear

PB_PM

spraynpray said:

Hey guys, I am going to be given an FM2 with 'a Nikon lens' and I wondered where in your opinion it sits in the hierarchy of Nikon film SLR's in your opinion?

The FM cameras where the second tier cameras, the F series being top, FM and FE middle of the road and FG entry level. To me it’s about as useful as any film camera, as a historical collectors item to be kept on a self from an age when when using toxic chemicals to produce images the only option.

spraynpray

So like a D750 then? Not bad.

PB_PM

More like the D850/D810 class, with the FE being the D750. The FM was considered great because you could use it without a battery, while the FE could too, the meter didn’t work and you could only shoot in bulb mode.

spraynpray

Even better!

Tradewind35

Having used a couple of FM2n cameras for 30 years +, the FM2n gets my vote as a mechanical marvel which is likely to work and deliver great images long after lesser models have given up - and that includes being able to work without a battery. When available new it cost much less than the "Pro" F3 which had more electronics to go wrong and which lacked the 250 flash sync of the FM2n. Shutter speed of 1/4000 was and is quite an achievement - my shutters still working perfectly hundreds of thousands of shots later. Lots of Nikon accessories - motor drive etc and access to all the old Nikon glass, some of which was and is capable of super results and available cheap as chips secondhand. In later years I added an FM3a which is an even more delightful mechanical jewel with a little more automation. Given a choice of all the Nikon film bodies - and they are in my opinion simply the best ever made - I would choose an FM2n or the FM3a over the clearly ultimate state of the art F6 or massive F5. Those later bodies led the way to the current DSLR bodies and the new digital world. Pick up an FM2 and a roll of slide film and savour the anciene regime.

MikeGunter

Hi jacksonlevi,

I've developed thousands of rolls of film and think you should really reconsider. There's nothing to gain from shooting film, whereas shooting digital and learning editing software would hone those skills and be much more relevant.

My best,

Mike

mhedges

I still say it’s the F100. Probably because that was the TOTL when I was into film. And F6’s still go for more than I would care to spend on a film camera, while F5’s are too big and heavy for my tastes. Also I expect it will be easier to find a F100 in great condition. Most F5’s were used hard.

The earlier models were mechanical marvels, and I have great respect for the engineering. But I don’t think I could handle a manual camera like that.

PB_PM

The mechanical cameras are awesome to work with, no distractions. A little tougher to master, but it was worth while. The focus screens made manual focus easier and much faster. I haven’t taken a shot with any of my film cameras, Ricoh something or rather, Nikon FE and F90 in years, those Nikon cameras were nice to work with. Love the cameras and how they work, but don’t care for or miss film one bit. The hundred or so rolls I shot in the 10 years before going digital make me wish digital went mass market sooner, even though my first digital camera was 2MP I still preferred using it to film for most things.

DaveyJ

I regard the F5 as the best film camera. I still own mine, the rest of $250,000 squandered on medium and large format were sold. The F5 is a great film camera. However, Mike Gunter is totally right, digital is THE way to go. Better for the environment, better for work flow, no labs or outside degradation, My favorite Nikon is the D7500. I also own and use the D500, and all the other DXs back to the D100. I’d like to add a D850! My F5 is in great shape, still takes awesome photos. It is NOT for sale. For actual photos? Go to Nikon DSLR. Or if you want to experiment, maybe Nikon Z6 and the 24-70 lens. But film days are over, Neil Simons tune Kodachrome is wonderful history. One of my very favorite tunes. Electronic improvements are one of our current and future success stories. Our impact on the world environment? We better get to work or the future will be rough!

chromactiv

I recently bought my holy grail camera: Nikon F4s. It rekindled my love of Nikon full frame. I have now bought a D750.
So although I too had a yearning for a film camera, it's been rendered to ornamental status by the D750. That sensor... I'll maybe get a D850 once the price comes down to my level!

Tradewind35

Making, shipping and replacing more and more plastic digital camera bodies as each generation becomes "yesterday's model" is not a particularly persuasive way to save the planet. Film camera stocks have already been made so do not harm the planet until they go to landfill. D+P wet chemistry impact associated with niche market film use will be such a tiny proportion of photography output in the digital age that if one wants to use film then snap on I say.

DJBee49

Mike Gunter is of course correct. There is absolutely no sense in shooting film now. None whatever.

But, I have loads of fun shooting medium, and especially large format film! OK, not using Nikon cameras (although I have two large format Nikkor lenses), so off piste a little and I admit that I don't do it very often.

Having spent much of my life in a studio with a large format monorail as my weapon of choice, I now love going out to spend hours shooting just one or two, very carefully considered, 5X4, black and white landscape images. I now use a beautiful, wooden field camera that I recently bought. I really enjoy the slowness, enforced consideration and how difficult it all is (not that difficult though) when compared with shooting dozens of frames in a few seconds on one of my digital cameras. I love using the amazing digital gear we have now but much appreciate the meditative process of shooting film as well. There is something addictive about the tension of the unknown as well. You never really know what you are going to get out of the darkroom in the end! The images are different as well in very subtle ways but I admit that I do not make silver prints any more and scan all the negs.. I might start again though!

I would not dream of shooting a job on film these days though, unless someone were to commission a special B&W large format image from me!

MikeGunter

@DJBee49

MrFotoFool

I realize this is an old thread, but if anyone is interested in an F6, my brother has one in mint condition (hardly used with original box) that he wants to sell. Contact me if you are interested and I will put you in touch (US residents only).

DaveyJ

Nikon F5

I owned a fleet of view cameras, Zone 6, Wisner, Linhoff, Horseman, etc., I got out of that while the buyers were still buying them. I preferred the wood fields buy far. My favorite big format camera was Fuji's GX 617. I did a LOT of 10x30 prints from that camera with ABC Photo and Imaging in Manassas Virginia. And we did some up to 3x9. The ONLY camera I have from that era is a Nikon F 5 with the 20-35 MM lens I used to better meter with as I stopped using 1 deg. spot meters as the Nikon camera exposure reading gave better results ( and OFTEN more useable photos!)

Msmoto

Could not resist… at 4:00 AM EST…. LOL


One of the first “through the lens metering” the F Photomic, to the best of my memory….which I used professionally in 1960’s…meter never worked properly. …. geez, I am getting old…

DaveyJ

Have to say, MikeGunter is so right. I would NOT dream of selling my Nikon F5, two reasons, it brings back pleasant memories, and I believe totally that they are almost totally JUST nostalgia and NOT what a current photographer should be using.

Msmoto's F Photomic was way before I switched to Nikon. I began with the Minolta SRT 101 and went thru a whole FLEET of Minoltas and they kept abandoning mounts so I went to Nikons like the F100, and the F5. I did appreciate the 70-300s FAR more than the 70-200 f 2.8 which were very heavy for what they were. I do NOT miss the film era at all, would have loved to have my current digitals then that I have now.

The world is far more crowded and even dangerous now, but we sure have some GREAT cameras to shoot with!

dachshund

I’ve got 2 N80s, one for color and one for b/w. They are great cameras and can be had for very good prices. The N70 and N90 have no custom functions an I don’t see a means of setting either up for back button focus.

PB_PM

I have an F90X (Nxx was the name only in the US), not really any custom functions at all, and only one dial, so G lenses are locked at max aperture. No back button focus, but it never seemed to hinder it. Haven't picked it up in years.