A full set of Nikon FMs?

[xtolsniffer]

I have to agree that the F100 is a completely different beast - actually I have one, and an F90 - the F90 came free with a lens as the seller didn't have a rear lens cap, can you believe that?

 

[jerrybro]

I laid hands on 4 FMs of mine this weekend. I thought I had more but 4 is plenty. 2 FMs, 1 FM2 and 1 black FM2n. I've now picked up a nice Black Ftn and am suppressing the urge to get an F2 to keep it company. I keep telling myself that I need a nice 35mm lens first.

 

[Berkeley Mike]

Ah well, there is a bit of history there. It's Department of Zoology, and that FM2 was one of a pair mounted on MD-11 drives in parallel for the stereo multi-flash photogrammetry of animal flight back in the late 1980s. They both had Micro 55mm lenses on and could be triggered simultaneously. When both cameras fired at a 1 second shutter speed a bank of eight Metz CT45 flashes fired in sequence so that you could get up to about 16 images of the animal on each frame. When you digitised both frames you could reconstruct the location and speed of the animal in three dimensions. Unfortunately a PhD student took the set-up into the field and dropped it in a lake. One of the FM2s could be saved, the other not so was dumped in a box and forgotten about. I found it years later in a lab clear-out missing a back, screen, eyepiece, rewind crank and locked to a very moldy 55mm Nikkor. None of the speeds faster than 1/30th second worked. Gradually over the years I found the parts, stripped it down and cleaned it up. It's now working and I left the sticker on for sentimental reasons. I took this with it a few weeks back...

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Great story.