I got myself an F3

I started out shooting 35mm with a Canon AE-1 Program about a year ago and have since moved to medium format, shooting both a Mamiya RB67 and a Koni rapid omega 200, along the way I sold all of my 35mm gear to a friend. The other day I decided I'd like to have at least one 35mm camera in the stable so I picked up a nearly mint Nikon F3-HP with a Nikkor 50mm F1.4 AI lens and SB16 flash. So far I'm really enjoying it and I'm seeing a MD4 drive along with a 24mm F2.8 and 80-200 F4 in the near future to round out my system. Theres a few shots of it on my flickr (link in my signature) if anyone wants to see a truly beautiful Nikon.

Great camera... my 24mm 2.8 lives on mine!

Congrats. One of the all time best cameras/lens.

It's a time-proven and once the media's go-to camera (along with Canons) — heavy, clunky, industrial-looking, robust and very business-like, all the qualities that appealed to me moving on from an Olympus OM10.

I lost my entire Nikon F3 and MD4 motordrive with 24mm lens in 1986 when I was hanging over the edge of a cruise boat on Tasmania's Gordon River. Then another recreational boat ripped past creating a huge wake that rocked the boat violently and had me lose my balance, falling into the water (others fell about on the deck) — Nikon and all. All...gone. It took me years to recover from the shock of losing a camera like that, and it's probably still resting at the bottom of that brutally cold, tanin-stained river in 2m of soft clay...

BTW, don't ever sell of 35mm gear just because you've moved up to medium format — tempting as it is, it's not sensible. 35mm still and always will have its place for odd-jobs.

Poisson Du Jour said:

I lost my entire Nikon F3 and MD4 motordrive with 24mm lens in 1986 when I was hanging over the edge of a cruise boat on Tasmania's Gordon River. Then another recreational boat ripped past creating a huge wake that rocked the boat violently and had me lose my balance, falling into the water (others fell about on the deck) — Nikon and all. All...gone. It took me years to recover from the shock of losing a camera like that, and it's probably still resting at the bottom of that brutally cold, tanin-stained river in 2m of soft clay...

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Wow, that made my stomach churn. In 1986 that would have been expensive kit!

Poisson Du Jour said:

BTW, don't ever sell of 35mm gear just because you've moved up to medium format — tempting as it is, it's not sensible. 35mm still and always will have its place for odd-jobs.

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+1. 35 mm can produce excellent quality when all the important things are attended to. Using excellent lenses, technique and film (Acros and TMax400 are my current favourites), one can make surprisingly large prints of acceptable quality. Because of the extensive systems and the wide variety of lenses, 35 mm systems can do things that other systems cannot.

For years, my main kit was an F3 with MD-4, both badly beaten up but still working fine, and 55/2.8 micro, 25-50/4 and 50-300/4.5 AIS ED lenses. An FM was my second body, usually loaded with B/W film, and also the camera that would go on hikes and backpack tours. Only years later, I bought a 200/4 micro and later still, a 400/3.5. Of all those lenses, the only one that I found slightly less than excellent was the 200 micro. But it was such a nice lens in terms of handling and working distance that I still used it well into the digital era. I made the mistake of sending the mount to Rolland Elliott for CPU-upgrading, and never got it back. Since then I have been unable to find another mount, and haven't found a trashed-up lens for spares either. Ideal would be a lens that is fungused-up beyond the point of worthwhile repair. Anyway, it is not quite an F3/MD-4/24 loss.

dorff said:

Wow, that made my stomach churn. In 1986 that would have been expensive kit! .

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Oh, imagine how my gut was on the day!!
I was heavily into bicycle touring in those years and being a student, cash was never in great supply. It did take me about 3-4 years of saving doing odd jobs (I worked as a typists in an all-girl pool of word processing operators for a year), then mowing lawns, running shopping errands, even babysitting!) to buy it, and I still remember the thrill of picking it up and opening the beautiful burnished gold and black box with the camera wrapped inside. Truly one of life's biggest thrills.

The Canon T90 came after this, in 1988.

I Googled the F3 and MD-4 earlier and got a chuckle recalling how I had to wrangle the beast into the Karrimor handlebar bag of my MTB! It gave my already overloaded touring bike the the directional stability of a pregnant duck. Always look after your camera, and never hang over the edge of a boat...