I just got a Nikkormat FTN with lens

[MontanaJay]

Don't use a soft shutter release on your Nikkormat. Mine caught on something and it ripped the entire mechanism out of the top of the camera.

 

[George Mann]

At the time that camera was new, millions of frames of slide film got properly exposed by Nikkormats

Creating blatant historical fabrications to bolster your false assertions does you no favors!

 

[trondsi]

The FM has more precise exposure compensation.

?? There is no exposure compensation on the FM. I sometimes bracket manually, as I also do with the FTN

 

[trondsi]

Look, here's what I think is the thing with metering and slide film: if you use a camera that you know, with a meter that you know, and you know a thing or two about exposure, then it isn't that difficult to get a good exposure. The meter does not even have to be dead on, as long as it works and you know how it behaves.

 

[Sirius Glass]

When a camera is well designed and built, and has the features that one wants most problems come from mistakes made by the user. If your camera is good enough then any mistakes are made by you.

 

[George Mann]

?? There is no exposure compensation on the FM

I was referring to the fact that they made the ASA selector sufficiently usable!

 

[Chan Tran]

While there are a number of manual only cameras that have exposure compensation, none is really needed on a manual camera. The exposure compensation on these cameras are for compensation of focusing screen and not in the sense that we use on an automatic camera.

 

[Helge]

The mirror shouldn’t bounce repeatedly after the picture is taken. It should come down and stay down. If it is bouncing, something is amiss.

Jim B.

Necromancing this to ask again.
I have an FT in just lovely shape.
Everything works perfectly, but when the mirror lands on a small spring loaded cam on return, it does vibrate.
“Bounce” would be too strong a word, probably.

I’ve read conflicting info in various fora. Is it something I should have looked at? Is it just a missing piece of felt?

Wouldn’t want to slowly kill this lovely gem. On the other hand as an early consumer SLR, idiosyncrasies in the construction is to be expected.