Hello!
I recently got a Nikon FE which had not been used for many years. It is a really great camera and I like using it a lot. I much prefer its needle based meter to the LCD meter of the Nikon F3. When I got the camera, it was a bit dusty, had an old roll of film in it, a dead battery and the light seals and the mirror damper were all sticky and gooey. I cleaned the camera, removed and cleaned all the old seals and replaced them with brand new light sealing foam. I also cleaned and replaced the old mirror damper.
You can find before/after pictures of the camera and more info on what I did here: http://photo.fleurey.com/nikon-fe.html
The camera is now clean and functional. I have shot 3 rolls of film in Manual mode and in all kind of lighting conditions. It seems that it is working perfectly. The meter seems to work perfectly, I have been fully relying on it on I did not have any surprises. I really like the needle based "display".
Now for the issue: the aperture-priority mode (AUTO) does not quite work as it should so I have not used it. Let me try to explain. I noticed when testing the AUTO mode that the shutter speed did not seem to match the indication of the meter. It kind of works because it clearly selected different shutter speeds. By doing quite a lot of testing it seems that the meter reading used by the AUTO mode corresponds to the meter reading at the time of cocking the shutter (!!). Now that I have found out, it is actually perfectly reliable and repeatable but it is not a very useful feature
Has anyone heard of a similar issue with an FE?
One other minor issue I have one it (which may or may not be related) is that I am surprised that there is no return spring on the multiple exposure leaver. I do not know for sure but I guess that on the FE multiple exposure leaver (which is just under the film advance leaver) there should be a spring. On mine, there is no spring so it can stay in multiple exposure position... Is that normal?
Cheers,
Franck
I recently got a Nikon FE which had not been used for many years. It is a really great camera and I like using it a lot. I much prefer its needle based meter to the LCD meter of the Nikon F3. When I got the camera, it was a bit dusty, had an old roll of film in it, a dead battery and the light seals and the mirror damper were all sticky and gooey. I cleaned the camera, removed and cleaned all the old seals and replaced them with brand new light sealing foam. I also cleaned and replaced the old mirror damper.
You can find before/after pictures of the camera and more info on what I did here: http://photo.fleurey.com/nikon-fe.html
The camera is now clean and functional. I have shot 3 rolls of film in Manual mode and in all kind of lighting conditions. It seems that it is working perfectly. The meter seems to work perfectly, I have been fully relying on it on I did not have any surprises. I really like the needle based "display".
Now for the issue: the aperture-priority mode (AUTO) does not quite work as it should so I have not used it. Let me try to explain. I noticed when testing the AUTO mode that the shutter speed did not seem to match the indication of the meter. It kind of works because it clearly selected different shutter speeds. By doing quite a lot of testing it seems that the meter reading used by the AUTO mode corresponds to the meter reading at the time of cocking the shutter (!!). Now that I have found out, it is actually perfectly reliable and repeatable but it is not a very useful feature
Has anyone heard of a similar issue with an FE?One other minor issue I have one it (which may or may not be related) is that I am surprised that there is no return spring on the multiple exposure leaver. I do not know for sure but I guess that on the FE multiple exposure leaver (which is just under the film advance leaver) there should be a spring. On mine, there is no spring so it can stay in multiple exposure position... Is that normal?
Cheers,
Franck
