Manual focus Nikon with good viewfinder.

[Mark Antony]

The F2 goes for a lot more than even F5`s in good condition, so it`s not on my list... And it`s...ugly...


With the plain prism it IMHO is the most beautiful camera Nikon ever made, and requires no batteries to have 100% function.
My kit is below and the F2 cost me £125 which is less than the plastic fantastic FM10 retails for

It may look ugly to some, but to me the battle scars are a thing of great beauty
http://photo-utopia.blogspot.com/

 

[Charlie-J]

I would go for a FE or an FE2, They are light compact and tough. The screens are interchangeable to. The FE will also mount the NAI lenses This is what I would go for if I did not want to spend allot of money on a body or lenses.
I use a FE and a FM3a, the FM3a has a brighter screen but Nikon say you cannot mount the pre AI lenses, they will mount but the meter indexing lug snags the rear of the lens barrel. They also cost allot more especially in black.

 

[Pavel+]

Howbout an F6 with the center focus aid screen.

 

[Shawn Mielke]

Yes, my vote too is the F6. Ignore the AF and the Matrix metering if you'd like, while enjoying the 100% VF, the pitch perfect ergonomics, and the highly accurate shutter. The only drawback here may be that you can't advance your own frames, although you can manually rewind.

 

[elekm]

The FE screen isn't that impressive. An f/2,8 lens is about the slowest you can use. Anything smaller and half of the split image begins to black out unless your eye is positioned precisely and never moves.

After using some of the Kyocera Contax and Rolleiflex SLRs, I've been surprised at how dim my Nikon viewfinders now appear to be.

 

[PhotoJim]

The FE screen isn't that impressive. An f/2,8 lens is about the slowest you can use. Anything smaller and half of the split image begins to black out unless your eye is positioned precisely and never moves.

After using some of the Kyocera Contax and Rolleiflex SLRs, I've been surprised at how dim my Nikon viewfinders now appear to be.

Most split-image screens do that at about f/4.

You can always change to a different screen that doesn't have a split image in it (the E screen has no focus aids at all, e.g.) or just ignore the split image and use the microprism surrounding it (which is what I do) or just use the matte field that is most of the screen.

Then again, to be honest, I rarely use lenses slower than f/2.8 on my manual Nikons. I tend to use primes which tend to be pretty fast. The few times I use my 80-200/4.5 I can live with the darkened split-image finder.