New Nikon F mount camera from Kenko

[dynachrome]

This makes sense because it doesn't look like the AI tab flips up. If this isn't another Cosina body it is certainly a close copy. I would rather use a Nikkormat if its top speed of 1/1000 is high enough. There are plenty of Nikkormats around and a $100-$125 overhaul will make one work like new.

 

[Seele]

Phenix has been building Yashica FX-3 based cameras for quite some time and if you compare it against this against the Cosina chassis you can see there are some differences. Besides, the meter coupling prong does not fold back like the earlier Nikons such as FM and FE, so it is an exclusively Ai camera.

 

[mawz]

Considering the FX-3 was the origin of the Cosina design and the current Cosina SLR's are alldirectly descended from it, that would make the Phenix a direct copy of the Cosina.

 

[Brac]

I would agree that the photograph shows a camera which looks very much like certain Vivitar SLR's. Also here in the UK they are sometimes sold as Centon. Usually they have K mounts but I was aware that the Chinese factory produces versions with other mounts.

I've come across several of these Chinese made SLR's (the K mount variety) and they are not very well built. The film advance mechanism and in particular the film advance lever seem to be the weakest spot. There is a tendancy for the wind lever to work loose and for the film not to advance properly. Another weak area is that a couple I've come across failed to turn the battery power off, so if the batteries were left in they drained completely after a day or so.

Some Vivitar SLR cameras have been made by Cosina. The Cosina cameras are much better made than the Chinese ones. Unfortunately quality control is stiill the weak point in Chinese camera manufacture (eg the Seagull TLR's) and anyone getting one of these Kenko cameras should face the fact that it may not have a long life. What the situation is on spares I've no idea but I doubt if there is any commitment to keep them available for 10 years after camera manufacture is discontinued!

 

[Dave Wooten]

all said,

there are available many original nikons...the good metal ones....in excellent condition for such a reaasonable price, it might be better to just pick one up from apug classified.

 

[hacked - sepiareverb]

Excellent to see! As a Photo 1 instructor I have had enough of that p.o.s. FM10, and the K100's are dying fast. Nikon glass is everywhere, and if this is less than an old FM or Fe great!

 

[mawz]

sepiareverb: This is a low-quality chinese clone of a FM10. If they die fast, this Kenko will die quicker. A metal bodies does not a solid camera make, if the internals are too cheap.

 

[Dave Wooten]

metal bodys, metal mounts, metal lens barrels, good glass..

Excellent to see! As a Photo 1 instructor I have had enough of that p.o.s. FM10, and the K100's are dying fast. Nikon glass is everywhere, and if this is less than an old FM or Fe great!

Agreed,

I am skeptical of this new one....When the Pnix first came out several years ago, I quit recommending after 2 semesters....

At that time good 35 mm "classic" bodies were not that cheap..

All in all the students were having much better luck and reliability with even the 30 year old pentax spotmatics--and those wonderful screw mount lenses, and the Canon Ae 1 etc...and the Minoltas, what wonderful systems and the Nikons...also I recommend the K mounts MX you can get the adaptor that accepts the older screwmount lenses which can be had for just the refrain of a song...much much cheaper now then they were just a few years ago...

 

[dtomasula]

I doubt it's a Nikon. Nikon has said the F6 and the FM10 are their last film cameras. Why would they make a film camera (for themselves or someone else) when there is no money in it? Seems very suspect to me.

 

[mawz]

dtomasula: it's not Nikon branded, it's Kenko branded. However it is a new Nikon mount body (or in reality, a new distributor of a cheap body that's been around for a couple years)

 

[firecracker]

I read a few comments from a couple of people online who actually saw and tried this camera at a photo convention in Tokyo this week. One person said it felt like the later version (Chinese production) of Pentax K1000, and others said it was like Yashica FX3 Super 2000.

 

[Richard Mendales]

While I'm always glad to see new film cameras, F3s are so inexpensive these days that if you need another Nikon body, the choice seems obvious. The F3 has one of the best viewfinders I've ever used, and is built to be bulletproof--I have two and expect them to outlast me.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Richard I agree with you about the F3 cameras, I also have two of them.

However there will come a day when there are no more F3 bodies either available or working, that are for sale.

Mick.

 

[mawz]

Mick: That ain't gonna happen anytime soon. The F3 was made for 21+ years and is arguably the most reliable electronic camera Nikon's made. It'll be decades before they will be thin on the ground.

Thankfully, should my F3 die at some point and not be repairable or replaceable (which I don't expect to happen in my lifetime) I can expect that my F2 and Nikkormat FTn will still be going strong.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Mawz, they are starting to rise in price in this country, due to unavailability of clean units.

Last year was the bottom of the market, now as bodies with working shutters get a bit thin, prices are starting to rise. Different countries have different secondhand markets.

In this country the F3 was the backbone of a couple of the very big newspaper chains. As a result there is an enormous number of very tired F3 bodies. It used to be a case of buy a body with a lot of work and get the shutter replaced. Last I heard, the availability of new F3 shutters is not looking as good as it was a year ago.

Accordingly secondhand F3 bodies are starting to climb in this country. Last year it was reasonably easy to find a good body for around $400 now they are starting at $500 with dealers now asking and getting between $700 to $1,000 and the F3T around $1200.

Students who will more than likely be a major part of the market for this new camera, cannot afford to purchase a secondhand camera online, only to find out it really needs some expensive servicing. They will spend slightly more and get a brand new lower specified camera.

As someone who has helped quite a few students acquire secondhand cameras for their photography courses I have started to see how they are now questioning the value of secondhand cameras. They are now starting to look for the current equivalent of the K1000 for their use.

Mick.

 

[PhotoJim]

Those prices are crazy. You can get a clean F3HP from KEH in Atlanta, GA, US for well under $200 US. One of them found its way to me in Canada - hooray

 

[mawz]

Mawz, they are starting to rise in price in this country, due to unavailability of clean units.

Last year was the bottom of the market, now as bodies with working shutters get a bit thin, prices are starting to rise. Different countries have different secondhand markets.

In this country the F3 was the backbone of a couple of the very big newspaper chains. As a result there is an enormous number of very tired F3 bodies. It used to be a case of buy a body with a lot of work and get the shutter replaced. Last I heard, the availability of new F3 shutters is not looking as good as it was a year ago.

Accordingly secondhand F3 bodies are starting to climb in this country. Last year it was reasonably easy to find a good body for around $400 now they are starting at $500 with dealers now asking and getting between $700 to $1,000 and the F3T around $1200.

Students who will more than likely be a major part of the market for this new camera, cannot afford to purchase a secondhand camera online, only to find out it really needs some expensive servicing. They will spend slightly more and get a brand new lower specified camera.

As someone who has helped quite a few students acquire secondhand cameras for their photography courses I have started to see how they are now questioning the value of secondhand cameras. They are now starting to look for the current equivalent of the K1000 for their use.

Mick.

They're not nearly thin on the ground here. I've recently seen clean units dropping below $300CDN on the ground here in Toronto, less on eBay and KEH. The only classic MF big-4 SLR I'm seeing over $400 for a common model these days is the Pentax LX, which is quite pricey (as is the MZ-S, their other really good body)

Maybe you need to start buying from KEH instead of locally, make some money off the proce difference between your absurd local prices and the really low KEH prices.

OH, and Nikon stocks parts for 10 years after a model is discontinued. F3 shutters will thus be available until 2011 at least (officially discontinued in 2001).

 

[Mick Fagan]

I agree about the pricing, but it's very hard to tell parents via their very late teens children, that they should buy something that they really don't know too much about via the internet.

Last year I helped one student with her camera purchase via KEH. She tried my F3 and FE2 bodies, liked the FE2 so she bought one for 1/3 less than here.

Fortunately the camera arrived just before she needed it, delivery is an issue with students. They need a camera at a certain time and it has to work. This is one of the major factors in why they walk into a shop, handle the camera, get a written guarantee, walk out with the camera then and there.

Mick.

 

[firecracker]

The new Kenko manual-only 35mm cameras are finally about to be released in August in Japan. Not that I would care so much about them, but...

Here are the Nikon F-mount:

http://www.kenko-tokina.co.jp/camera/4961607430910.html

http://www.kenko-tokina.co.jp/camera/4961607430927.html

And the Yashica mount:

http://www.kenko-tokina.co.jp/camera/4961607430958.html

And a viewfinder attachment:

http://www.kenko-tokina.co.jp/camera/4961607430972.html

The suggested price for KF-1n, which is the one I belive we were talking about in this thread earlier is, I heard, around 225 USD in the Japanese market.

But then right now, you can get an Ex++ conditioned NIkon FM or FE for no more than 150 USD in the Japanese online auctions in average...

And about the viewfinder, you can use it on the types of cameras listed in the page with different adapters. I don't know who needs this kind of device, but it looks pretty useful when it's needed...

 

[Flotsam]

And the Yashica mount:

http://www.kenko-tokina.co.jp/camera/4961607430958.html

I'm happy to see a manual camera in production that I can hang my Zeiss glass on.

 

[Brac]

Unfortunately the photos make only too clear that this is the Chinese made body talked about earlier in this thread which has many reliability concerns about it. Unless the quality control has been much improved, I would be very uneasy about purchasing one of these. Late Nikon FM2n bodies have come down in price a lot recently and are easily repairable. One of these would be a more reliable long term purchase and a better specified camera than this Kenko badged model.