Nikon F introduction........
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Well Pentax weren't playing catch up in terms of metering when they introduced the Spotmatic, or lens quality, but Nikon were far ahead in the overall camera system approach, witnessed by the longevity of the F mount and interchangeability of prisms and motor drives etc.
Topcon Super D. Ugly but had amazing metering.
MattKing
Moderator
The F was just the camera that the system was designed around.
It was the system that was special.
If you had simple needs - a body and a few common lenses - you were most likely just as satisfied with a Nikkormat.
It was the system that was special.
If you had simple needs - a body and a few common lenses - you were most likely just as satisfied with a Nikkormat.
This ad was published in February 1958 Modern Photography magazine. As I understand it, placing an ad back then has a little lead time before it can be published so well ahead of the Nikon F release.
Modern Photography February 1958 Praktina FX ad by Les DMess, on Flickr
Modern Photography February 1958 Praktina FX ad by Les DMess, on FlickrWow, not just a radio controlled shutter, but with a high capacity back.This ad was published in February 1958 Modern Photography magazine. As I understand it, placing an ad back then has a little lead time before it can be published so well ahead of the Nikon F release.
Pretty advanced stuff.
Yeah.
I guess that is my real question.
So, pretty much from the time it was released for sale, The F had a majority of its system available.?
It started out that way from Nikon.?
Leica 250 Reporter - Wikipedia
Leica was first in most things 35mm. 1930's Leica 250 "Reporter"
Oh Wow .........
I had read a link from that site a few years ago regarding the F2.
I forgot about it.
The link you give to the Nikon F is no less interesting.
Perhaps more so as it was The Nikon F Series that would start the "domination" of Nikon in the press photo industry for many years
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Distritor of Nikon F gave cameras to press photographers as part of a very successful publicity ploy. This set the impression of Nikon being the 35mm camera of professionals. High quality and ruggedness of cameras and lenses helped a lot. Cameras were so well made that importer was able to sell at many times the selling price in Japan.
Same site that pushed me to the FM3A. I wish they would have more photos from the period though.
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Tangential but possibly interesting. In 1978 I was working as a tech in a custom photo lab. Occasionally the owner had a friend of his come in and help with certain matters (not sure what ). And sometimes there was time for conversation... this gentleman had been a photojournalist with the Chicago Tribune in the middle 1960s. Since all the other staff were (like me) young and inexperienced, we listened to his stories. one thing he told us was that he and his colleagues all shot with Nikons. "The Pentax sales guys were always trying to sell us on their cameras... but they weren't rugged enough for newspaper work, they kept breaking". So it seems that the Nikon's reputation for durability was well established by the mid-60s.
He also said (off topic here) "a 90mm lens is too long for a rangefinder camera".
He also said (off topic here) "a 90mm lens is too long for a rangefinder camera".
As noted Pratkina was pretty close as was the Topcon Super DM system, I think 1966, followed by Canon F1 in 1970. Pentax and Minolta followed in the 70s and 80s. What Nikon offered was a top level rugged build, and a great set of lens at an affordable price. I never shot with a Pratkina but seems to recall that it did not have same build quality. I think the Pentax Spots, Konica Ts, Minolta SRT had as good of build quality as Nikon, just not the system. I got a used Nikon F, factory modified for motor drive, in 1970, used that camera until 1977 when I traded it in for a F2. One thing I can say for Konica T is that there are still plenty of Ts around with working meters, finding a working head for F or F2 takes some looking. Leica of course has great build quality and top notch lens as did Swiss Alpa, but limted accessories. The Alpa made a all mechanical motor drive that needed a very heavy tripod to operate from.
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I got interested in cameras in high school. in 1967 when i started university in downtown Montreal i frequently visited the bigger camera stores. Even though the photo magazines touted the Praktina and Topcon....the sellers were Pentax, Minolta and Nikon. I started with a Minolta SR with the clip on meter and soon traded to a Nikkormat and then a Leica M2. Pentax Minolta and Nikon were the cameras shooting for the McGill University. newspaper.
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It's interesting that - irrespective of who was actually first - the only camera that ever gave the F a run for it's money was the Canon F1. (And I've used/owned Spotmatics, Minoltas, Ricohs, Leicas, Yashicas, etc.) Canon went directly after the pro market with that camera and did really smart things - like lend sports photographers great big huge glass with their logo on the barrels so you could see "Canon" from the stands of a auto race or football field.
Part of what drove the popularity of the Nikon F was the Viet Nam war. Soldiers in theater saw these cameras around the necks of photojournalists. When they left Viet Nam, they'd often transit through Japan or go there on leave. There they found Nikon all over the place at a very cheap price. I recall looking at Nikon pricing in Hong Kong in the early 1970s that hands down beat anything I could get in the US even when factoring in the cost of shipping.
I have been a Nikon shooter since the 1970s and currently own a Nikkormat Ft, a Nikomat FtN, a pre Apollo F Photomic, an Apollo F Photomic, an F2, and an F3 (well there's the D750 but that's for snapshots). All of them work, all of them have reasonably decent working meters and I have accessories for the Fs like waist level finders and non-metered prisms. Some 60-80 years after they were born, they are still tanks that just work. They need the occasional seal job and/or CLA but that's about it. Oh, and bonus, the AI/AIS lenses are similarly built to last and work just fine on my D750 (who needs autofocus). THAT is why Nikon won and won big - Never obsoleting their mount and building things for constant hammering by pros. Even in their new Z digitals, they have an adapter ring to let these old lenses live another generation (I think, I've read, I don't own a Z). You buy a camera, you invest in glass.
I will say that, after the F3, I lost interest. The F4-5-6 were just digital cameras in film drag with too much weight and too many gadgets and features to be of much interest, at least to me. I also don't think they were anywhere near as durable as the prior models. Although I've shot the vast majority of my 35mm stuff on F bodies, I'd have to say that the very best camera of that generation was the F2 which is just a superb instrument. The F3 comes close but they used a stupid little LED to display cameras settings that I hate so hard.
That said, the tragedy is that I shoot very little small format with 120/4x5 being my default. But I do make sure to shoot every camera in my stable - including the Nikons - once or twice a year.,
Part of what drove the popularity of the Nikon F was the Viet Nam war. Soldiers in theater saw these cameras around the necks of photojournalists. When they left Viet Nam, they'd often transit through Japan or go there on leave. There they found Nikon all over the place at a very cheap price. I recall looking at Nikon pricing in Hong Kong in the early 1970s that hands down beat anything I could get in the US even when factoring in the cost of shipping.
I have been a Nikon shooter since the 1970s and currently own a Nikkormat Ft, a Nikomat FtN, a pre Apollo F Photomic, an Apollo F Photomic, an F2, and an F3 (well there's the D750 but that's for snapshots). All of them work, all of them have reasonably decent working meters and I have accessories for the Fs like waist level finders and non-metered prisms. Some 60-80 years after they were born, they are still tanks that just work. They need the occasional seal job and/or CLA but that's about it. Oh, and bonus, the AI/AIS lenses are similarly built to last and work just fine on my D750 (who needs autofocus). THAT is why Nikon won and won big - Never obsoleting their mount and building things for constant hammering by pros. Even in their new Z digitals, they have an adapter ring to let these old lenses live another generation (I think, I've read, I don't own a Z). You buy a camera, you invest in glass.
I will say that, after the F3, I lost interest. The F4-5-6 were just digital cameras in film drag with too much weight and too many gadgets and features to be of much interest, at least to me. I also don't think they were anywhere near as durable as the prior models. Although I've shot the vast majority of my 35mm stuff on F bodies, I'd have to say that the very best camera of that generation was the F2 which is just a superb instrument. The F3 comes close but they used a stupid little LED to display cameras settings that I hate so hard.
That said, the tragedy is that I shoot very little small format with 120/4x5 being my default. But I do make sure to shoot every camera in my stable - including the Nikons - once or twice a year.,
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And it's fair to say that the robustness of the F was legendary too. But the thing that sold me on Nikon back in 1974, apart from the cool factor, was the support. I recall the "Nikon School" which was a sort of travelling series of workshops run by pro photographers that made ownership of my F a ticket to an exclusive club. Nippon Kogaku did an exemplary job of building a culture around the F that, on top of the reliability of the camera, bought them a lot of user loyalty. Before the F I had a Pentax that I liked well enough, but I loved my Nikon.
MattKing
Moderator
FWIW, the support was an integral part of the "system"..
Nikkormat's were the department cameras when I was a student in the mid seventies. After I graduated I briefly went back as a technician and only then truly realised how much abuse they got and yet still survived. I don't think any needed servicing or repairing in years and years of use by students. I went on to use F's, F2's and F3's for work and never gave reliability a second thought when colleagues seemed proud to be sending their Pentax and Olympus's for a much needed CLA. But to this day I appreciate the Nikon system for the 'workarounds' you can do where very little equipment ends up being obsolete. So I can still use my 1960 50mm Nikkor on my Z7 using an adapter made by Nikon for the job and designed as an essential part of the system and not an afterthought.
Pentax, Minolta, Canon............ they never did this, right.?
Not to the degree Nikon did.
Other members have mentioned that these 3 tried to get their cameras into the hands of Nikon users, but it was too late, Nikon was entrenched, plus the other 3 did not have the "system" or support that Nikon did.
Does anybody know.........was that something Nikon did as a company, through meetings and brainstorming.?
Or was it the genius of one or just a few people that came up with this idea. It seems, circa 1960, they offered the reportage photographers a portable 35mm paradigm that was very well made, and rather unique in its scope.?
Not to beat a dead horse, but being born in 1960, i am old enough to have seen Nikon camera hanging from the necks of people at auto races, in Vietnam courtesy of television, and people shooting for Life, Nat Geo, and of course the Rock and Roll world.
Even circa 1980, if i were at any kind of event that was ................ a big deal, news worthy............ most all the pros had that Nikon logo.
It still fascinates me to this day.
At the risk of repeating myself..........does Nikon owe that huge success to a deliberate team effort, or was it just one, or a few people that came up with the winning recipe.?
This ad was published in February 1958 Modern Photography magazine. As I understand it, placing an ad back then has a little lead time before it can be published so well ahead of the Nikon F release.
I have been around photography for a lonnnng time but I have never ever seen a Praktina. I know they were of the same ilk as the Pentacon (which I have had) but they were never very popular in UK at the time I was starting out. Plus they cost a shed load of money which as a 15 yr old I didn't have! A work colleague had a Praktika IVb with a light meter built in and a seemingly huge Carl Zeiss 58mm/F2 Biotar on the front. That was the start for me although my 1st SLR was not bought for a couple of years and that was the Russian 'Start' but not as well built as the Praktika though. (discussed here a couple of weeks ago)
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Absolutely; Nikon had a really well-crafted package that no one else seemed able to match. I often wondered where this came from--whether it was a strategy born in Tokyo or elsewhere. But they covered all the bases: well engineered and well made gear, robust marketing campaigns and good after-sale support systems. Kind of like what Sony would do later in the pro video market. I wonder if the Sony people looked at Nikon and said, "Yeah, let's do that."
Because Nikon was the "first" with a complete system camera, viewfinders, focusing screens, factory mod motor drive, bulk film back, and a very wide range of lens from a fisheye to 2000mm it was adopted by the new services, major news papers, Nat Geo and other magazines, the U.S Army, Air Force, and I think the Marines but not the Navy, and NASA. Once adopted and invested in the Nikon System when the other systems came out there was a hesitancy to change over. Not that some did, the Navy used Topcon D and Super D until Topcon left the market in 1977 then used Canon F1. In addition to the system Nikon also built out a large network of repair centers. In addition to service centers I could rent Nikon lens or a spare body in most large cities from various camera shops. Auto focus changed all that, if you going to buy an auto focus body why stick with manual focus lens? As Canon had the best AF and great pro level lens with L lens, Canon replaced Nikon as the pro level 35mm.
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