I didn't realize we were talking about a movie camera.
I usually take time to compose and frame each image before I hit the shutter button.
- Leigh
The Nikon F3 is the best 35mm ever!
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I usually take time to compose and frame each image before I hit the shutter button.
- Leigh
Yeah, the best 35mm camera is the Rolleiflex 2.8 F. You can install a Roleikin to shoot 35mm but the best thing about it is you can shoot 120 film!
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You've finally got that one shot at being on the field in the end zone of the local championship game. The game is tied and the QB lofts the ball to the wide receiver who just broke for open! Quickly the camera is brought to eye and finger is on the button! This is your big break to make it onto the front page of the local gazette! The player leaps as the ball tips off his fingers...
Either
He juggles for a CLICK moment and CLICK catches the ball! The games is over! Local Guys CLICK (Dang! out of film! open back up, roll film in, DARN that pesky 30 second shutter thingy that the F3 does! No! not again!).... And the winners embrace is over, the team heads over to the podium...
Or
He juggles for a CLICKCLICKCLICK moment CLICKCLICK and CLICK catches CLICKCLICKCLICK the ball CLICKCLICKCLICK! The games is over! Local Guys CLICKCLICKCLICK (Dang! out of film! open back up, roll film in, Autoload!) Winner Player CLICKCLICKCLICK throws hands CLICKCLICKCLICK up in triumph! CLICKCLICK Home guys win!
You don't need FPS is you're shooting the Grand Canyon though...
I think that Canon that shot really fast was mostly designed for bragging rights!
Seriously though, motor drives are great for sports. I shot Nikon D cameras for fast pitch softball and the 5 frames per second really came in handy trying to catch a ball coming off a bat.
If my income depended on getting the perfectly captured money-shot, I'd use digital:
Nikon D5: 12fps, with AF and AE tracking
Canon 1DX Mk II: 14 fps, with AF and AE tracking
Sony A9: 20fps, with AF and AE tracking
That said, I shoot motorsports and find 3fps the maximum I want to use.
Hummmmmmmmmmmm! Yes it´s good. so is the F and F2 the nikormats and fm and fm2 and Pentax Lx an Mx, canon F1 is good too. i do not like autofocus nor gimmickry and i take a picture at a time not 10.
I started shooting basketball using a 4x5 Graphic press camera 57 years ago.
You don't machine-gun shots in that situation.
I got great shots by knowing what I was doing.
- Leigh
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I'd only go that slow if I was shooting Danica Patrick.
There is much to be said for knowing how to anticipate the action.
My F3 has had a motor on it for most of it's life, so it's as fast as I ever need it to be, but I rarely shoot in continuous mode.
I'm not bothered by the LCD either, I guess I considered it a huge step up from the F's needle, or no built-in meter at all which is what I dealt with before the F3.
As for whether it's the best, who knows? I'm still waiting for my newer Nikons to impress me enough to consider retiring the F3.
Admittedly, basketball is one of the most predictable sports. That helped.
My F3 also has an MD-4 motor drive.
I find it convenient to have automatic film advance, even if I don't shoot fast.
- Leigh
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So, is the F3 faster than the 4x5?
For a youngin' like me the EOS era cameras make the manual cameras feel like Press Cams. Slick and Quick compared to Crank and Twist.
Sure but we're talking film here. I'm not going to trot out my whizbangs for this discussion. However even if I did bring my EOS I'd bring my F3 as backup when those blasted batteries die.
I have had very little reason to shoot multiple exposures. Even for wildlife photographs.
I'd take my time shooting her too.
Now she would be a hand full.
90% of the time I make just one shot (frame) of the car, panning, as it goes by by me on the straight. I've become very skilled at this, which is why I rarely use a motor drive. My main reason for not going over 3fps is that at higher speeds the viewfinder image becomes a highly annoying distraction.
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Nice camera, I have one , and shoot with it time to time. Very small LCD screen , hard to see and lack of multi segment metering, the rest is very fine. If I want to shoot with slow MF camera I might as well shoot medium format.
To me, timing is always more critical than a high fps count. I learned that the hard way, unfortunately. There are few things more disappointing than getting back a box of slides and finding that not one of the high-speed motor drive shots caught the precise moment. With good timing, no motor drive is necessary. I get the shot I want and I don't have to wade through dozens of also-rans. Further, focusing accuracy is also more important than a high fps count. In this respect, the F5 and F6 will handle any focusing chore you can probably imagine. So digital is not necessarily a requirement.
Back in the 80s and early 90s, I freelanced as a motorsports photographer. Back then almost all the cameras I used had motor drives, but the cameras I used most were the old Canon F1s. Those giant Motor Drive MFs weren't good for much more than 3.5fps, so I never counted on them for capturing the action. Instead I used them so I could keep the viewfinder up to my eye. And I took my exposures one shot at a time, waiting for the precise moment. You'll excuse me, I can't resist dropping in a couple of photos. And no, that first photo isn't a crop. It was a lucky shot is what it was.
March 83G. IMSA Race, Riverside International Raceway, 1986. Canon F-1, Tamron SP 60-300mm f/3.8-5.4, Fujichrome 100:
Group 44 Jaguar XJR-7, IMSA Race, Riverside International Raceway, 1986. Canon A-1, Canon nFD 200mm f/2.8, Fujichrome 100
Okay, okay -- since this thread is about the F3, here are a couple of shots I took at the 1990 Chino California Airshow. The lens was a Tamron SP 300mm f/2.8 LDIF
As I write this, I've grabbed my F3 so I can have it handy as I comment about it.
Appearance and ergonomics:
The F3 has a subtle grace about it that slowly grows on one over time. It is reasonably comfortable to hold with its vestigial right hand grip, its ever so gentle bump on the left side, and its smoothly contoured sides. I have largish hands, so my right hand definitely feels a bit crowded as I hold it. I much prefer larger cameras, such as the old Canon F-1, FTb and Nikon F2. But it's nothing I can't get used to.
The film advance lever is one of the smoothest I've ever encountered. It's just plain fun to dry fire this camera.
The shutter release has a good, tactile feel, although the precise moment of release is a bit hard to determine. I wish Nikon would have given it an AE-Lock function at half-depress, though.
Performance:
The LCD readout basically sucks. I find it hard to believe it's even a Nikon design. Back in 1981 there were already superior LCD readouts in common use that put this one to shame. The F3's looks like a rushed afterthought. And that's all there is, info wise, in the entire viewfinder. Even though I know there's nothing else there, my eye tends to hunt around the viewfinder, looking for more information. I dunno, cuz I haven't used a flash on my F3 in a long time -- is there a separate flash ready light, or does that info appear in the tiny LCD display also? And that cheesy light used to illuminate the LCD display -- why didn't Nikon have the presence of mind to configure it so that it would stay illuminated for a few seconds after releasing that tiny button? Instead, I have to continue pressure on it, watching the light flicker cheesily as I evaluate the exposure information.
In a way, I can forgive Nikon for the crappy LCD display because the Aperture Priority Auto mode is so good. With the F3's very tight 80/20 metering pattern, even when shooting with slides in unusually lit situations, I rarely encountered a problem with exposure. In fact, I became so confident using this mode that, except when I had to use slow speeds to blur car wheels and backgrounds and to blur aircraft propellers, I found myself using it almost exclusively. And even in those situations, the slide film I was using was slow enough that I could just crank the aperture closed such that I would get the shutter speeds I wanted. On a bright sunny day, shooting Kodachrome 64, I was able to shoot at 1/125 @ f/11, which was just about perfect in most motorsports and airshow situations.
Notwithstanding the tedious nature of the LCD display, when shooting in manual mode, the camera is very easy to use. This is mostly due to the ease with which I can spin the shutter speed knob with one finger without having to remove my eye from the viewfinder.
The aforementioned 80/20 metering pattern is, for me, a blessing. I spent years shooting with Canon original F-1s and FTbs, which have partial area metering patterns that behave somewhat the same as the F3's. Knowing the way it meters a scene instilled even greater confidence in the camera, so I could use it without fear of missed exposure.
The MD4 motor drive is such a natural extension of the F3 that I consider it to be a basic requirement. It's good for, what? 5 fps? That's plenty good enough for me, since I rarely shoot in continuous mode. Instead I rely on the MD4 for grabbing "the moment" because it allows me to keep my eye on the viewfinder display. It's the perfect size for my big right hand, so I find it very comfortable to use, and I don't mind the extra heft. There are two other things about the MD4 I appreciate: first, it powers the camera when attached, rendering the camera's onboard batteries redundant. And second, it requires only eight AA batteries. The MD2/MB1 set that powers the F2 takes ten and the battery packs for both old and new F-1 motor drives also take ten.
I can recall, when I was first introduced to the F3 back in about 1983 (a fellow employee had one and showed it to me -- I got to play around with it some then), it was still not widely accepted by pro photographers yet. Many still preferred their mechanical F2s and weren't willing to rely on a battery-dependent camera. I saw this attitude change, however, until by the mid-80s, the F3 had become the default pro camera. It wasn't until the advent of the F4, in fact, that I began to notice pros breaking with the ranks and moving over to Canon because of the EOS 1's superior AF abilities. So, when looking back, I think it's fair to state that the F3 pretty much owned the decade of the 1980s when it came to professional use of cameras. I know from personal experience that, when I was attending auto races and large airshows back then, most of the other pros in attendance were shooting F3s. I scarcely even saw F2s. And on occasion I'd even come across a fellow Canon shooter, which was gratifying since I was still a hard-core Canon FD shooter.
It wasn't until 1989 that I bought my first F3 -- a clean, used example, and my first ever Nikon, in fact -- and at which point my attitude toward camera systems other than Canon began to change. Within the span of a year I had divested myself of all my Canon FD gear and had accumulated a very nice Nikon outfit. Even though it was 100% manual focus, I didn't mind because I knew that AF was an open path, which wasn't the case with Canon FD and which was the main reason why I switched systems to Nikon.
These days, I'm a bit more broadly based. I own SLRs belonging to five different systems (including Canon FD, by the way
) and I own eight Nikon SLRs. I can't honestly say that the F3 is my favorite Nikon, and I certainly can't say that it is the most favorite camera that I own, but it's certainly in the top four or five. Which I think is pretty good company, to be honest, because the top five include both the old and new Canon F-1s, the Nikon F2 and F3, and the Pentax LX. All of which are superb photographic tools. I no longer try to choose a favorite from this group because they're all so good. So in summation, I must state that the Nikon F3 is not the best 35mm camera ever. As football coach Bum Williams said about Houston's running back, the great Earl Campbell -- "He may not be in a class by himself, but it sure don't take long to call roll." And such is the case with the F3.
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I agree with you (and others) about this. Yet, Nikon, Canon, and Sony gave their pro models a high frame count for some reason. They have crazy ciné-like speeds. Maybe I'm wrong assuming professionals were the target customer of that feature.
Wonderful car photos.
As for the MD-4, I've removed the battery from the camera body and just use the MD-4's batteries. I don't think the body needs the battery in that situation.
We've seen that with the F4 onwards Nikon never made that viewfinder mistake again.
Leigh, you have my admiration shooting basketball with a 4x5 press camera!
Knowledge of the sport and anticipation of the action is key to any great sports photography. That said, I did machine gun the girls when they batted. It's not easy getting that perfect shot right after they connect the bat with the ball. I depressed my shutter right when I thought I had it but kept the shutter release depressed just in case I was a bit early. It was also cool seeing the moment the bat struck the ball and then several pictures of the ball leaving the bat. Since it was digital it didn't cost me anything. The girls and their parents loved the photos which was what it was all about.
Hi Alan,
Basketball is sort of cheating since the action is very predictable.
There's a long run-up (pun intentional) so you can anticipate the peak.
I never shot baseball.
I was doing photos for the school newspaper, and baseball is not a school sport due to seasons.
It would seem the batting action trigger is much shorter than for basketball.
- Leigh
Basketball is sort of cheating since the action is very predictable.
There's a long run-up (pun intentional) so you can anticipate the peak.
I never shot baseball.
I was doing photos for the school newspaper, and baseball is not a school sport due to seasons.
It would seem the batting action trigger is much shorter than for basketball.
- Leigh
+100000000000000000000000000
Preach on, my brother!
BTW, you often need the cheesy light on the F3 because the white window that lets natural light illuminate the LCD is stupidly tiny, and ill-positioned, unlike the window on the Nikon F4, or even ... the one in the Nikon F2!! The F4 and the F2, F90, F100, (as well as the Pentax Super Program, and the Canon F-1 models) has the white window facing the TOP of the camera, where light reaches them...
Sample of GOOD viewfinder illumination design:
While the Nikon F3 has it facing the front of the camera and shaded, covered from top-light by the viewfinder, which acts like a large, dark umbrella over it. World-class stupid design. BLAME GIUGARO, i say.
Sample of BAD illumination design:
Dead Link Removed
Where is the white window? Where it is?
It is where light will not reach it. The camera's virtual butt, that never gets a tan.
Preach on, my brother!
Repent, sinner!!
Preach on, my brother!
Excellent list, i'd add the Nikon F too...!
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Yeah, the best 35mm camera is the Rolleiflex 2.8 F. You can install a Roleikin to shoot 35mm but the best thing about it is you can shoot 120 film!
... and the rolleiflex is a reflex camera AND a rangefinder camera at the same time!
... and it has a regular viewfinder AND a sports finder at the same time!
... and it shoots vertical AND horizontal framings at the same time!
End of discussion, the Rolleiflex wins!
End of the thread!
The best 35mm camera? Actually the best camera (irrespective of format) would be, as the Jarvis of the Chase suggests, the one you have with you. Instead of getting hung up on gear, or debating the alleged merits of one brand over the other...go out and shoot! It's an amazing world out there!
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