Why did Nikon F2 have horizontal shutter?

[flavio81]

Interestingly the Canon P has a horizontally run stainless steel shutter. Most have some "wrinkles" in them which don't seem to affect the shutter.

My point, exactly.

 

[GRHazelton]

There were many cameras with metal foil curtains before the Nikon F2, for example the Nikon F(1959) and many rangefinder cameras down to the Contax I of 1932.

I'll have to examine my Nikon F. IIRC the earlier examples use a cloth shutter, then changed to metal.

 

[Les Sarile]

I'll have to examine my Nikon F. IIRC the earlier examples use a cloth shutter, then changed to metal.

According to that Nikon history Part 1 shutter link I provided it states, "At first, like the Nikon SP, the Nikon F employed cloth shutter curtains.Titanium (Ti) curtains were being developed by Nippon Kogaku, and were completed following the announcement introducing the Nikon F. "

 

[GRHazelton]

According to that Nikon history Part 1 shutter link I provided it states, "At first, like the Nikon SP, the Nikon F employed cloth shutter curtains.Titanium (Ti) curtains were being developed by Nippon Kogaku, and were completed following the announcement introducing the Nikon F. "

Thanks! I fear I may becoming a "collector"...... My example of the Nikon F is a used but not abused example. I don't want shelf queens! BTW, does anyone out there have any suggestions for insuring an assemblage of "old cameras?"

 

[George Mann]

How exactly does the difference in shutter vibration between the Nikkormat and F2 affect their performance?

 

[RLangham]

Some people seem to think I'm asking why a technology that didn't exist yet wasn't used, and honestly, I'm not. The Nikkorex F was contemporary with the F and the Nikkormat FTn predated the F2 by years. And if anything it should be easier to get a vertical shutter to do 1/2000th speed, as the slit would be larger than the corresponding slit on a horizontal shutter and travel a shorter distance. Think: 1/125th is X, meaning that at that speed the shutter completely opens. Also, nowhere did I say that metal foil curtains were an innovation on the Nikon F2, just that at the time they were the exception rather than the rule, proving my point that the F2 wasn't afraid to be different from the majority of cameras at the time. Like, you can probably name at best ten examples of cameras with foil shutters while you can name a great number from that time that used cloth.

I mean when the first F2 came out the most common SLR's were also stop-down metering! The F2 was ahead of even some contemporary professional models in almost every way: top shutter speed, presence of a (non-standard) flash shoe, automatic flash sync switching, variety and quality of user-switchable focusing screens... in short there was no reason for it to abide by what was common at the time just because it was common at the time. If it did something there was a technical reason for doing it.

Also people seem to think I'm complaining or knocking the F2... like, guys, the setup I use with F2SB and late model Nikkor-S 5cm f/2 is the best thing I own. I'm just asking why a technology that existed and worked and would have improved the performance in concrete ways wasn't used on a camera that wasn't afraid to be different. The attitude that I can't question something if I enjoy using it is ridiculous. The "use a different camera" thing is very irritating to me.

I don't even necessarily want the F2 to have been any different, I'm just trying to understand why it was the way it was and some people really are acting like that's blasphemy.

 

[BradS]

yes but...I think that your question has been adequately answered. Hasn't it?

 

[RLangham]

yes but...I think that your question has been adequately answered. Hasn't it?

If you accept the thing about mirror shake maybe, but I think that's a very niche concern for most use cases.

All the other answers kinda come down to "they just did." And I'm still convinced there's a technical reason. It's not like Nikon wasn't the first adopter of this technology.

 

[BradS]

No. Likely no technical reason. as already stated...

• reliability - whether only perceived or actual. The perception of the customer would be more important.
  
• cost
• keeping the design in-house as opposed to licensing technology
• serviceability
• leveraging and advancing in-house expertise
  
• making small incremental changes to the flag ship pro SLR - Japanese corporations are generally very conservative.
  
• understanding the market (professional PJ's that already had years of experience with the immediate predecessor, the NikonF

Believe it or not most engineering design decisions boil down to time and money - economics, not technology. This is especially true of high volume consumer goods.

 

[RLangham]

No. Likely no technical reason. as already stated...

• reliability - whether only perceived or actual. The perception of the customer would be more important.
  
• cost
• keeping the design in-house as opposed to licensing technology
• serviceability
• leveraging and advancing in-house expertise
  
• making small incremental changes to the flag ship pro SLR
  
• understanding the market (professional PJ's that already had years of experience with the immediate predecessor, the NikonF
• maybe even something to do with the size of the copal square vs the design goals of the F2.

Believe it or not most engineering design decisions boil down to time and money - economics, not technology. This is especially true of high volume consumer goods.

Ok so like... three of those were technical reasons that no one brought up, though.

Like serviceability? I mean, in the long run that turns out not to be the case, since Nikkormats are legendarily serviceable due to modular design, but that's a good technical reason that engineers and especially executives would believe at the time. I would accept serviceability alone, honestly. Size is also a good answer since I do believe the F2 has a marginally shallower body than the Nikkormat FT series.

If we're talking market externalities, though, that's where you start to lose me because honestly? I can think of plenty of things they could do different that probably would have been more pleasing to the market at the time, and also ways they could have adequately marketed a Copal square design and had the same level of success. I think you can't compare market research corporations do now with the help of algorithms and distributed computing to the market research they did in the 60's and 70's when marketing was just beginning to get scientific.

 

[Sirius Glass]

And if anything it should be easier to get a vertical shutter to do 1/2000th speed, as the slit would be larger than the corresponding slit on a horizontal shutter and travel a shorter distance.

Based on what? Your PhD in Mechanical Engineering? Do you have any published technical papers that you can show us? Vast experience in camera shutter design? You cannot make such sweeping statements without some proven technical reason that you can point to.

 

[BradS]

...serviceability as in the existing network of Nikon authorized repair facilities, and Nikon themselves already had expertise with horizontally traveling shutters. Again, economics - time and money.

It is easy, in hindsight, to look at the vertical shutter and see that it is in many ways technologically superior but at the time, I'm fairly certain that the Japanese would have seen it as much, much too risky (and likely too costly in time and money) to use in the flagship professional SLR. Manufacturing companies tend to have a few products that must NOT fuck up - the company depends upon them for the majority of their revenues and the reputation of the company rests on these few products.....think Ford F-150 for example.

Do not underestimate how loath the Japanese are (even today) to making big, RISKY changes to high volume products -products that are important to the company's revenues and reputation. Imagine how much face would be lost if the Nikon F2 were a failure or were even perceived to be a failure in the market.

 

[MattKing]

I can think of plenty of things they could do different that probably would have been more pleasing to the market at the time,

With respect, you probably aren't thinking about the right market.
Their target market was the big newspapers and wire services and other relatively deep pocketed heavy duty users of those cameras who also purchased gobs of expensive service contracts and mouth wateringly expensive lenses and accessories.
The sales to rich doctors, lawyers and dentists - the customers who were more likely to be swayed by a Copal shutter being more "advanced" were gravy.
It is those service contracts (and how profitable they might be) that would have driven the design of the F2.
The "amateur" cameras were where they would try out the latest innovations.

 

[RLangham]

With respect, you probably aren't thinking about the right market.
Their target market was the big newspapers and wire services and other relatively deep pocketed heavy duty users of those cameras who also purchased gobs of expensive service contracts and mouth wateringly expensive lenses and accessories.
The sales to rich doctors, lawyers and dentists - the customers who were more likely to be swayed by a Copal shutter being more "advanced" were gravy.
It is those service contracts (and how profitable they might be) that would have driven the design of the F2.
The "amateur" cameras were where they would try out the latest innovations.

No, I'm thinking of the PJ market (meaning the papers that would buy the cameras, not the PJ's themselves) but also every other professional application. Pro photographers don't begin and end with PJ's... and then there are of course medical applications and so on.

While a category of rich amateurs (and we're fond of specifying dentists and doctors) would buy pro cameras, I'm not thinking of them as in any way significant.

 

[Les Sarile]

In the Nikon Shutter history part 2 I linked to, clearly confidence in the reliability of their horizontal shutter was higher then their jointly developed vertical shutter. So much so that 10 years after the F2, their next generation pro F3 still incorporated the horizontal shutter. It did discuss the more development to produce a better and more reliable vertical shutter.

It certainly is not reluctance to use technology as the F3 was equipped with aperture priority autoexposure, a feature only recently incorporated into the Nikon lineup with the releases of the EL, ELW & EL2 - 72, 76 &;77. This was not an insignificant development as they even added a manual override to fire the shutter in case of electronic failure. There is no other camera with this feature.

 

[MattKing]

No, I'm thinking of the PJ market (meaning the papers that would buy the cameras, not the PJ's themselves) but also every other professional application. Pro photographers don't begin and end with PJ's... and then there are of course medical applications and so on

At the time of the F2, there weren't a lot of professional applications that used 35mm - mostly photo-journalism.
Plus medical and laboratory applications, where the durability and serviceability of shutters would have been paramount.

 

[vlasta]

One of the reasons was that Nikon didn't want to compromise a top-pro model reliability with third party Copal-Square shutters.

Copal was anonymous company that had to prove its quality / reliability.

And as history shows all single digit F models, by the way pro models, have in-house shutters.

 

[RLangham]

One of the reasons was that Nikon didn't want to compromise a top-pro model reliability with third party Copal-Square shutters.

Copal was anonymous company that had to prove its quality / reliability.

And as history shows all single digit F models, by the way pro models, have in-house shutters.

See, I thought by the time of the Nikkormat Nikon was building copal-type shutters in house. Is that wrong?

 

[RLangham]

In the Nikon Shutter history part 2 I linked to, clearly confidence in the reliability of their horizontal shutter was higher then their jointly developed vertical shutter. So much so that 10 years after the F2, their next generation pro F3 still incorporated the horizontal shutter. It did discuss the more development to produce a better and more reliable vertical shutter.

It certainly is not reluctance to use technology as the F3 was equipped with aperture priority autoexposure, a feature only recently incorporated into the Nikon lineup with the releases of the EL, ELW & EL2 - 72, 76 &;77. This was not an insignificant development as they even added a manual override to fire the shutter in case of electronic failure. There is no other camera with this feature.

See, I'm sorry, I never got around to reading that. That does make sense.

 

[wiltw]

I don't see what this proves. Most of those cameras still had cloth shutters while the F2 made a departure and used foil. The F2 was emphatically not defined only by the trends of the broader market.

The point was stated in the article quoted...most manufacturers were more interested in durability/reliability so they persisted in horizontal shutters.

"Although Konica and Nikkormat were major users of the Copal Square, many other brands including Asahi Pentax, Canon, Leica and Minolta continued to refine the Leica-type shutter for reliability, "​

The foil did allow some manufacturers to ashieve faster shutter curtain travel for faster top speed, and which allowed also faster X-sync speed for flash.

 

[Chan Tran]

I would prefer the horizontal travelled shutter.

 

[flavio81]

I would prefer the horizontal travelled shutter.

I do, as well. Often, the operation is smoother.

 

[Christiaan Phleger]

Recall that the increased professional use of the motor drive with first the F/F36 and then the F2/MD-2 required a higher level of durability from the whole shutter mechanism.
As well, in those Nikon Historical articles (excellent reading on shutters) it was pointed out that in the consideration for the F4 design of a vertical bladed shutter was the large issue of light leak when used in mirror lock up mode. Although today's shooter/consumers are now are used to using high ISO's (digital) to combat shake, way back in the days of Kodachrome 25 and 64 the use of tripod/MLU/cable release was common especially for long telephoto use. Nikon always made the Fx models the top tier of performance and MLU without light leak was a priority, and they brilliantly designed the F4 (and later F5) to have a dual set of shutter blades to prevent this. This dual set of shutter blades is why the N8008 did not have MLU which only had a Seiko designed single bladed shutter (itself a fine camera/shutter unit).

don't get me started on the F4 shutter balancer, don't get me started!

 

[flavio81]

Some people seem to think I'm asking why a technology that didn't exist yet wasn't used, and honestly, I'm not. The Nikkorex F was contemporary with the F and the Nikkormat FTn predated the F2 by years. And if anything it should be easier to get a vertical shutter to do 1/2000th speed, as the slit would be larger than the corresponding slit on a horizontal shutter and travel a shorter distance. Think: 1/125th is X, meaning that at that speed the shutter completely opens. Also, nowhere did I say that metal foil curtains were an innovation on the Nikon F2, just that at the time they were the exception rather than the rule, proving my point that the F2 wasn't afraid to be different from the majority of cameras at the time. Like, you can probably name at best ten examples of cameras with foil shutters while you can name a great number from that time that used cloth.

I mean when the first F2 came out the most common SLR's were also stop-down metering! The F2 was ahead of even some contemporary professional models in almost every way: top shutter speed, presence of a (non-standard) flash shoe, automatic flash sync switching, variety and quality of user-switchable focusing screens... in short there was no reason for it to abide by what was common at the time just because it was common at the time. If it did something there was a technical reason for doing it.

Also people seem to think I'm complaining or knocking the F2... like, guys, the setup I use with F2SB and late model Nikkor-S 5cm f/2 is the best thing I own. I'm just asking why a technology that existed and worked and would have improved the performance in concrete ways wasn't used on a camera that wasn't afraid to be different. The attitude that I can't question something if I enjoy using it is ridiculous. The "use a different camera" thing is very irritating to me.

I don't even necessarily want the F2 to have been any different, I'm just trying to understand why it was the way it was and some people really are acting like that's blasphemy.

Nice you use the F2SB, that's the exact model I have, and I love it.

Now, you claim the F2 being "ahead of even some contemporary professional models in almost every way" and I can't understand this sentence. The F2 wasn't even too much ahead than a Nikon F Photomic FTN, which wasn't ahead from the Topcon RE Super which came earlier.

1/2000 speed was already available on the Canonflex R2000 of 1961. By the time of the F2 launch date, many other cameras had open aperture metering: the Nikon F, the Minolta SRT series, etc. The Topcon RE super, 1962, was a professional camera (used by the US Navy) and it featured open aperture metering, plus the metering system was in-body unlike the F and F2. It was a competitor to the F and F2 for some years.

I share your enthusiasm for the F2 and for Nikons, but you should better take a deep look at 35mm camera history before qualifying each camera.

 

[Chan Tran]

Recall that the increased professional use of the motor drive with first the F/F36 and then the F2/MD-2 required a higher level of durability from the whole shutter mechanism.
As well, in those Nikon Historical articles (excellent reading on shutters) it was pointed out that in the consideration for the F4 design of a vertical bladed shutter was the large issue of light leak when used in mirror lock up mode. Although today's shooter/consumers are now are used to using high ISO's (digital) to combat shake, way back in the days of Kodachrome 25 and 64 the use of tripod/MLU/cable release was common especially for long telephoto use. Nikon always made the Fx models the top tier of performance and MLU without light leak was a priority, and they brilliantly designed the F4 (and later F5) to have a dual set of shutter blades to prevent this. This dual set of shutter blades is why the N8008 did not have MLU which only had a Seiko designed single bladed shutter (itself a fine camera/shutter unit).

don't get me started on the F4 shutter balancer, don't get me started!

I read the same thing but the Nikkormat FT3 has mirror lock up and it doesn't have dual set of shutter blades I don't think so. Also most modern cameras the mirror can only be locked up for 30 seconds.