Why do my Nikkormats have dented prism housings?

[Les Sarile]

Why do my Nikkormats have dented prism housings? All 3 of 'em. Are they susceptible to this?

Because you bought them that way?
Must be the case as I bought my FT3's in perfectly good working order and cosmetic shape.

But really, at 750g (without lens), they are on the bigger and heavier side compared to their peers. Maybe their original owner took it literally when they heard that they can drive a nail . . .

 

[Charles Escott-New]

For years I,ve been reading about people weaponising their pro cameras to ward off assailants and thought it an internet myth.Here is the proof.

 

[Rick A]

Me, when I worked in the Nikon factory. I was inspector #9.

 

[macfred]

Chip,
You are supposed to put your camera down first!
https://media.giphy.com/media/2bOd7ckAE31W8/giphy.gif

This!

 

[drkhalsa]

My two Nikkormats. One with dent, one without.

 

[Sirius Glass]

View attachment 232043
My two Nikkormats. One with dent, one without.

Please dent the one on the left so that you have a matched pair.

 

[drkhalsa]

 

[anthonym3]

Nikormats, built like tanks, are heavy. This mass meeting an immovable object can result in a dent. However, of the three that I have owned, none suffered any operational damage. It’s the meter that kills them.

Apparently something went bump in the night!

 

[Huss]

The most dented prisms I've seen are on the regular Nikon F3s. Seems they made those out of a soda can.

 

[blockend]

Dented prisms are a feature of older SLRs, with professional models suffering the hardest hits. Finding a dent-free Nikon F or Canon F-1 of any iteration is increasingly difficult. Nikkormats also lead a hard life. Back in the 70s a friend carried his everywhere, and it was extensively brassed, dented and had the perennial feature of used and abused cameras, a creased filter ring. I know he still used it into the new millennium.

 

[SilverShutter]

Not a Nikkormat, but a Nikon FM, and indeed mine has a dented prism. To be fair the camera was abused at some point in it's life, still works reliably though.

 

[cooltouch]

It's so easy putting a dent in a pentaprism, I'm surprised more cameras don't have them. For decades I owned a Nikon F2 with a pristine eye-level prism, and then one day, in a bit of thoughtless handling, I dented the prism. It actually suffered from a sharp impact because the glass pentaprism actually sustained a fracture at its point. And this occurred late enough in its existence, where it was no longer possible to pick up a clean replacement for $80 or so, the way you could in byegone days. Priced DE-1's lately? What a bummer.

 

[Tomwlkr]

My Nikkormat FTn has shrapnel scars from Vietnam but still works, even the meter with a Wein cell

 

[Sirius Glass]

People use ball peen hammers to make their Nikons and Nikkormats look as though they were combat photographers.

 

[madNbad]

I probably have owned more than a dozen Nikkormat's. FT's, FTn's even a FS and never had one with a dent. I scratched up a few but never one with a dented prism.

 

[mrosenlof]

All SLRs have the prism bump just waiting to get dented. An accessory shoe if present adds leverage and a bigger target for the whack. The newest ftn is almost 50 years old now, lots of time for possible bumps.

I'll admit my ft3 doesn't get much use since I bought the f2. And it's not dented.

IMO, the camera known for prism dents is the pentax mx. I think the metal was thinner for weight reduction.