This was a very long weekend, I am telling you. Last Thursday, my friend Sover Wong from UK informed me that the package with my Nikon F2A and all the other goodies has been shipped. By Saturday morning, it was already in Athens Airport, and I was anxiously waiting for it to be delivered to me.
This morning, I checked the courier's web site, and it was still at the airport and I was getting really anxious, so I tried to calm myself. No rush, I keep telling myself. Calm down, it will come.
Then the bell rang and here was a good gentleman with a package!!! Hurraayyyyyyyyy.
I carefully opened it up and discarded the packing material that Sover had used around the various smaller boxes. Here is what I found inside.
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My new pride and joy. An almost new Nikon F2A, in so mint condition that you can easily mistaken it for a brand new one. Complete with its box and manuals. Together with it came an equally mint Nikkor 50mm f/1.4 lens and a Nikkor 105mm f/2.5 one, an MD-2 motor drive unit with the MB-1 battery pack (it can be used with either Nikon special batteries or with 10 AA alkaline batteries), and some little bits and pieces.
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A practically new Nikon camera case came too.
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So here is my complete analog arsenal, together with the Voigtlaender at the right.
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This is one of the two Nikon EM cameras I still had, from my youth. It has a Nikon E 50mm f/1.8 lens on it, which is compatible with the new camera too. When I sold my Nikon equipment back in 2001, these two EMs were the only things left, nobody was interested to buy them. Still, the EM is a very nice little camera, with aperture priority auto exposure, ideal for new-comers to the hobby. I plan to train the kids on how to use it when they grow up a little more.
I have to thank Sover here. The man is really good. He hasn't exaggerated on anything he had told me. He said the camera is mint and it is, the lenses the same, and they are, the motor drive and the camera case are practically new, and they are. Sover had disassembled the camera in order to replace all the foam material in it (something vital to the well being of the camera) and also to check everything up and relube it. He had also re-geared the motor drive with copper geats, since Nikon inititally used plastic ones in it, which were frequently a source of problems. Finally he had also opened up the finder, to check everything but also to add his ... patented modification. He installs three tiny LEDs in the viewfinder, so that the photometer needle, the aperture indication and the shutter speed indication are visible even in the pitch black conditions. Those who have used a Nikon F or F2 know that Nikon had developed a special accessory, which screwed at the back of the finder eyepiece and threw some light inside the top of the finder, in order to see the needle. With Sover's modification, this accessory is useless.
Overall, I am very pleased with Sover and his work. The man is honest and he knows his job very well. If you have an F2 that needs a full restauration, send it to Sover, you won't regret it.
Holding my old love in my hands again, after more than 25 years, made me remember things that I had forgotten. A trip down the memory lane, for sure.
I believe the F2 is the best camera Nikon ever produced, and to be more precise, the best camera ever produced, period. Its electronics are limited to a very simple photometer, in the removeable viewfinder, the rest is good old gears, levers and springs. Its simplicity, ruggedness, and reliability are examplery, every professional photographer back in 1985 swear by it. Holding it again made me a very happy man.
I can hardly wait to try it out, I am going to post lots of pictures here soon.
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