My new pride and joy

[John]

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.

[flyfish]

Very nice! Congratulations John!

[garrettwc]

I believe the F2 is the best camera Nikon ever produced, and to be more precise, the best camera ever produced, period.

Yup. And you have a beauty. Enjoy.

[Tom]

Very nice, El Shutterbug.

[A.B.]

I can hardly wait to see some pics, many congrats, John.

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.

That is neat, very clever!

[John]

Well, since you asked, this is a picture I snapped yesterday. Of course, it's not taken with the F2A, I used the D80 and treat it in the computer a little (made it B&W).



As for the three-LEDs trick, I found it very interesting too. Sover gives you the option of some different setups for this. He either installs a push-to-turn-on-release-to-turn-off switch on the finder (yes, he has to drill a hole for the switch), or he can install a push-to-turn-on switch and the LEDs turn off when you switch off the light meter in the camera, or he just makes it so that the LEDs go on when you switch the camera on, and they go off when you switch it off. I prefered the last option, since I didn't want any holes drilled on my new camera.

[John]

Some more good news.

When I had purchased my Nikon D80, I had also bought a Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 APO lens. At that time, I wasn't even aware that Nikon digital SLR cameras come in two flavors, those with a full-size censor and those with a half-size one. The D80 is one of the latest, and it is well-known (even to me now) that the lenses that are made for these cameras (called DX lenses) do not work with the full-size censor ones nor with the film SLR cameras, like the F2A. Since the lens that I got with the camera is a DX lens, I had also assumed (I am full of assumptions lately, which I end up paying very dearly) that the Sigma was also a DX-style lens, in other words that it won't work with the F2A.

Well, this afternoon, I thought that it would be well to verify that. So I mounted that lens on the F2A and oh what a joy! No cropping. The Sigma is made for full-size censor or film cameras!! So my analog kit now includes three lenses (well, actually four, but I do not count the Series E lens that the EM has). The 50mm f/1.4, the 105mm f/2.5 and the 70-300mm one. All I need now is a 28mm one and I'll have a complete kit again.

Another thing I have discovered a few weeks ago, is that Nikon digital cameras do not work very well with traditional flash lights. Not a very important issue, most of my shooting is done in ambient light and the D80 has already a build-in flash. From my youth I had a Vivitar 3500 flash, which I was planning to use with the F2A. Unfortunately, when I tried to test it with the camera today, I found that it is no longer working. So I need a new flash light.

The 1,000,000 question now is: Which one??

Obviously, if I am going to buy a new flash, I would prefer it to be compatible with both the D80 and the F2A. There is a very nice, relatively small flash from Nikon, the SB-400, which is quite reasonably priced here, and which is of course warrantied to work with the D80, but Nikon has forgotten that there are still some older film cameras out there and in their web site, they say nothing about that. In other words, I have no idea if the SB-400 will be compatible with the F2A or not.

So anyone out there who has an SB-400 and is using it in combination with an older, film Nikon? If so, please let me know how it works.

Or if you have a flash that works with both a D80 and a film SLR camera, please let me know.

P.S.: My old Vivitar was what back then we called automatic mode. It had a censor which was measuring the light reflected back from your subject and was stopping the flash light, when it had seen that your subject had received enough light. Obviously, I would like my new flash to have such a functionality.

[A.B.]

My old Vivitar was what back then we called automatic mode.

I remember that, a very nice feature. I use ambient light, or get all OCD with umbrellas, so I am curious, but clueless, as to what is out there now...

Congrats on the 300mm, BTW. Those are fun.

[OD*]

Very nice indeed!

[John]

Further update on the flash issue.

Nikon current range of speed lights works amazingly well with the D-xx cameras, but not with the older manual ones. That means that the SB-400 doesn't work with the F2A except of course in full power mode, in manual. So I need a different speed light for the D80 and a different one for the F2A and the Voigt.

I guess that since the D80 has already a build-in flash, I'll get one that works with my new camera and forget about using it on the D80.

Ebay here I come!

Oh, and thank you all for the good words.