Nikon built this camera to replace a legend – but professionals refused to buy it, despite its rugged beauty

In 1959, the Nikon F revolutionized the photographic world. Its maker, Nippon Kogaku (now Nikon) had done its homework well, asking hundreds of photographers from across the world what they liked and what they didn’t like about their cameras.

Using the remarkably sturdy chassis of its S2 rangefinder body as a base, it then set out to create an SLR that gave the pros everything they wanted. Almost overnight, Nikon went from an obscure Japanese camera maker to the professional’s choice in SLRs.

It offered different backs, motor drives, changeable viewfinders and screens. In short, it could be configured to do virtually anything a photographer might want. And it was so tough that you felt you could pound nails with it.

The F2 followed, in 1971, offering a number of new features including a quicker shutter, with a 1/2000 sec top speed, a swing-open back for easier film loading, a wider assortment of detachable finders and metering heads, a 250-exposure film back, a larger reflex mirror to ensure no vignetting, and a shutter release nearer the front of the camera for better ergonomics.

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It also offered a detachable motor drive, something that the F only had as a custom modification. It quickly became the camera of choice for photographers covering the Vietnam War. It was also the last all-mechanical, professional-level Nikon SLR.

Which brings us to the remarkable Nikon F3, introduced in March 1980. The F3 was the first professional camera to offer both manual control and aperture priority automation. (You set the aperture, the camera selects the shutter speed.) This is still the most used method by professionals, even today.

It was also the first of many Nikon cameras to be styled by the famed Italian automotive designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, who added a red stripe on the handgrip – a feature that would later become (with variants of stripes and various other shapes) a signature feature of many Nikon cameras.

Many consider the F3 (and sometimes the later F4) to be among the most beautiful 35mm SLRs ever made.

It was also beautifully made. Not only were mechanical tolerances even tighter than in the F and F2 models, the engineers used ball bearings to mount its shutter and film transport mechanisms – and additional ball bearings were added to the film advance. to make one of the smoothest operating cameras ever built.

Users reported that resistance was so low when winding the film that it was difficult to tell if there was film in the camera or not!

The F3 was as durable, capable camera, with an optional motor drive that could handle 4fps shooting. In the digital age this may not seem great, but it was stellar performance at the time.

But all good things must come to an end, though, and in 1988 the F3 was superseded by the Nikon F4 – the first professional-grade Nikon to offer autofocus and focus tracking.

The F4 was again styled by Giugiaro and offered a new, more robust Copal Square vertical-run shutter, with a top speed of 1/8000 sec and flash sync at 1/250 sec. It featured an integral motor drive with speeds up to 5.7fps.

The F4 bothered many photographers as it was also the first F-series camera lacking a manual film-advance lever, and its first-generation autofocus (single focus point and somewhat slow) failed to win people over. The F3 remained so popular that it stayed in production until 2001 – a full 4 years after the F4 was gone!

But the F4 was not without its good points. It would accept any and all Nikon F-mount lenses, both manual and AF. Its one bugaboo was that it (obviously) did not support the later Nikon lenses with image stabilization. The lenses would mount and work perfectly in AF or MF modes, as required, but lost the IS function.

In some ways, the F4 was well ahead of its time – indeed, NASA used it to create its Electronic Still Camera (ESC), one of the first and rarest of digital cameras.

Sources differ, with some saying Nikon did the mechanical mods while NASA did the electronic work. Others maintain that Nikon did all the mods for NASA. Either way, the ESC was used from 1991 on board the Space Shuttle. It was based on a heavily modified F4 with standard F-mount, and had a digital camera back with a 1MP monochrome CCD image sensor just 15 x 15mm in size.

In all, the F4 was a beautiful, really quite capable camera – but one that, perhaps too far ahead of its time, saw photographers stick with the F3 or wait for the F5, which arrived in late 1996.

Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.

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