My Perilous, Misplaced Nikon Loyalty
Stories from the days of film and beyond
The picture at the top is one of my beloved Nikon FE 35mm cameras. I have more than a dozen FM, FE, FM2, and FE2 cameras in the typical chrome and my much preferred black paint finishes. I like the FE cameras the most. I rarely need a shutter speed over 1/1000s and more importantly, they don’t have the model plastered on the front, they are prettier. Of course, the FE and FM also have a flip-up lever so that mounting Non-AI glass is possible as well. The FM2/FE2 eliminated this feature.
Way back before there was a digital option and for sometime after that, my cameras consisted of Leica M for everyday carry, Nikon 35mm for longer lenses and general use, Hasselblad medium format for the bulk of “work stuff” and a large format camera for occasional technical product photography and alternative process endeavors. I dabbled with other 35mm film camera systems. I always had a special place in my heart for the Olympus OM cameras. I tried to love the Contax G system but couldn’t, if only it was manual focus or had mechanical manual focus…
I was invested in Nikon, I loved my FM/FE bodies, my F/F2/F3 bodies, and I loved the lenses in my collection. They served me well and were completely reliable. Along comes autofocus and then digital. I was not a fan of the F4 and definitely not the F5. These things were as big as my Hasselblads. Worse, I was not enamored with the shitty plasticky autofocus lenses.
I looked longingly at the Canon autofocus cameras, especially the new lens lineup that was with them. Finally, Nikon produced the F100 and a couple of AF-S lenses like the 28-70 f/2.8 AFS. Any day now they would start pumping out some well-built autofocus glass, some great lens designs, and better autofocus for the occasions it helped. Any day now…
Fast-forward a bit, digital was now here. I still used film for my personal work and the vast majority of any other photographs I made for others but I bought into the Nikon DX system in the form of the D2H and the D2X. Now I just had to wait for the DX glass. I waited and waited and waited and waited. Meanwhile, Canon had already gone full-frame and had a ton of L series lenses which everyone had to admin were superior in many ways to the shitty plastic full-frame lenses Nikon had (with a couple exceptions). Nikon continued to tell all of its loyal customers DX was the way of the future, smaller, better, faster lenses were “why”.
Then it happened; Nikon abandoned DX to amateurs and there was never to be that pie-in-the-sky DX glass that was smaller, faster, and better. Overnight every Nikon digital shooter bought into the D3. I held off. Yes, it was better in every way than the D2x and the D2h, miles better. Then again it was not miles better (for my purposes) than Canon’s full-frame line-up. It might have an edge in high ISO or frame rate but that’s cause um 12 megapixels. Canon had that in the 1Ds and the 5D version 1 way before Nikon. Let’s wait and see…
During this tumultuous time of digital, those heady days of new camera announcements constantly that really were “better” in material ways for many normal picture-making tasks, I had issue after issue with Nikon bodies. Remember the oil on the sensor scandal? That wasn’t just the D600, it was also the D3, D3X, and a few other cameras. It was most famous with the D600. Speaking of the D3X, Nikon’s answer to Canon’s full-frame high resolution, remember the D3x Hitler rant? I believe it was the prototype for all rants that came after. Funny but not funny if you are a Nikon shooter.
Worse, my autofocus Nikon glass had all sorts of issues. Three of my plastic AF full-frame lenses went belly-up. Not because of mistreatment, abuse, or any kind of physical stress. They failed while gently using them without any fanfare. How did they fail?
20mm AF-D: Broken aperture permanently stuck closed
50mm 1.4 AF: Broken aperture permanently stuck closed
105 AF Macro: Bad electronics, refused to operate on ANY autofocus camera even if you wanted to manually focus.
This was when I started the on-again, off-again, on-again love affair with the 5D series cameras. Eventually, I sold all of my Nikon AF cameras and lenses never to look back. That was a good decision considering all of the subtle issues I’ve helped other photographers work out on their D800’s, D810’s, and yes their D850’s. To this day I think the Canon 5DMkIV and 5Ds/R are better cameras for most people than those. Let me know if you want the details.
That brings us to the one Nikon auto-focus lens I still own, the AF-D 105 Macro. The picture at the top of the post was made on my newly acquired Zfc with a speed booster Z-F adapter. I still own that lens not because I need or like it but because I couldn’t sell it for more than a few dollars given it doesn’t work on any Nikon AF camera. Works fine if the camera has no idea it’s there as a completely manual lens. It’s not built as well as my Canon 100L Macro and I am sure if I had the means to test both the 100L would probably produce higher resolution if it mattered. Maybe not but I trust these Nikon lenses far less than the distance I could through them.
I trust all of my manual focus Nikon, Leica, and Zeiss lenses far more to work exactly as they always have than any modern, motorized, electronic-laden lens. At least I’ve found a use for that 105 macro after a decade of it laying around. It’ll come in really handy for the one time it makes sense to have a really small camera body like the Zfc with a really big Macro lens rather than my Canon or Hasselblad macro options.
I've been a loyal Pentax user of 35 mm and then digital since the late 1970's. While I haven't loved everything about their cameras, especially the DSLRs, I've only had two lenses out of 20+ give me problems and both were fixed quickly and stayed fixed. The only catastrophic issue with digital body was with their first one--the *istD which didn't have a latch on the memory card slot and the camera would shut down if you somehow nudged the door open. Gaffer tape fixed that. I might well have bought a Nikon FM instead of the Pentax MX that I ended up with if the Nikon hadn't turned on its meter with the winding lever. I am left eyed and having that ever stuck in my right eye every time I took a meter reading was a non starter. If I had had the repeated issues with Pentax that you had with Nikon I would have switched.
It is interesting how much we are willing to adapt to tools for the sake of the end result. Over the psst few years I have been shooting film in 1930's and 1950's Contax cameras and Zeiss and Nikkor lenses. The cameras are not an ergonomic triumph but the lenses make it worth the effort.