Nikon F4 (F4S)

I noted in a previous posting that the Nikon F4 was a camera that I had coveted for years, and recently acquired.  The F4 is only the third 35mm SLR film camera I have owned, and I only got my hands on one in August 2022.

 

My first SLR, after using dad’s Voigtländer Vito II for years, was a Contax 139 Quartz which I bought new while in CEGEP at Dawson in Montreal.  While at Dawson, I managed to take a couple of courses at what was then the Dawson Institute of Photography (DIP), which included my introduction to large format 4X5 photography.

The Contax was a solid camera but the real draw was the optics: it came with a 50mm Carl Zeiss lens. I bought the camera at Simon’s Camera, the legendary Montreal camera store that closed in 2017 after being a mainstay of the photo scene for 87 years.

 

The Contax was my main shooter for eight years, through CEGEP and university, and the first couple of years in the workforce. It was stolen out of my office at Westmount Square in 1987, after I had begun working in Public Affairs for what was then known as the Canadian Electrical Association. A couple of guys showed up at the office reception saying they were with building maintenance, come to check the ventilation, and went office-to-office while most of the staff was in a meeting, cleaning out wallets, purses, and anything else valuable, including my Contax, and leaving by the stairwell exit to the next floor.  It seems that they went floor-by-floor that morning and cleaned out many offices in the building.

 

The company insurance covered the loss, but instead of replacing like-for-like, I decided to join the big-leagues and go with a Nikon.  And while I could never afford the new F4, I was able to score a used original Nikon F (also from Simon's), the classic choice of photojournalists, made famous as the camera that covered the Vietnam War, and used by NASA astronauts, when they weren’t using Hasselblads. The Nikon F was the first used camera that I bought, but far from the last. It was a great piece of equipment: solid, dependable, and worked flawlessly for years. I have no idea how old it was: the production run on the model F ran from 1959 to 1973. I eventually sold the Nikon F in the early 1990s for what I paid for it years before.

 

Fast forward to last summer and my return to film photography.  I was surprised at just how affordable the F4 had become in the used market, the camera I would have bought in the late 80s if I could have afforded it and justified the expense. From a price tag at its release of several thousand, I found that I could score one for several hundred dollars.

So what's so great about the F4? First, it looks great.  For fans of design, the F4 was a massive departure from the classic shape of SLRs, virtually unchanged since the 1950s.  Gone is the boxy, sharp-angled camera body of old, replaced with fluid curves and a shape courtesy of Italian car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro. Seriously. Giugiaro is an interesting cat, with a design portfolio that spans Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, Fiats, Saabs and BMWs, but also cameras, motorcycles, watches, an organ for a cathedral in Lausanne, and a basketball. He was named automotive designer of the century in 1999.

With the F4, he designed a camera that fits very comfortably in your hand in addition to looking good enough to put on display.

 

The F4 was also revolutionary in combining mechanical and emerging digital tech. While it was one of the first professional-grade camera to include autofocus, all the camera adjustments are mechanical, so no menus but physical dials to set exposure and aperture, and mechanical switches for metering, exposure compensation and AE lock.

 

The viewfinder is bright and easy to focus, the screen through the prism is not too cluttered, and the mechanical sound of the shutter makes a satisfying clunk.

 

Below are some photos from the first three rolls of film I took with the Nikon F4.

 

First, photos shot in Ottawa on Rollei Retro 400S film (I will write about these cool films in a subsequent post) at the beginning of September 2022, developed and scanned by Studio Argentique in Montreal:

Another really interesting film, this one is Fantôme Kino from Lomography, an ISO 8 (yes, 8!) film, and these were shot in and around home the day after, and also developed and scanned by Studio Argentique:

...and finally, another interesting Lomography film, Berlin Kino 400 ISO. These were taken early October 2022 at Parc Régional du Bois de Belle Rivière, the Calvaire d'Oka and Parc national d'Oka, and were developed and scanned by Canadian Film Lab:

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