On 5/16/2012 2:31 PM, Ken Norton wrote:
>> Don't think I'd recognize you if you hadn't said it was you. :-)
> Of course not. He was still a Nikon user. Nikon users looked pretty wierd
> back in those days.
What were you shooting in 1970?
I see you didn't reply to the age survey in '06, but I'm guessing you are about
the same age as that Nikon, bought
around '68. I don't have that receipt, that I know of, although I have the one
for my Dad's Ftn, bought in Japan a few
years earlier.
It's hard to imagine today, with such a plethora of camera systems, but all the
prior SLRs, although rapidly developing
auto return mirrors, auto aperture, built-in metering, TTL metering, etc. were
like traditional rangefinders, with a
narrow range of lenses, typically 35-135 mm, and few accessories.
The Nikon F blew on to the scene as the first system camera, with
interchangeable viewfinders, screens, backs, including
a 250 shot back, motor drives, lenses from 21-1000 mm, and all sorts of other
accessories. Yes, Maitani had a great
vision of a system about 10 years later, that came out 13 years later, but
whoever was responsible for the F had an
even more revolutionary vision for its time that saw fruit in 1969.
It started slowly, but soon simply took the pro, semi-pro and advanced amateur
market by storm. My Dad's second SLR, a
Topcon RE Super/Super D was a fine camera, but larger, heavier and less
sophisticated in some ways.
If one wanted an SLR, and I already knew I did, I've never liked rangefinders,
the F was simply the best available, for
function, design, build quality, lenses and system. I'd been borrowing my dad's
cameras for years and could finally
afford one of my own. Everyone said Nikon was the best, I was intimately
familiar with the Ftn and liked it, and - as I
could only afford one lens, an excellent 50/2, I could still borrow Dad's
lenses for a while. :-)
It was a very fine camera, by any measure, and tough. I managed to drop it
about 5 feet onto the concrete floor of
Hoover Dam on the way from Havasu canyon. It took a bad pic of the ceiling and
had a small dent on a bottom corner.
That's the only consequence.
They made some very fine lenses, too. I posted before about comparing their
ancient, pre-metering 200/4 to my 200/4 and
200/5 Zuikos on the 5D (HEAVY tripod and 5# bag of sand draped on lens/body.)
The Nikon whupped them, center and edge.
Huge and heavy by comparison, but a really great lens.
I saw the light when the O/OM came out and soon had an OM-1. ;-)
SLR Moose
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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