As we saw on the previous page, 1959 was the year when Nikon brought out the Nikon F, which was destined to become the top choice of photojournalists for over a decade.
And, in 1962, they introduced a pentaprism finder with a light meter built in, making the camera what was called the "Nikon F Photomic":
As it happens, Exakta was there first; they offered a pentaprism finder with a built in meter for the Exakta VX IIa back in 1958.
Like the Nikon F Photomic, their light meter took its reading through a window in the front of the pentaprism enclosure, not from the light going through the pentaprism, so it did not offer through the lens metering.
Eventually, Exakta would make good that lack, with the Examat, but that would only arrive in 1969, whereas it was in 1965 that Nikon switched to through-the-lens metering with the Nikon F Photomic T, an advertisement for which is shown at left.
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The image above is from Flickr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License, and is thus available for your use under the same terms. Its author is s58y. |
Incidentally, the original Photomic pentaprism finder was not the first built-in metering option for the Nikon F. At the introduction of the camera, one accessory offered was an exposure meter attachment using a selenium cell. This accessory went through three different versions before the Photomic finder was introduced.
An image of the Nikon F with a meter in the third of those versions is shown at right.
While the pentaprism is not part of this meter attachment, note how it couples both to the exposure time selection knob, and the aperture linkage of the lens, just as the Photomic pentaprism did.
The first and second versions of this meter attachment were similar in configuration to the third version shown, but differed in appearance in one respect: the selenium solar cell used for sensing the light was larger, extending across nearly the full width of the meter.
Pictured at left is a Nikon S-2 rangefinder camera. This camera preceded the Nikon F, and it was advertised as "the Fastest Handling '35' in the field", certainly an attribute of value to news photographers. Its predecessor, the earlier Nikon S, was widely used by news photographers covering the Korean War, and their familiarity with this Nikon product is likely to have contributed to the merits of the Nikon F camera being quickly recognized.
Oh, and I finally located an image of the actual Nikon S, which is shown at right; the advertisement in which I saw it simply referred to it as "The Nikon camera", as it was the first and, at the time, the only, model of camera from Nikon that was available in the United States.
In fact, this advertisement for the Nikon S by an importer even refers to this bit of history - how the Nikon S was used for photojournalism in Korea, and then became popular with photographers for a major pictorial news magazine.
In 1958, just before coming out with the legendary Nikon F, Nikon brought out a new model for its line of rangefinder cameras. An advertisement for this camera stated "It is, in fact, the first rangefinder-coupled 35 to fully realize the benefits of lens interchangeability". What this was referring to was the fact that this camera had two viewfinders; the main viewfinder had rectangles showing the size of the image frame for 50mm, 85mm, 105mm and 135mm lenses; the second viewfinder showed the frame for 28mm lenses with a rectangle showing the frame for 35mm lenses.
Not only did the Nikon SP continue to be sold after the introduction of the Nikon F, but there were also a Nikon S3 and a Nikon S4. However, the Nikon S4 is rare, having been available only briefly, and it was never sold in the United States. The Nikon S3 and S4 also date from 1958; while the S, S2, and SP were successors, the S3 and S4 were additional models offering less expensive rangefinder cameras with fewer features as an option.
According to one web page I've seen, the Nikon F wasn't designed completely from scratch, but instead incorporated much from the Nikon SP. If so, this could account for the fact that the Nikon F and Nikon SP were initially sold for the same price, $329.50, as one contemporary advertisement noted.
The street price for a Kodak Retina Reflex S, at the time, was $136.95, and I believe that was considered to be an expensive high-quality camera; and for an Argus C-3, the street price was $39.95... so the appeal of Nikon F did tend to be limited to serious professionals.
An early advertisement for the Nikon SP, at its introduction in 1957, referred to it as "a camera destined to play an important role in aiding those who draw upon its qualities to achieve new heights of creativity, and leadership in their work". Given how the Nikon SP was so overshadowed by its successor, the Nikon F, and, for that matter, by the success of the SLR in general, this of course seems overblown, but if the Nikon SP lived on in the Nikon F, then in a way it still fulfilled that destiny.
Earlier, I noted that the Nikon S was popular with photojournalists covering the Korean War, and this could have explained why people in that field were willing to give the Nikon F a try, allowing its merits to be observed quickly.
It is often noted, also, that Nikon cameras and lenses are of high quality.
While these two are important factors, I don't think they're enough to explain the great success of the Nikon F. After all, there are other 35mm SLR cameras that not only were advertised as being of high quality, but were generally acknowledged to be such... the Besseler Topcon, the ALPA, even the Leicaflex, for example.
The Nikon F offered quality and reliability; but it also offered fitness for purpose to photojournalists; it was designed to be responsive, and the layout of its controls was well-thought-out, so that it was a very good camera for taking pictures when you were in a hurry. And that was exactly what photojournalists needed the most.
This has carried on to the present; in comparisons between the Nikon D700 and the Canon 5D as choices for someone looking for an older inexpensive full-frame DSLR, it was noted that the colors of photos taken by the Canon 5D looked better, but the Nikon D700 was easier to use, with many functions having buttons on the camera to control them that required diving into the menus of the Canon 5D.
Shown at right is the Nikon F2, which came out in 1971 as the successor to the Nikon F, and
shown at left is the Nikon F3, the successor to the Nikon F2. This camera came out in 1980. The Nikon F, the Nikon F2, and the Nikon F3 all have removable viewfinders. This allowed Nikon F and Nikon F2 cameras to be upgraded to include automatic exposure control, and it also allowed the ground glass screen to be exchanged for ones having different designs in which the features for assisting in focusing the camera were different.
This was also true of the Nikon F4 (1988), shown at right,
and Nikon F5 (1996), shown at left.
The Nikon F6, from 2004, the final film camera in this line, did not have a removable pentaprism, but the focusing screens were still interchangeable. In the January 2005 issues of photography magazines, Nikon was already advertising their D2X digital SLR instead of this camera, their top-of-the-line film SLR.
From a review of the Nikon F6, I've learned that it was announced on the same day as the Nikon D2X, also mentioned above: September 16, 2004, and that while the Nikon F5 was Nikon's flagship film camera for professionals, the Nikon F6 was aimed at serious amateur photographers instead, with the D2X being the alternative Nikon offered to professional photographers at the time.
The characteristic of having a removable pentaprism was shared with the Exakta cameras for which pentaprisms were available, and with the Praktica fx-2, and fx-3, and the later Praktica VLC, VLC 2, and VLC 3 as well as the Praktina fx and the Praktina IIa, some of which we met earlier.
Also, the impossibly rare Zunowflex camera from 1958 had a removable pentaprism. While the Pentacon F from 1956 introduced the internally-coupled automatic diaphragm, and the Asahiflex II rom 1954 introduced the instant-return mirror, these were still not common features in 1958, but the Zunowflex included them both. Unfortunately, the camera was plagued by quality control issues which were what led to its being discontinued.
But Nikon wasn't the only later camera maker to offer this feature in their most versatile cameras. Interchangeable viefinders were also a characteristic of the Canon F-1 (and also the later New Canon F-1), the Minolta XK (or the Minolta XM outside the United States), and the Pentax LX. Also, many Miranda SLR cameras had removable viewfinders. And so did the Alps Ambiflex, which also used a leaf shutter instead of a focal plane shutter.
Pictured below are the Praktica VLC, the Pentax LX, the New Canon F-1, and the Minolta XK from among the cameras having this elite feature.
This feature was important enough that it was also sometimes mentioned in advertising for cameras. Here, for example, is an image from an advertisement for the Praktisix camera, a medium format SLR made by Pentacon, the makers of the Praktica line of 35mm SLRs:
showing the camera, some lenses available for it, the pentaprism finder (with the waist-level finder on the camera instead), and several focusing screens.
And here's a picture from an advertisement for the Nikon F,
which just shows that choices are available for the focusing screen and finder. (The wide assortment of Nikon lenses, and their quality, was also mentioned in an advertisement for the Nikkorex F camera that appeared in the same issue of the same magazine as the advertisement this image came from, as it happens: that advertisement is shown at right.)
While other brands of camera also ran advertisements showing the range of lenses and accessories available for them, this was particularly significant for Nikon as a selling point for the Nikon F, and thus over the years several different advertisements of this nature appeared for that camera; another one appears at left.
The large lens at the top of the assortment of items is a mirror lens. Despite the corrector plate being convex on the outside, since the secondary mirror is mounted in a plug on the corrector plate rather than being a silvered spot on it, I suspect it is still a Maksutov-Cassegrain lens rather than a Maksutov-Gregorian... and I also suspect that for the excellent reason that a Maksutov-Gregorian telescope is an erecting telescope, and so a camera lens of that type would lead to upside-down images on the film, which one could live with, but also upside-down images in the reflex viewfinder of an SLR.
The advertisement below ran in 1960, shortly after the introduction of the Nikon F in 1959,
and shows how Nikon made sure that a wide assortment of accessories, sufficient to make full use of the potential of the Nikon F as a "system camera", would be available at its inception. But there was time enough since the camera's introduction for the illustration in this advertisement to reflect some changes: item i in the illustration, the coupled exposure meter, is an example of the third variant of that exposure meter rather than the first.
Pictured at right is another advertisement showing how the Nikkorex F has access to the large assortment of lenses for the Nikon F, as well as at least some of the other accessories for it. A flashbulb unit is shown, and so is a version of the Selenium cell exposure meter, but bearing the name "Nikkorex" instead of "Nikon" along the bottom.
Pictured at left is the Nikkormat FT from 1965. As an advertisement for this camera notes, it was "Developed by Nikon, built by Nikon, and designed by Nikon for use with Nikon lenses". But then, what else would you expect? It included a built-in through-the-lens metering system, and was, as of course one would expect, sold at a lower price than the professional F-series cameras from Nikon.
I mean, who else would you expect to be making Nikon cameras? Mamiya? Well, back in 1962, when Nikon held fast to its previous decision that it should be expanding the market for their lenses by offering a less expensive alternative to their professional Nikon F camera that could also use them, I had thought they wanted to get their feet wet, setting up new manufacturing facilities that were oriented towards controlling costs while still maintaining quality - but not to the same uncompromising level as with their professional cameras - seemed like too large a step to take right away; but given the fact that this camera was preceded by the Nikkorex-35, apparently the motivation was instead the desire for a fresh start.
And so they commissioned Mamiya to make the Nikkorex F camera for them to their specifications.
Later on, after Nikon discontinued the Nikkorex F, the same camera continued to be made for sale as the Ricoh Singlex camera, pictured at left, and the Sears SL11 camera. Both of these cameras did have the Nikon F lens mount, so Mamiya had retained the rights to use that. Ricoh later used the Singlex name for several cameras of its own design, which used the standard M42 screw mount.
The first accounts of this I read stated that Mamiya continued to manufacture the cameras itself for Ricoh, but I later encountered accounts which seem more credible which state that Mamiya sold the tooling to Ricoh, with Ricoh then making the camera, and also making it for Sears to sell as the SL11.
Before the Nikkorex F, Nikon did make an attempt at producing a less-expensive SLR. That camera was the Nikkorex 35, released in 1960, pictured at left. Although the camera was made by Nikon itself, a portion of its manufacture was outsourced, and there were several problems with the camera. It was attempted to remedy the issues with the Nikkorex 35-2, released in 1962, pictured at right. As this version of the camera used a different shutter mechanism, the camera had to be almost completely redesigned. While the issues with the original version were corrected in this camera, its sales suffered due to the reputation created by its predecessor.
One interesting characteristic of the Nikkorex 35 is that it used a Porro prism assembly instead of a pentaprism, in order to save weight. Also significant is that the Nikkorex 35 did not use Nikkor lenses, for the simple reason that the cameras in that line did not have interchangeable lenses, unlike the Nikkorex F and the subsequent Nikkormat.
There was also a Nikkorex 35 Zoom, illustrated at right, from early 1963, which had a zoom lens as its built-in lens for greater versatility, thus anticipating what are now known as "bridge cameras"; it will be mentioned again later.
Incidentally, it should be noted that except for the horizontal lines and the word "Nikkorex" on the nameplate, the nameplate on the Nikkorex 35-2 and on the Nikkorex 35 Zoom was transparent, it being made from clear plastic. These cameras still had a selenium cell for a light meter, just less obvious behind the nameplate.
Incidentally, Nikon was not the only company that had cameras which it sold under its own name manufactured for it by Mamiya. The first SLR sold by the American camera company Argus was also made by Mamiya. An image of that camera is shown at left.
The usual lens that came with it was an f/1.7 Argus-Sekor, so it can hardly be said that the fact that this camera was made by Mamiya was a closely-guarded secret.