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Nikon Prism Interchangeability


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Okay, I know that complete F and F2 prism housing interchange with some astericks and caveats, but this question is a bit more involved.

 

Last week, I picked up a decent-ish black F FTN. Aside from some brass showing, the prism has some separation.

 

I have a dead DP-1 from an F2 Photomic that has a perfect prism sitting on the shelf.

 

I'm wondering how viable it would be to "transplant" the prism(only) from the DP-1 to the FTN.

 

Does anyone have any experience doing this?

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I've had the top off an FT, to fix the meter switch, following the excellent tutorial here:

 

Nikkormat repair

 

It's one of the easier cameras to get the top off as most of the controls are around the lens throat.The skinny wires to the flash terminals will probably come off and need resoldering.

 

But replacing the prism still looks a little daunting. I can't say if the prisms are interchangeable.

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My guess, Ben, and it is just that, a guess, would be that the prisms are the same. Simply from a production standpoint and repair standpoint. Cost of maintaining different products for like equipment was eat away at profits. It would seem more cost efficient if the four items, DP-x, DE-1, F prism, and F T(n) all used the same prism. This would make having spares available for any of the four finders. But there are actually more than four finders, right? So again, I would say that they probably are interchangeable.

 

Just my opinion with no evidence to back it up. However, why not just resilver the prism and have a "like new" prism.

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Thanks guys. Finding another FTN sounds like the path of least resistance, and of course I'd want a dead one since I don't want to kill the working black one. At the same time, though, I'm looking at a completely dead DP-1 and was hoping I could make some good out of it :)

 

If nothing else, the DP-1 has already given up its nameplate to another DP-1 that was a bit rough around the edges.

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I know that you can take an unmetered prism from an F2 and put it on an F and visa versa, the nameplate won't be there on the F2 prism but otherwise it is a perfect swap. KEH has both available or they did yesterday. They've also got the sports finder that is calling my name.....

 

Rick H.

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Hrm, on a related note to this, I have the F2 eye-level finder (DE-1, I believe it is) that got bumped a bit too hard, resulting in a fracture of the glass at the peak of the prism. It shows in the viewfinder as an irregular gray blob. It doesn't affect photos in any way, it's just annoying to look at. I've wondered for some time if there were other prisms that would interchange with the DE-1's prism. As some of you are probably aware, just replacing the DE-1 is not for the faint of heart anymore. They're more expensive than metered finders now. A clean black DE-1 can rival a DP-12 (F2AS) finder in price. So I would rather just see if I could find a replacement prism instead.

 

I seem to recall reading a while back than some of the F2 prisms have additions to them for various things, like viewfinder visible aperture and shutter speed readouts, etc., which would make interchangeability problematic.

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Quite some time ago, I got an early Photomic head with some mirror 'separation' on the prism.

 

I no longer remember or can lay my hands on any files about it, but I confess that dis-assembly and replacement instructions that I found at the time were quite daunting.

 

At that time, I had been tinkering with lots of old cameras, but whatever I found at the time about the Nikon prisms, I remember that it seemed way above my pay grade.

YMMV

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Thanks for that link, Brian. If you take a close look at the photo that shows the prism by itself, you can see that, at its rear, there are two shelf-like protrusions that are part of the glass, which are for the meter, I believe. This sort of thing is what I was referring to when I was stating that I didn't think that prisms from other finders would interchange with the prism from the DE-1. Prisms from metered finders will likely have these sorts of additions to them that would render them unusable with the DE-1 finder.
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Thanks Brian. It looks like it might be a project for the next time I get snowed in again.

 

Alternatively, I know the black FTNs are less common than the others, but it looks like only the front plates differ.

 

Or, here's another crazy thought. I have a 6.4 million(first serial block) F that I bought with an FTN on it. As I don't have a "flag" photomic, the path of least resistance MIGHT be to find a flag photomic for my early F, then put the FTN in my black one(with a front plate swap).

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