Building a 35mm SLR kit from scratch in 2020/21

The Nikon N90s is my favorite machine for film, even better than the F3, which feels, to me, a notch obsolete. The N90s is crazy cheap now, even pristine examples of it. Minty examples of the F3 are still pricey. The N90s and F3 both have advanced flash capacities. Neither has a quiet shutter, but they aren't stealth shooters, anyway. Of course, the N90s has excellent AF; the F3 is MF. The F3 has a devoted following, whereas the N90s is almost forgotten (hence the price difference).

I think you've just identified the next 'cult camera', for those who want the F3 but want AF, and for those who want the F100, but who are on a budget. Get it while it's cheap! ;-)

If you're like me, you probably have a bunch of cameras and lenses from at least half a dozen brands. You have AF and MF bodies, some with internal motors, some without. Maybe one or two of them don't quite work right. And your lenses are all over the place. Some have mounts for cameras you don't own.

 

So, let's start from scratch. I want to see if I can build a kit with two bodies, and lenses from 18mm to 400mm (f/5.6). The kit has to be suitable for at least some professional applications. I'm aiming for a price-performance ratio of very good to excellent. This means I'm going to skip the cheapest lenses. After all, building a kit that's merely cheap is easy. Spend a bit more, get a lot of value in return.

 

I'm limiting my search to what I can find on eBay, and prices here are in Australian dollars. Nothing here is prescriptive. If anything, I hope that people will use this thought experiment as a starting point, not necessarily as a list of recommendations.

 

My criterea might be a bit strict for some people, but I think they are reasonable:

 

Price-performance

 

No restriction on brands for lenses

 

The widest lens will be no longer than 18mm

 

The longest lens will be no shorter than 400mm, and the narrowest aperture will be not smaller than f/5.6

 

The kit will include one macro lens

 

At least one body will have an internal motor winder

 

AF to be preferred over MF

 

Zooms absolutely must have a constant aperture

 

There are five main systems I'm looking at:

 

Contax CY

 

Nikon F

 

Canon EOS

 

Minolta A

 

Pentax K

 

Canon FD (honourable mention)

I thought you meant building but turns out you meant buying.

The N90s/F90x was a thousand dollars back in the nineties. Pros would use it as a second body. It is very solid. Yes, it is solid enough to be a weapon. The AF and AE are great. How did I discover it? Two Japanese girls stopped me on the street and asked me to take their picture. They had an F90x. I took one frame and knew I wanted one of my own. The camera, not a Japanese girl. Although......

Japanese girls are pretty the F90x isn't. I don't want the F90x or N90s just because of its look.

Best advice I can give is buy into something that can get serviced. I have quite a collection if Nikon F2 gear from my Dark Ages that I still use regularly. Seven bodies, 27 lenses, 11 MD-2s and double that on parts bodies and parts motor-drives. Love projecting chromes with Jazz playing on weekends. No stinking monitors for me.

Agree on the servicing issue.

The ring resistors for the Nikon wears out, and as I understand, replacement are hard to find or non-existant.

The F2 was in production from about 1972 to 1980. That is about 45 years ago. That also means that Nikon stopped making spare parts for the F2, MANY years ago. And the inventory of spare parts has been gradually drying up.

So while the F2 (and similar vintage cameras) can be serviced (CLA), if replacement parts are needed but not available, that may be the nail in the coffin.

In my case, my fall back for the internal meter, is to use a hand meter.

Agree on the servicing issue.

 

The ring resistors for the Nikon wears out, and as I understand, replacement are hard to find or non-existant.

The F2 was in production from about 1972 to 1980. That is about 45 years ago. That also means that Nikon stopped making spare parts for the F2, MANY years ago. And the inventory of spare parts has been gradually drying up.

So while the F2 (and similar vintage cameras) can be serviced (CLA), if replacement parts are needed but not available, that may be the nail in the coffin.

In my case, my fall back for the internal meter, is to use a hand meter.

The main reason I've got about two dozen parts bodies. In 2006 a Nikon and Mamiya authorized repair man, Tom went out of business due to the internet. Long story short. He made me seven F2 bodies and 8 MD-2's. All my bodies and motor drives have 100% new replacement Nikon innards. Winding, take-up and shutter mechanisms are new factory replacement assemblies. Only the shells are used.

That's a pretty good list thanks. I'm not sure if I would agree with every lens you listed, but it's good to know what quality lenses are available out there without pulling your hair researching those things. For one thing I'm not sure if I would include so many Sigma and Tamron brands especially used ones. These two brands have just started catching up to OEM as far as quality(but I could be wrong).

Since I never had the fortune to sit on a big pile of money, it took me years to build my camera/lens kits which include Canon, Nikon and Pentax(manual and AF). More than half the lenses I don't even use, or use very sparingly. The Research part and grinding my teeth while the lens or camera was in the mail, was the hardest part.

I would say though that I had a 95% success rate buying used gear Online(which did a lot to boost my faith in humanity). Some of the remaining 5% was due to my not reading the description correctly. These days I'm thinking about offloading a lot of this stuff since I hardly get a chance to use them. I will probably keep a couple of pearls if I need to...

Theoretically, you should be able to set the aperture with the lens' aperture ring - though for lack of equipment I can't confirm. DSLRs I owned always allowed to use the actual aperture ring on the lens - provided you set it up correctly in the menu. Naturally, this is limited to cameras that actually have the Ai follower tab (and hence excludes most of the lower-end Nikon DSLRs). Most film cameras aren't customizable (F100, F5 and F6 are though I don't know if that particular option is available) - so that option isn't available on those that aren't. Often the use of the lens' aperture ring is not restricted when using the camera in M mode. In any case, if the lens aperture ring can be used then of course a constant aperture can be forced.

I have the 70-300mm f/4-5.6 AF-D lens with the aperture ring. If you set the lens to the smallest aperture and control your aperture via the sub command dial then you can have constant aperture when you zoom. (of course not the largest or smallest aperture). But if you use the aperture ring to set the aperture then you don't have constant aperture when you zoom.

Quite aside from the specifics of particular camera and lens combinations, I have been forming 'minimal' kits for cameras I've collected for a long time.

For early film SLRs, for example, I've tried to get the camera, a normal lens, a wide-angle lens (of focal length appropriate to the time of the camera) and a telephoto. Sometimes, I have also added a short telephoto.

As the models get newer, I try to find the 'standard lens' (usually a wide-to-tele zoom, later on), a telephoto zoom, and whatever specialist lenses (like my beloved PC-Nikkor) seem interesting. I also like catadioptric lenses and ultra-wide lenses, but my personal kinks are less of interest, I think.

My Nikkormat EL "kit"

In the case of T-mount lenses, you would only need one for multiple "kits", as you could move it around.

This is especially true for catadioptric lenses, with no aperture coupling needed.

Actually I have found that the Nikon F and Nikon F2 ring resistors do not wear out. Most of the time they are just dirty and need a cleaning. It is not hard to do yourself if you are careful and have a set of proper screwdrivers. I have revived several of them with just a good cleaning.

F2 specialist Sover Wong has all new ring resisters for the DP3/DP12 prisms and even new cds cells for the other prisms that use those and the meter needle to bring all F2 prisms back to new condition.

His ring resistor for the DP3/DP12 in particular, he tested it against the original resistor Nikon used and he rates his new version as lasting well over 4 times as long due to the improved materials used. He installed one in the F2AS I just purchased from him and it’s one smooth-working camera.

Link to his site on his updated DP3/12 resister...

DP-12 ring resistor