Funny ebay F3HP story...

[mike_willis1]

I have been watching ebay and few other sites for another F3HP,

especially since Nikon's announcement of discontinueing almost all of

their film SLR's I figured many are going to rush out and grab what

they can. So one late night I decide to check ebay, and sure enough

there is a Nikon F3HP newly listed, it's listed as mint and the

photos seem to agree. Opening bid $325 and a buyitnow of $335. I

check the seller's feedback all is well. So I pull the trigger on it,

all the time thinking well there must be something wrong with the

camera, it seemed too low of a price for such a stellar example of an

F3HP.

 

So I send the seller the money and it takes him a few weeks to get me

the camera, I was getting a little worried that I had been screwed

over. Well I finally receive the camera, and it is mint as if it just

came out of the box.

 

Well here's the rub, I install a lens, 50mm f1.2, look through the

viewfinder, I can't get it to focus. I try another lens 35-200mm

zoom, again no focus. Now I am thinking this camera has been

internally damaged somehow. I remove the finder look around in there,

still can't find nothing wrong. Then it dawns on me, remove the

eyepiece, yep they had diopter adjusted eyepiece. Check it without

that eyepiece and it looks beautiful!

 

So I email the seller and ask "Did you have a problem focusing this

camera, I can't get it to focus?" His response, "I had no problems

with focusing, I am just a amatuer, enjoy the camera."

 

I send him a followup, telling him that I found the problem, that

eyepiece was non-standard, but it was diopter adjusted. His

response "Really, I wish I didn't sell it".

 

Sometimes, there is justice in this crazy world.

[vivek iyer]

I don't have an eBay story but my first micronikkor was sold to me for a similar reason. The seller (after having sold it for a small sum) triumphantly told me that this lens Micronikkor P 55mm f/3.5 is not all that great as he had checked all the websites that tout the compensating aperture version as the best.

 

He also had spent a lot of time shooting charts and newspapers posted beyond 5 meters distance. This lens sucks big time at those distances.

 

It is superb for 1/10X and in that range.

 

Talk about a crazy world!

 

The compensating aperture version commands a lot of money while the P version sells for very little!

[leslie_cheung]

Is doesn't seem to me that the F3hp are going for very much these days. The only film camera that haven't been affect by digital price wise is leica, leica prices actually gone up but probably due to the weak dollar. Anyhow, enjoy your F3

[User_502260]

I have a 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor P and it works very well at distances past 5 meters and even at infinity. It is true that a lens like this can be more difficult to focus outside of the close-up range because it is slower and because the helicoid has a different pitch from a 50mm f/2 or f/1.4 lens. Earlier 55mm Micro Nikkor models, which some people believe offer better close-up performance, worked very poorly at greater distances and at infinity.

[vivek iyer]

Then I have rare 55/3.5 P ?! More than two samples and they all show the same behaviour. Infinity (or close to it) performance is very poor.

[danny_liao]

What a scum. So he actually thought there was a focusing issue but lied about it??? But when you told him there was nothing wrong with it, he replied by saying "Really, I wish I didn't sell it."? What an a$$.

[User_502260]

To know whether your 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor P really had problems at infinity you would have to test it on a tripod. You would have to know whether the lens was adjusted properly for infinity focus. You would also have to be sure that your camera was working properly at infinity. Even a slight problem with the position of the mirror will throw thngs off.

 

The other issue is which exact lenses you had. My Nikon equipment is a small part of my overall collection. I have 17 Nikkor lenses, all in F mount. This doesn't include two EL Nikkors and a 120mm f/5.6 Macro Nikkor. Both of my 105mm f/2.5 Nikkors are marked with the letter P. P is for penta (5) and shows that the lens has five elements. The earlier lens has a chrome (aluminum) colored front and is the old Sonnar design. The second lens has a black front and is, based on the look of the rear element, a newer Gauss design. For the record, I like both of them. There was, if my information is correct, a 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor which had five elements in three groups. This was a later model than the compensating lens. It worked well in the 1:10 and higher magnification ranges and it allowed focusing to infinity. The results at infinity were not very good but Nikon knew that people were going to use the lens in this range so it was redesigned to have the same five elements but in four groups. If you go to nikonlinks.com you can access a list of lenses by focal length and serial number. This will allow you to check which lens or lenses you have and what the designs are. It looks like my 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor P is of the later design.

 

Some people have said that the later design did not work as well at 1:10 or higher magnifications as the older model. From what I can see my lens also works well in the close-up range. Prices for these lenses are very low now so I might look for an older model to compare mine with at the closer end. I have macro lenses in the 50-55mm range from Minolta, Olympus, Konica, Canon and Vivitar so I have some experience with "standard" focal length macro lenses.

 

The 55mm f/2.8 manual focus Nikkors with floating elements (CRC) are supposed to offer the best performance for a lens of this type for subjects both far and near. The problem with it is that lubricant from the helicoid or from the CRC mechanism migrates to the aperture blades and this is an expensive repair.

[User_502260]

I have a correction to make. The 120mm Macro Nikkor is an f/6.3 lens.

[chuck_mathis]

A few years ago I bought an EL that was sold as a parts camera for next to nothing. It

arrived not looking any worse than my other users so I checked it out. Everything seemed

to work perfectly except the meter - battery check didn't light up. Locked the mirror up

and opened the battery compartment to find that the battery was installed backward.

Swapped the battery end for end and have been using it ever since.

[shawn_rahman]

A "minty" F3HP recently sold for over $700 on ebay. This is within the past week. I'd post an item number, but apparently that is against the law these days ;-).

[shoots]

I bought my F3HP over four years ago, great camera mint as well, it came with one of

those red leather nikon cases. But I threw that away and...just kidding I still have it.

[vivek iyer]

Jeff Adler- ALL Micronikkor 55mm f/3.5 lenses are 5 element lenses.

[User_502260]

The question is not whether all 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkors had five elements. All of the sources I have seen say that they did. The question is whether the elements were always arranged in the same number of groups. The 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor-S had the same number of elements as the later SC and the first version of the K lens but by the second version of the K lens the number of groups was changed.

 

For people who have many lenses or who can afrord to buy a few now because prices are low, it isn't terribly important whether a particular 55mm macro lens is good or bad at infinity. You can but a 50mm f/2 Nikkor (H or later) and use that one for photographing at infinity.

[vivek iyer]

"The question is whether the elements were always arranged in the same number of groups."

 

According to Nikon lit., yes. The 50mm f/3.5, 55mm f/3.5 and the 70mm f/5 Micronikkors all are 5 element design and arranged the same number of groups as well.

[User_502260]

I will have to look into this a little more with my friends in Japan. I think I will also look for an older 55 so I can do some tests of my own.

[plasma181]

I wonder if there's an old Latin expression meaning "Seller Beware".

[briany]

Jeff, Vivek, according to MIR, the 55 f/3.5 was changed from a 5/3 to 5/4 formula. I inherited one with diamond-tectured focusing ring and scalloped aperture ring, which the site says is the new 5/4 formula. Unfortunately I've not used it much...<br>

<img src="http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/6070nikkor/micro/oldmicro50mmf35.jpg"><br>

Source: <a href="http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/6070nikkor/micro/index.htm">http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/companies/nikon/nikkoresources/6070nikkor/micro/index.htm</a>

[User_502260]

Thanks Brian. This looks just like my 55. My serial # is 600XXX. I can't say that I am a frequent hiker but when I do hike I like to carry one lens and that lens is usually a macro in the 50-55 range. One of the lenses in this range which I have used many times is the Vivitar 55mm f/2.8 macro. I have it in mounts for Konica AR, Minolta MC, Canon FD, M42, Pentax K, Olympus and Nikon. It is nice because it will go to 1:1 without an additional tube. I don't like to carry a tripod on a long hike and 1:1 is hard to do without one so a lens like the 55mm f/3.5 Micro Nikkor P at 1:2 is adequate. At this point I have used the 55 Nikkor more for distance shooting than for close-ups and the results have been very good. It is a versatile lens.