Nikon F Value?

[willscarlett]

<p>Yes, pinholes are in the trailing shutter curtain. The leading and trailing shutter shutters are made of the same material. I know what the titanium shutters look like, since my FE and FE2 have titanium shutters. This F definitely has no titanium in its shutter.</p>

[david_carroll4]

<p>Bear in mind that the Ti shutter in the F and F2 looks nothing like the shutters of the FM/FE series, even if they're both made of titanium. The F/F2 shutter consists of two strips of coiled ultrathin titanium foil that looks like slightly corrugated cloth, vs the rigid segmented vertical-travel shutters of the FM/FE.</p>

[fmueller]

<p>Your uncle reminds me a lot of my uncle - the one whose great deals I have learned to pass on as a matter of course!</p>

<p>When I was ten, he had been fishing and caught a huge goldfish. I came home, and my mom had let him put that thing in my 50G tropical fish tank. They had to take a bucket of water out before the goldfish would fit in. It was so big, it couldn't turn around in the tank. I had one heck of a job getting that sucker out of there, and find it a new home. But a FREE goldfish - what a great deal! Let's just say that uncle isn't exactly my favorite relative.</p>

[willscarlett]

<p>Yeah, this is the uncle who's the tech guru and always wants to sell you things, but won't buy anything unless it's a ridiculously amazing deal. I'm not sure Black Friday would be cheap enough for him.</p>

[steve_bellayr]

<p>Simple: Pass on it. Save your money for better working equipment. Seriously: $200 for non-Ai 50mm f2.0? Who are we kidding? An important cavaet to remember: Do not confuse old with valuable. They are two separate words in the dictionary with different meanings. More often than not they do not overlap whether it is cameras, lenses, art, antiques, books, etc.</p>

[john_h.1]

<p>According to your story, you are spending an astonishing amount of time and effort, gas money perhaps and who knows what else running around for something you keep describing as worthless being pushed by some lady and a relative who's probably just trying to get a cut. I recommend coming to your better senses and get this pile of crap back to the lady ASAP, not only to end the current madness, but to also get rid of it before something happens and there's some demand for compensation for any of the stuff being stolen, broken or improperly tinkered with.</p>

<p>You're even bringing up Adorama deals gone by for no apparent reason. Unless you have nothing better to do, get this stuff out of your life.</p>

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[dave_wilson1]

<p>I wholely agree with John H. from A to .</p>

[Robert_Lai]

<p>Based on your original description, as others have said, the T mode on the shutter and the mirror lock up work that way on a Nikon F. The meter heads use ring resistors, many of which have died. Thus, the big demand for the plain prism.<br>

The pinholes in the shutter are the killer. Let the old lady take her junk back.</p>

<p>Let me tell you about my experience with an uncle and a camera. Back in the 1972, my uncle sold my father a Canon FX with 58mm f/1.2 lens for $200. I still remember the price, because it was a lot of money back then, and we didn't have a lot. Long story short, the camera worked, but the lens didn't. It wouldn't close down from f/1.2. Many years of frustration with poorly exposed film, and wasted development costs. There is a hole in the family history from these years as the photographs are simply missing. What we did have was taken with a Kodak Instamatic 126, which DID work. Finally, around 1976, we fixed the lens. It was fixed for about 6 months, then it failed again. When I finally got enough money (in 1983), I bought a Nikon F3, and it's been my baby for the past decades. The point is not to diss on Canon. Rather, relatives and expensive items such as cameras don't mix.</p>

[veronica_lodge]

<p>Buy used requires knowing what you are buying. If you really are buying a Nikon F camera with a cloth shutter, you are buying a collectors camera. Only about 100 to 200 were made with cloth shutters. Since these are so rare, I question what you have. I have bought uses 50mm F2 Nikkors on ebay for 20 dollars. About 862k Nikon F's were made, they are all over the place on the used market. An actual Nikon F with a cloth shutter sells for over a grand or two. Thus your local camera store or clueless folks might not want you to make a profit. Fixing a broken Nikon F cloth shutter probably would be expensive, few if any repair folks have seen one before. Posting images of this gear allows a better appraisal, SUPER EARLY Nikon F gear can be rare and commands higher worth. Buying used items without knowing what they are worth is risky. Repairing often does not pay off. I have only seen one Nikon F with a cloth shutter. I saw it at a collectors home in Tokyo, on display. None of my many Nikon F's have pinholes, they have metal shutters and my first Nikon F was bought in 1962.</p>

[peter_bedo]

<p>(As a sideonote, it is actually possible to use MLU on a Nikon F without wasting a frame, but it does take some practice. Wind the camera, engage MLU, then flick or snap (I'm sorry I'm not sure about the right word) the exposure button sideways - if you do this just the right way, it will flip the mirror up without activating the shutter. I did have an F and tried this many times. It's actually described in Douglas Herr's article on the Leicaflex SL (<a href="../equipment/leica/leicaflex/">http://www.photo.net/equipment/leica/leicaflex/</a>), and when I tried it with my F, it just worked. Thanks, Doug! :) )</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>Any F body with an original cloth shutter would have a serial number starting with 6400xxx, my oldest has a 6410xxx serial number, it dates from 1959-1960, and has a 5.8cm f1.4 lens to match, as in a really low serial number. Now it's possible someone put a set of fabric curtains in a 67xxxxx serial number body, but it sure didn't leave the factory that way.</p>

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[vince-p]

<p>Hi. Speaking of the F's, I just taught a class in which we watched the final third of Apocalypse Now and Dennis Hopper has about five F's hanging off him in those sequences (though you also see him shooting a Leica at one point...) -- one or two looked suspiciously like F2s in what would have been an F world ten years' prior to filming in 1977. He's never still long enough for you to get a good look.</p>