{"id":5577,"date":"2025-04-16T16:43:26","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T15:43:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/?p=5577"},"modified":"2025-04-16T16:43:26","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T15:43:26","slug":"another-new-camera-nikon-f4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/equipment-review\/another-new-camera-nikon-f4\/","title":{"rendered":"A(nother) New Camera: Nikon F4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Having bought Bellamy Hunt’s Film Camera Zen<\/a> after spending some weeks checking out the old Nikon film cameras from the 1950s to their last F camera, I decided that one of these was for me. I enjoy the lightness and simplicity of my Pentax ME Super<\/a> that I bought (duty free – supposedly) in 1983 or 4 at Singapore airport, but too often the images are poorly focused (by me) and never exactly sharp. I have hesitated about shelling out for a second film camera. I was interested in the last largely mechanical Nikon F camera, the F3, because of its reputation and nice style. Its currently selling for between \u00a3300 and \u00a3400 and I couldn’t justify spending that amount. But I noticed, in passing, an F4 at about half this price and have ended up spending around \u00a3200 for a beautifully preserved version that arrived this morning from Japan. The F4 was one of three transition professional cameras that Nikon made between mechanical film cameras and their first (professional level) digital SLR, the appropriately named D1<\/a>. It was manufactured between 1988 and 1996. From the serial on the camera I have bought it looks like it was made in 1992. After the F4 came, predictably, the F5 which is huge and heavy and not just heavy like the F4, and the F6 which is virtually a digital camera that still uses film. Its clever but is on the market for around \u00a31000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
nice reused box<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Unwrapping
nearly touching it<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
under wraps<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Nice touch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n
\"\"
Its here<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Nikon
next to a D810<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
with a 50mm lens<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
weighing in<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today, the day after receiving it, I put a roll of Tri-X through it. I wanted to test that basic things like the exposure meter and the focussing worked and also to see whether my more modern lenses would work with this 1980s camera. I shot the whole film in a little over an hour (a record for me – mostly it takes a few months to finish a film) and developed it just now in the kitchen. I was very pleased that my newer G lenses worked very well and focussed more quickly and quietly that the older AF-D lenses. I have quite a collection so its a real attraction for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Its old school but I made notes about every exposure so I can check that there are no problems with the camera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"images<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now that I have developed and scanned the first roll of film, I can say that it performs perfectly. The autofocus works and the exposure meter works very well. The only alert was that this camera predates vibration reduction so there is some obvious camera movement on shutter speeds less than 1\/60. I will have to remember that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s some examples:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400\n\nDigitized with Nikon D810 | daylight\n\nHome developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Nikon F4 | Nikkor 35mm f1.4 G | Tri-X Pan 400

Digitized with Nikon D810 | daylight

Home developed in D76 | 6m 45s | Tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Nikon F4 | Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AF-D | Tri-X Pan 400\n\nDigitized with Nikon D810 | daylight\n\nHome developed in D76 | 6.75 mins | tank<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’m hoping there is some way to bulk edit the camera info in Lightroom etc. In terms of workflow, I have made a preset that makes positive images from the scanned negs, then each image just needs a little tweaking of its curve. This will be fine for B&W but colour negatives are much more tricky and I might resort to Negative Lab Pro<\/a>, a plugin that costs about \u00a375 at the moment so not cheap. Trying it – the camera and Negative Lab Pro, with some Kodak Gold – about half the price of Portra – is my next plan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having bought Bellamy Hunt’s Film Camera Zen after spending some weeks checking out the old Nikon film cameras from the 1950s to their last F camera, I decided that one of these was for me. I enjoy the lightness and simplicity of my Pentax ME Super that I bought (duty free – supposedly) in 1983…Read more A(nother) New Camera: Nikon F4<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,18,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equipment-review","category-photography","category-sort-of-technical"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5577"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5597,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5577\/revisions\/5597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/obliquepanic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}