tldr: I find the Nikon FA to be an ideal camera; it produces excelent exposures thanks to its automatic multi-pattern metering technology, it has an insane top shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second, and it allows me to manually focus large aperture lenses. If you value those features, then there is a good chance you will find the FA to be an ideal camera as well.
The Nikon FA is, at this moment in 2024, my tool of choice for 35mm photography. It took me looking at a lot of cameras to come to this conclusion, but I finally did, and I want to share how I became a believer. I assure you this is a great camera, but there are many great cameras. The question is, which great camera is for you. If you are not sure, well, I’ll tell you how I came to realize this is the camera for me.
Before going analog, I was a Canon shooter. The first expensive camera I bought was a PowerShot Pro90 IS. When I could finally afford a DSLR, I naturally went with the EOS Rebel T3i. If I’m being honest, I probably preferred Canon because my dad used Canon when I was growing up; I currently have his old A-1. Regardless of the genesis, once you invest in a system, it gets expensive to switch.
Switching to a different medium, such as switching to shooting film, presents a rare opportunity to evaluate system choices. But when I switched to film, I stumbled into the land of Minolta. The equipment was very good, and it was so cheap. I got my X-700 with lenses at a thrift store for $25 in 2020. So I blew my opportunity to evaluate my choices and simply went with what was cheap.
I never had a desire to explore Nikon cameras, and I never came across any deals on Nikons. I think that brands which are still a going concern tend not to show up on the dusty shelves of thrift stores, at least not here in Ohio. There was a gap in my knowledge of cameras, and it was as large as Nikon’s influence on photography.
That changed when I was looking for the perfect compact camera and tried the Nikon 35Ti. The 35Ti has some downsides, namely it is the size of a brick, but it simply excels at nailing exposure. I really only appreciated the Nikon 35Ti’s ability to get perfect exposure after I moved on from it. A retrospective look at which photographs I preferred more made me realize what a large percentage were taken with the 35Ti. It wasn’t the composition or its ability to nail focus; it was that there were simply more properly exposed photographs to choose from.
When I looked into what makes the Nikon 35Ti so great at exposure, I discovered Nikon’s matrix metering system. I learned that the matrix metering system was so good that all manufacturers eventually switched to evaluative metering, which is the generic name for the technology. I kept this knowledge in the back of my mind for a while and carried on shooting everything but Nikon.
That changed after I took a vacation to Maine and brought my X-700 along. When I came back and looked at the developed photos, I was underwhelmed. To be clear, it’s not the camera’s fault; it’s mine. I was sloppily taking snapshots. But I wished that I had a camera that could support me when I was being lazy with my photography. I know that I probably could have switched to just about any SLR camera made after 1990 and would have been much better off. I could have switched to something like the Minolta a7.
A few things kept me looking at cameras from the ’80s. First, it’s clear that the only manual aspect of photography I can be trusted with is focus, and cameras from that vintage have great manually focusing ability - it is the main way to focus them, not a backup method. Second, I wanted something that would be durable, and I wanted something made of more metal than plastic. I know that some broken plastic doesn’t necessarily stop a camera from working - my T3i is missing all the plastic corners - but I don’t want to chance it. Finally, I think there is a bit of nostalgia wrapped around this.
So, I wanted a rugged metal camera from the ’80s with precise evaluative metering. After a bunch of research, I seemed to have one sensible choice: the Nikon FA. I wasn’t ready to declare it the winner without some hands-on testing of my own, though. So, I considered all of the photos I had taken recently where I had blown the exposure. Some of my favorite ways to ruin photographs are: shooting backlit subjects with no exposure compensation; shooting high contrast scenes without metering for the shadows; and making photos of my Bernese Mountain Dog, who has fur that traps more light than Sagittarius A* (that’s the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy). So, I challenged the Nikon FA to fix my photography; I took it out on a sunny afternoon and then shot some non-flash indoor pics.
Nikon made improvements between 1983 when the FA was released and 1993 when the 35Ti was released; for example, they upgraded the five pattern matrix metering of the FA with more sophisticated 6 pattern 3D metering system. However, I have been very happy with the results produced by the FA. I was unable to completely ruin any shots due to poor exposure. In fairness, the first two rolls were Tri-X 400, so the deck was stacked in its favor. I needed to test how well it did with color film. As you can see, it nailed those as well.
Ok, great, the FA gets exposure right almost all the time; what else can it do? As I said above, it’s manual focus, so we can’t judge how well it autofocuses. The film advance is also manual, so there’s little we can say about that. It is possible to leave the film tongue hanging out if you are careful rewinding, but that’s true for most manual wind systems. It doesn’t automatically set the film speed; you have to remember to do that yourself. In almost every other regard, the Nikon FA is a typical ’80s SLR, other than the 1/4000 of a second top shutter speed - that’s atypical and pretty badass. I can use some of the amazing wide-aperture Nikon glass in daylight without worrying about neutral density filters.
I guess I could have summed all that up and said, “the Nikon FA is perfect for me because it has excellent matrix metering and an insane top shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second.” Alright, to save people from having ChatGPT summarize this page, I’ll just add that as a tldr at the beginning.
But what are the downsides? Well, so far I have not found any. But here are a few counterpoints to balance this article out. First, the Nikon FA is somewhat large and relatively heavy. It can get very heavy depending upon which lens you choose. In all cases, it’s not a camera you can easily slip into your pocket. Other people have noted the camera’s unreliability, but I have not experienced this, at least not yet. Reliability seems to be a valid concern; this camera was cutting edge at the time of its release, so it was necessarily not yet battle-tested. We shall see how this camera holds up over the next 40 years.
Introducing a camera that has more in common with the human eye than with other cameras.
See
The Nikon FA. The biggest advance in automatic photography since automatic exposure.
Until now, the metering system of any automatic camera could do just one thing. Measure light and give you a technically correct exposure.
But as any photographer knows, a technically correct exposure doesn’t always give you the best picture.
That’s why Nikon developed the FA. The first camera with AMP (Automatic Multi-pattern) metering.
AMP is the only metering system that can automatically give you optimum exposure, not just technically correct exposure, even under extreme lighting conditions.
How AMP works
AMP metering divides your picture into five segments and then individually measures and compares each segment, evaluating such factors as contrast ratios, variations in brightness levels and percentages of light and dark areas.
It then processes this information in its own Nikon microcomputer, comparing the components of your picture with those of nearly 100,000 photographs programmed into its memory, and instantly chooses the optimum exposure.
The FA gives you more choices than any other camera.
Shoot in the Dual-Program mode and the camera does it all for you. With one program for normal and wide-angle lenses and a high-speed program for Nikon AI-S and Series E lenses, 135 and longer.
Or switch to Shutter-Priority. With the FA’s top shutter speed of 1/4000 of a second, there’s not much you can’t catch.
If you’re most concerned about controlling the sharpness of foreground and background, Aperture-Priority is at your command.
And of course, you can also take full creative control in Manual.
Add other Nikon options, too.
When you shoot with the FA, you can take advantage of the most advanced photographic system in the world.
Use a Nikon motor drive and shoot up to 3.2 frames-per-second.
Or attach a variety of Nikon Speedlights to activate the FA’s automatic TTL (through-the-lens) flash metering system, and shoot flash pictures at sync-speeds up to 1/250 of a second.
The FA is also compatible with all current and many older Nikon lenses, and a full range of Nikon accessories.
To find out more about the kind of pictures the FA can take, write to Nikon Inc., Dept. 55, 623 Stewart Ave., Garden City, N.Y. 11530.
Or better yet, just use your eyes.
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