I love my FTn! It was given to me by my father, in the 90s, as a teen. I took that camera everywhere and then later to art college. My father had purchased it in the late 70's and travelled the world with it. It has been dropped, I don't know how many times. It has been accidentally submerged in water. The shutter button has fallen off, (but was secured temporarily with ... tape ...), it has NEVER been CLA'd, the "rabbit ear" pin has fallen off (so no "Nikon Shuffle" for me) .. *yet the darn thing still works!!!* Even the light meter! *IT JUST WON'T DIE!!!!* The thing is a tank, in build (and in weight :P ). They simply don't make them like they used to!
I have one of these and it is simply superb. One of the best cameras I own. The standard lens on these is really sharp, even wide open! Really solid build and tough. It amazes me people lust after later Nikons (FM2 cough cough) that cost £2/£300 and ignore these. The Nikkormat is a mechanical jewel. A really solid piece of engineering. A solid camera that can be had for a price of a cheap meal out. Sadly too many people follow hype and go for the cult models. Thank you for uploading!
This is a fun camera! It's a bit more fiddley than an FTN or an FT2. Aside from having to change the ASA (ISO) when you change lenses, it has an averaging meter vs the more accurate center weighted meter of the later Nikkormats. That said, if you're used to using vintage cameras like this, it's easy to work with. Mine has been passed down through the family and it's in regular rotation.
The key difference between the FT and the FTn is that, on the FT, the ASA (or ISO) has to be reset opposite the appropriate f-number on a lens-maximum-aperture scale, which is part of the camera body, each time that a lens with a different maximum aperture from the previous one is mounted. Meanwhile, on the FTn, this inconvenience was removed by having a new mechanism in the body whereby the maximum aperture of each new lens is registered to the body by manually rotating the lens's aperture ring back and forth through its total travel once the lens is mounted. This is sometimes known as the "Nikon Shuffle". It sounds like a nuisance but it soon becomes routine and only takes a couple of seconds. The FTn body has an extra scale which shows that the correct maximum aperture has been recognised by the body. Demounting a lens does not require it to be set to a particular aperture beforehand but, in order to mount the next lens, it is necessary to check that the prong on the body is physically pushed all the way to the right (looking on the front of the camera) and that the aperture ring on the next lens is set at f5.6. If this is done correctly, then the lens and body bayonets, and the body prong and the lens fork, will simultaneously line up to allow the lens to be inserted. The lens body then has to be rotated anti-clockwise until it locks in place with a positive click. The Nikkormat FT2 and EL models also had this revised system but then this was replaced in 1977 by the much easier-to-use AI (Automatic Indexing) solution found on the FT3, the EL2 and later on all subsequent Nikon cameras, including most of the DSLRs. The reason that the original clunky meter-coupling systems came about was that the prong-and-fork connection of the aperture ring to the body owed its origin to the fact that the early Nikon F light metering systems had external cells which only required to know what actual picture-taking aperture (f-stop) was set on the lens. When TTL (Through-The-Lens) metering was introduced, which all the Nikkormats apart from the FS model had from the start, then the light meter needed to know the how many stops there was between the taking aperture and the viewing (i.e. the maximum) aperture. Hence the complication. The newer, simpler AI system only tells the body what this is, rather than what the actual taking aperture is, because that is all that a TTL meter needs to know. Note that, on cameras like the later FE and FM series which used the AI system, an optical periscope was added so that the taking aperture setting could be displayed in the viewfinder. This was because, with the simpler AI meter-coupling system, the body mechanism does not have this information.
No. The EM cannot operate the shutter without a battery. Only at 1/90 sec. It's a fully electronic camera. The Nikkormat FT / FTN do not need a battery to operate, because it's a mechanical camera. Battery is only needed for the light meter. Greetings from Germany, Denis
I love my FTn! It was given to me by my father, in the 90s, as a teen. I took that camera everywhere and then later to art college. My father had purchased it in the late 70's and travelled the world with it. It has been dropped, I don't know how many times. It has been accidentally submerged in water. The shutter button has fallen off, (but was secured temporarily with ... tape ...), it has NEVER been CLA'd, the "rabbit ear" pin has fallen off (so no "Nikon Shuffle" for me) .. *yet the darn thing still works!!!* Even the light meter! *IT JUST WON'T DIE!!!!* The thing is a tank, in build (and in weight :P ). They simply don't make them like they used to!
I have one of these and it is simply superb. One of the best cameras I own. The standard lens on these is really sharp, even wide open! Really solid build and tough. It amazes me people lust after later Nikons (FM2 cough cough) that cost £2/£300 and ignore these. The Nikkormat is a mechanical jewel. A really solid piece of engineering. A solid camera that can be had for a price of a cheap meal out. Sadly too many people follow hype and go for the cult models. Thank you for uploading!
I had an FTN, loved❤ that camera📷!!
This is a fun camera! It's a bit more fiddley than an FTN or an FT2. Aside from having to change the ASA (ISO) when you change lenses, it has an averaging meter vs the more accurate center weighted meter of the later Nikkormats. That said, if you're used to using vintage cameras like this, it's easy to work with. Mine has been passed down through the family and it's in regular rotation.
The shutter blades move vertically in all the Nikkormats.
How nice is the FTN film advance though, it's all buttery smooth through the whole stroke, a lot different than my other Nikons
The key difference between the FT and the FTn is that, on the FT, the ASA (or ISO) has to be reset opposite the appropriate f-number on a lens-maximum-aperture scale, which is part of the camera body, each time that a lens with a different maximum aperture from the previous one is mounted. Meanwhile, on the FTn, this inconvenience was removed by having a new mechanism in the body whereby the maximum aperture of each new lens is registered to the body by manually rotating the lens's aperture ring back and forth through its total travel once the lens is mounted. This is sometimes known as the "Nikon Shuffle". It sounds like a nuisance but it soon becomes routine and only takes a couple of seconds. The FTn body has an extra scale which shows that the correct maximum aperture has been recognised by the body. Demounting a lens does not require it to be set to a particular aperture beforehand but, in order to mount the next lens, it is necessary to check that the prong on the body is physically pushed all the way to the right (looking on the front of the camera) and that the aperture ring on the next lens is set at f5.6. If this is done correctly, then the lens and body bayonets, and the body prong and the lens fork, will simultaneously line up to allow the lens to be inserted. The lens body then has to be rotated anti-clockwise until it locks in place with a positive click. The Nikkormat FT2 and EL models also had this revised system but then this was replaced in 1977 by the much easier-to-use AI (Automatic Indexing) solution found on the FT3, the EL2 and later on all subsequent Nikon cameras, including most of the DSLRs. The reason that the original clunky meter-coupling systems came about was that the prong-and-fork connection of the aperture ring to the body owed its origin to the fact that the early Nikon F light metering systems had external cells which only required to know what actual picture-taking aperture (f-stop) was set on the lens. When TTL (Through-The-Lens) metering was introduced, which all the Nikkormats apart from the FS model had from the start, then the light meter needed to know the how many stops there was between the taking aperture and the viewing (i.e. the maximum) aperture. Hence the complication. The newer, simpler AI system only tells the body what this is, rather than what the actual taking aperture is, because that is all that a TTL meter needs to know. Note that, on cameras like the later FE and FM series which used the AI system, an optical periscope was added so that the taking aperture setting could be displayed in the viewfinder. This was because, with the simpler AI meter-coupling system, the body mechanism does not have this information.
Many thanks for such a complete reply! I had forgotten about the Nikon Shuffle!
Andy
My FT doesn't have a hinged back, not sure why :--(
If the meter no longer works, can you shoot at all shutter speeds? Is that true for model EM too?
No. The EM cannot operate the shutter without a battery. Only at 1/90 sec. It's a fully electronic camera. The Nikkormat FT / FTN do not need a battery to operate, because it's a mechanical camera. Battery is only needed for the light meter.
Greetings from Germany,
Denis