The Nikon F3 – Still Living up to its Reputation

If you’ve read my post on the Nikon F2, you know how much I love that camera. Over the course of its production it evolved into different versions that just continued to get better and better. And I would definitely rank it in the top 5 of mechanically-controlled 35mm SLRs – no question. One of the things that made the Nikon F-series cameras so practical and attractive to working professionals was that these are not just cameras, but camera systems. Where we have a multitude of excellent lenses, prisms, focusing screens and all sorts of other accessories that are cross-compatible. And depending on your specific profession, you could assemble a kit that would be perfect for your needs. And when discussing the flagship F models, you can’t not mention the fact that they’re built to withstand typical professional abuse. If we look at one of the last versions of the F2 – the F2AS – it’s really hard to improve upon. Although…not impossible.

The Nikon F2 was released in 1971, but by 1973 development had already begun on its replacement. And the engineers at Nikon were correctly predicting that electronically-controlled shutters would be the wave of the future. Because an electronically-controlled shutter makes possible two main things: more accuracy in longer shutter speed times, and more importantly, auto-exposure. 

Now the development of a new flagship camera isn’t something that’s done in a vacuum. And Nikon actively gathered feedback from users – especially the pro users. And they’ll admit that hardly anyone was asking for an auto-exposure camera. Manual exposure was just the way it was. I’ll note here that there was a rather bulky accessory that you could add to the F2 to make IT an auto exposure camera. But that was not how most pros were using it. Still, Nikon saw auto-exposure as something that was gonna come to pass anyway, and would eventually gain the trust of professionals.

When development of the F3 began in 1973 the plan was to have the camera metering system included in the prism – just like the F and F2 before it. And since that’s where the metering system was located, the prism would also control the autoexposure features. After continued development along these lines, Nikon had a camera they might have called the Photomic F3 – if it had ever been released. But lucky for us, they decided to solve a few more problems before we’d finally get the F3. 

The biggest one, it seems, was the prism-based metering system. There would be several different viewfinders available – as there was with the F2 – definitely a pro feature. And that would mean that if you switched to the action-finder or waist-level finder, metering and autoexposure capabilities would be lost. The way to avoid that would be to put the metering in the camera body – instead of a piece that was meant to be interchanged. This isn’t an issue for cameras that don’t have removable finders. But it WAS an issue for a flagship Nickon camera – I think maybe because Canon was already doing it?

You see, in 1970 (a year before the Nikon F2 was available) Canon released its flagship camera – the F-1. It was a completely mechanical camera that only needed a battery for the meter. But that meter was in the body – not the prism. And the meter would still work if you changed to a different finder type.

Now the Canon F-1 didn’t come with any built-in autoexposure capabilities since it had a mechanical shutter. Like the Nickon F2, though, it also had an accessory you could add to provide some amount of exposure automation. Also like the Nickon F2, I don’t know how popular or useful those bulky accessories were. 

In any case, the Canon F-1 was definitely designed to compete with Nickon’s top of the line F. Nikon had a large share of the pro market, and Canon was doing what it could to shake things up a bit, and the in-body meter was a big step. Canon wasn’t the first to do this, though. 

In 1966, the Miranda camera company released the Sensorex – an SLR with a removable prism AND metering contained in the body. I’m not sure which specific camera was the first to do this, but it wasn’t the Canon F-1. What Canon DID have  – that a camera like the Miranda didn’t – was a much bigger market and had every intention of going head-to-head with Nikon to gain traction in the pro market. So whatever their motivation was, Nikon REALLY wanted to make this meter in the body thing work. So instead of rushing out with the next F2 upgrade, they took some time to try some new things and see how they played out.

Now along with electronically-controlled shutters there were other “trends” beginning to emerge in the world of cameras. A year after the F2 was released, Olympus debuted the OM-1. Which compared to the F2 – and most SLRs of the time – was downright tiny. And the next few years saw a lot of camera makers lean into that idea of making smaller SLRs. And in 1977 Nikon followed suit and gave us the Nikon FM. 

The FM was different because of its size. It’s considerably smaller than Nikon’s other contemporary offerings – which were the Nikkormat series and the F2, of course. The FM still used a mechanically-controlled shutter, but it proved that Nikon could make a great camera without it having to be great in size. It was also one of the first mid-tier cameras that actually bore the Nikon brand. Previously, cameras in that class were branded Nikkormat. But with this camera they wanted to let you know that the FM was a full-fledged Nickon.

The next step for the company would appear a year later in 1978 – in the form of the FE. It was the same small size as the FM, BUT it offered an electronically-controlled shutter AND along with full manual mode, it added aperture-priority auto-exposure.

Now Nikon had already been playing around with the electronically-controlled shutter and auto-exposure idea with some of the Nikkormat series. But here we have a small, Nikon-branded SLR that sold very well and was quite reliable. And this sorta proved to Nickon that their development of a pro-level, flagship model F-series camera that was electronically-controlled and offered auto-exposure might just be a hit. 

Now I’ve read and heard in the past that an electronically-controlled shutter was a sticking point with pros at the time. Because when the batteries fail, the camera loses most of its function. You didn’t have to worry about that with the F2. And I’m sure that could have played some part in making some F2 shooters hesitate to upgrade to the F3 when it first hit the market in 1980.

BUT, history WOULD prove the F3 to be one of the most successful 35mm SLRs of all time – remaining in production for 20 years – all the way to the year 2000. It even remained in production after its follow-up model – the F4 – was discontinued. So I think this proves that any hesitation or concerns the Nikon-shooting pros had in 1980 were quickly dispelled.

Check out the video below for the full F3 review!