Here is the Nikon F4 SLR film camera. The transition between the old style 1980’s SLR film cameras and the 1990’s and 2000’s cameras. This is when Nikon dropped the traditional fully mechanical professional camera design and embraced the electronics as well as the automation options. F4 was not by itself the next generation of camera design. That title goes to Nikon F5.
Nikon F4 was the transitional camera, combining full PAMS shooting modes with autofocus, auto advance, auto rewind, matrix metering, DX ISO setting, full information viewfinder and possibly the best backward and forward lens compatibility of almost any Nikon camera. Many of the features of F5 were first used successfully in F4.
Nikon F4 overcame the entire laundry list of issues with Nikon F3 but created a few problems of its own, mostly due to the automation systems trying too hard to do the thinking on behalf of the user.
If you haven’t seen the previous three episodes on the Nikon F Series, I suggest you go back and see those first, then continue with this one. These episodes as like mini-series with some references across the episodes.
In the previous three episodes we saw the rise of the first Nikon F, the Legend, the feared conqueror, the destroyer of long established empires such as the Press Cameras, TLR’s, the foldables and most of the Ranger Finder cameras. Nikon successfully challenged the reputation and the dominance of the German camera industry.
Nikon F2 followed as the new King in 1971. It had to improve on everything that the original Legend did 12 years earlier. It had the DNA of the original Nikon F and carried the burden of backward compatibility. It held its own against other Japanese competitors which were themselves highly motivated, innovative and relentless.
Nikon saw what was coming. Competitors were copying many of the features and improving on them. Nikon had to do something really spectacular. It had to tick off and improve on everything that the competition was throwing at it. This needed new blood. Red Blood. A new super-star designer, the master of industrial design, including more than 200 cars, the Italian Maestro Giorgetto Giugiaro was engaged to design Nikon F3 which was launched in 1980. Nikon F3 went on to have the longest production run of all Nikon cameras.
After Canon slept through the Nikon development of Nikon F, it woke up to create its own solid challenger in the form of Canon F1. This was soon followed by various models offering automation and improvements including Canon A1, the first true PAMS camera. Canon’s recovery was spectacular and Nikon was threatened. Again, Nikon reached an inflection point. Keep the professional cameras focused on the loyal professional users preferences or go with the flow and embrace automation through electronics? Hard decision to TERMINATE the practices of decades! It helped that Nikon once again called upon the services of Maestro Giugiaro, who is always a forward thinker.
Here is the menu for this episode IV:
-The history of Nikon F4 Design
-Snippets of an actual interview with Giugiaro, re-enactment
-Exhaustive description of the camera, its features, tips and tricks
-The F4 dirty laundry list
-The Padawan dictionary of terms
If you have any corrections, I would appreciate it in the comments, with reference to the source material.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Over Time by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
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We have over 300 cameras from 1901 to 2015 at the TechHeritage Museum. We will produce videos like this one at the rate of at least one per 2 weeks until all cameras are preserved not only in the flesh but also online.
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