I have the FE from 1978 and the FE2 from 1982. Never been serviced, everything works perfectly, from the jungles of Papua New Guinea and Sarawak to the wet streets of Europe and the alps of New Zealand. Superb.

My first intro to the FE2 was in the 80s when my Nikkormat FT2 was getting the twitchy meter syndrome. Time for an upgrade. The camera store clerk said the Nikkormats were discontinued and handed me the FE2, Nikon's replacement NextGen camera. Well, my thing was maritime photography. Shooting ships in all weather and environments. Banging around metal stairs, railing and bulkheads, photographing in drydocks. And plenty of salty spray, saltwater and wind driven sand from drydock hull blasting during refits. How would this black beauty stand up to all that? This light, kinda wimpy, but handsome camera did not carry the weight of the old reliable brick, the Nikkormat, or even my old F. Still, I needed something and, afterall, it WAS a Nikon, so I bought it. Well, what an eye opener! Not only was the camera beautiful in feel, fit, form and function; it was, simply a darned good and very robust camera. I could set it on aperture priority and bang away with one less thing to worry about as I captured the ship on film. Even the lenses, as you say, were beautiful pieces of glass and metal. The 200mm f4.0 in this new iteration was just as sharp as my old pre-AI "coke bottle" 200mm f4, but far lighter and compact. I also got a 105 f2.5, the classic portrait Nikkor to round out the beginnings of my new kit Lovely camera, tough as a box of nails and looking pretty good to boot! You picked a good camera, may she serve you well.

It was nice when you actually got to the review 🤦🤦🤦🤦

So much wrong information and you should really know what the rabbit ears a for before you attempt to give a tutorial this review is totally useless I'm surprised that you didn't inform the people that the camera before you was black you didn't seem to know much more about it exasperation 😢

The rabbit ears are held in by two screws... please don't file them off, I would assume you can unscrew them and then just put the screws back in. Never tried it myself. But ya, I hate them too. They make the lens reverse compatible with older Nikons

3:37 these lenses aren't "tiny" by any measure. They're very "normal" sized. Olympus lenses are "tiny". I recently switched from Olympus OM system to this Nikon and the only thing that bothers me is the lenses and the camera body are much bigger. Ya, not significant enough where I'll notice it in an overnight bag... but I wouldn't call Nikkor lenses tiny. They are very regular sized to maybe slightly above average sized.

great review

I used a 335 for weddings for years... best bag ever; I should never have sold it

When you say “stitched by hand” it’s not really, it’s machined stitched with a human guiding the work through the machine.

I got 2 of the 225 models from Billingham company and the first one i brought was in 2018 and I paid £70.00 from someone and I recently brought another 225 model dark green colour from a Car boot sale on the 12/2/24 for £40.00 and I NEVER Been used at all and I was very lucky to got it for that amount of money because to buy them new you need over £300

Good investment that £150 for all 3. Now in 2024 they are worth 10 times that.

It's near perfect, but my two reasons why it's not a Holy Grail: It's missing spot metering. Exposure lock is very hard to push.

I love my F3 but your vid is good.

Thanks for the through review on the Nissin i40 at the 7:25 minute mark of the video you clearly explained why I would never consider this Nissin i40 flash. The recycle time, the loudness of the rotation while changing angles and the lack of light. Thanks!

How can someone talk about Nikon cameras and not know what the rabbit ears are for? Early Nikon cameras, like the F and F2 had a prong that fits in the groove to communicate aperture with the camera. It is one of the great things about Nikon is they kept the rabbit ears long after they are needed for 99% of cameras, just to make certain that users of older cameras can use the lens.

hi Matt . Transmitter is set with Yn560Iv on Grp 1 and in sync and firing when test button pressed on YN560Tx. while mounted on Fuji XT1 flash is not firing. even Flash function setting in XT1. showing M under sync terminal. your advice will be welcomed.

Perhaps it is..

Still my favourite film camera. The match needle metering gives you a feel for what the exposure will be at a glance. Much nicer than the +/- on the FM2

The earliest cameras were called Asahiflex, the word Pentax came later.

As I am using with my XPro1 & XE1 with my Nikkor Manual focus lenses, and also along with a 42mm threaded Carl Zeiss Jena Lenses, and I have obtained a Kodak Retina Reflex Schneider lenses via with an adapter as I can use the F/stop ring that I have total FULL aperture control on the Nikon, Kodak, and 42mm thread CZ Jena lenses. So WHY? should I buy expensive $$$$ lenses for the Fuji line as I am really getting way more BETTER results from lenses that were designed from 50 to 70 years that were the best of the line in photography. I see from the comments that people are also using adapters, and getting good results with Focusing Peaking - Any comments in what I am using???

The Viltrox 23mm 1.4 is highly rated and cheaper.

Well said , I shoot on Jpeg only & it has always worked for me .

The prong on lens aperture ring does not "cut cheese". It links the lens aperture ring to the external meter coupling on all pre-AI Nikons and Nikkormats equipped with a meter. A surprising gap in the knowledge base of someone discussing the finer points of Nikon cameras.

The cam of that exposimeter joint insider the fork

That funny steel things are a modify to use thees lenses with Nikon F and F2 cameras, t'ha had exposimeter insider the pentaprisma

Hi Matt. Very nice review & suggestion. I am using a Nikon 50mm f/1.8, 105mm f/2.5. , as manual lens arsenal, for my Fuji system. Planning to get a 20mm f/3.5 for the wide. Thanks for sharing.

I have three i60a flashes (two Fujifilm versions and one Canon version), two Di700a flashes (one Fujifilm version and one 4/3 version), and an Air 1 and an Air 10S (both Fujifilm versions). I scout eBay for used ones and have managed to get them at really good bargain prices. If you are not using the flashes on camera, it doesn't matter what camera system the foot is made for. They will all connect with the Air controllers and are fully functional. The difference in power between the i60a and the Di700a is only one third of a stop. Changing batteries with the Di700a is much quicker if you get an extra BM-02 battery magazine. I love both of these flashes. I also like using the Lightpix Labs FlashQ T2 remote trigger. I put the transmitter into the hot shoe of the camera, and connect one of the Air controllers to the receiver. I lose TTL, of course, but I never use TTL for flash anyway. I keep the Air controller near to me so that I can control my multi flash set up remotely. Even though the Nissin Air controllers are compact, they are still kind of big when they are on top of the camera. The Lightpix Lab FlashQ T2 trigger is really tiny, not expensive, and works really well. I leave the transmitter on the camera permanently. I usually don't bother turning them off. After thirty minutes they switch off automatically. When their internal batteries run low, it is easy just to hook them up to the micro USB cord and recharge them. It takes about an hour and a half. One charge lasts for weeks. Thanks for your comparison. It really helped me when I was trying to figure out what to get for my set up.

Nah !

Hi, regarding the view in the electronic view finder, has it improved in low light or is it still grainy/snowy & leads to bad auto focusing & viewing? Thanks in advance

i was stupid to sell mine, now i will buy it back after scanning my old film slides. film rules.

Those Nikkor lens "rabbit ears" were used in cameras like the iconic Nikon F2. Please see this video and you will see. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/ndd4e7Cr1bi9doU.html

Hello, first of all thank you ever so much for the deep explanation about these problems with fuji systems. The same happened to me, I have Nikon and Fuji so I realised that my controller Yongnuo 622NII doesn't work with Fuji, but is it enough if I buy the controller YN 622 tx ? will it make the receivers work? or do I have to buy the controller and receivers? Many thanks

Great video Matt and I agree. The XF 23mm 1.4 is a magical Lens. I traveled to Lebanon with this on my X-Pro 2 and didn’t miss my other Lens. It was perfect. For wider shots, i created mini panos and stitched. This Lens is perfect.

Definitely one of the best lenses nikon have made! I use nikon on my fuji X-H1

The bunny ears worked the mechanical aperture coupling on an F2 and F1 body

Analog photography is for artists, digital for the masses. Still got my trusty Nikon Fe2. It talks to me...everytime I press the shutter I get the results I want......Just a fenomenal piece of Gear. Bought mine more than 30 years ago!!! And digital camera's!!!!??????

Ahah Watching in 2022 and is possible to do the HHS now with the Di700A with Fuji xh1

Is this a bag you’d still recommend, or is there a newer one you’d point to?

I learned nothing

OMG, great review! I just returned my Nissin i40 & sold my Nissin i400 to purchase this Nissin i60A for my Nikon Z7. I appreciate this!

I do appreciate you making this video but please just go straight to the point .

I am now starting, to shoot with digital camera, and after watching your video i want to believe that jpeg is best to shoot in.please let me know more.

The FA is what the FE2 was intended to be, but working out all the engineering and computerization took an extra year. So I think the FA was Nikon's best manual focus SLR. By best I mean most sophisticated and versatile. There are good cases made to state that the F3 and the FM2 are best, but for me... ....with no major effort, a G lens can be used on the FA in S and P modes - fantastic! The pokey metal things are aperture ring indexing prongs for pre-AI bodies. You'll see these, without the two small holes, on all lenses Nikon made before '77 or so (pre-AI). Pro rolls of film usually have an extra frame at the end of the roll (called E), and by using sunny 16 at 1/250, an extra 2 frames can be properly exposed before the frame counter reaches 1. 39 frames in total.

Compared the FM2, FE2, and F3 today. Going into it, I totally thought I’d be getting an FM2 or an F3 but after getting them all in hand and spending some time with them, I left with an FE2. I just preferred the meter being a needle and not blinky lights/arrows. Even though it needs batteries to work, it just felt more analog and fun to shoot with to me. The F3 was nice and the grip felt better, but again, I liked the meter in the FE3 so much and we just connected. I also picked up a 35mm f1.4 to start our journey together off right.

will it work if you use manual mode and manual focusing?

goodSuper

If I had a fiver for every time you said erm I would be able to by a Leica M3 let alone a Pentax S1!!!

The FE2 is a great camera, but Nikon poured their aesthetic heart and engineering soul into their last, and far and away their greatest, film camera, the sublime FM3a.

Thanks for a really good review

One of Fuji's best lenses !! Jpegs are amazing. Used with my xt1 a match made in heaven 😍