Nikon FE - treat of the (birth)day

[Ian Watson]

Happy birthday, Airy!

[Airy]

Thanks !

[Airy]

Airy

What a fabulous find, and a trip down memory lane for me.

I bought an FE back in 1980 to accompany an FM - my first Nikon (purchased in 1979). Both cameras were indestructible and served me well for more than 15 years. I sold the FE in 1995 to get an F4s but could not bear to part with the FM. Only last week I was researching B&W developing chemicals with a view to running a film through it again.

Nice one too, and with one of my favorite Nikkors. Why did you prefer the FM over the FE ?

[David H. Hartman]

When comparing the FE2 to the FE there are many advantages for the FE2. However an advantage for the FE is it has a noticeably softer shutter and mirror sound and I would think less vibrations noticeable at slow shutter speeds.

[aerobat]

Happy birthday Airy - this FE looks the part with the crocodile leatherette. If I remeber correctly the FE was liked for its capability to do long exposures. The FE was my first camera which I bought used as a student. It got replaced by a new FM2 with the first salary as I wanted to force myself to work manually.

[senecaman]

Nice one too, and with one of my favorite Nikkors. Why did you prefer the FM over the FE ?

Airy
It was because the FM was 100% mechanical and I could estimate exposures using the old “sunny 16” method. If I remember correctly the FE only had a 1/90 shutter speed without batteries. The F4 which replaced it was totally dependent on battery power so a  functional back up was always useful.

[Bill De Jager]

Happy belated birthday, Airy!

My first new camera, and the first one I bought, was a Nikon FE in December 1982.  That camera was my only camera for over 20 years and served me very well during that time. When I finally sold it the shutter was showing a lot of wear but still worked as well as always.

[Airy]

Thank all. I just completed my first roll of HP5+. We'll see next week if all went well. My main concern is with the metering, after the bad experience from two years ago. With this one, the metering seems consistent, but I have to check for offsets.

I am quite used to spot exposure (even multispot on the Canon T90), or matrix metering as a near-foolproof alternative. Here, that's a different story...

[Airy]

Another "adaptation point" is ISO sensitivities. I chose a 400 ISO film to cope with relatively low light (I mostly shoot handheld). Given my taste for wide apertures, I had to buy a variable density filter to adjust for bright daylight. Indeed, 1/1000s shutter speed is a limit long forgotten.

Next, another test roll with a very different film - Ilford XP2.

[Eddie Draaisma]

A black FE, my first Nikon that I bought in 1979 together with a Nikkor 35mm F/2 Ai lens. Total cost just below 700 Euros then...