It’s not often you come across a camera that’s physically & ergonomically unbearable … however I bumped into one, it’s the Nikon F70 / N70.
Let me tell you the story of how I bought a camera, that drove me crazy and ended up behind wire-mesh on a street in Kilkenny, Ireland …
The Nikon F70 / N70 Details
The Nikon F70 has some incredible features, for a consumer level camera being released in 1994. Have a look at the following specs and see for yourself:
- Single point autofocus (with wide AF option too) and an ability to engage continuous tracking during movement
- Matrix, center-weighted and spot metering
- 1/4000 to 30 sec shutter speed
- Full compatibility with manual focus AI-S lenses through to AF-D and AF-S lenses ðŊ
- Advanced flash functionality – fill flash, flash bracketing & red eye reduction control
- Program, Aperture, Shutter and Manual modes
- Variable program modes – portrait, landscape, sport, silhouette, night and macro
- Quick recall memories for saving your 3 of your most used settings
- 15cm / 6in long and 585g / 1.3 lb / 20.6oz heavy, using 2 x CR123 batteries
On paper this is clearly a ‘prosumer’ SLR camera with every bell and whistle conceivable ð In fact, after a little research, I discovered that some of the advanced features on the F70 were later deprecated on the F80 successor!
It was obvious … I had to buy one, this was going to be the perfect camera to take full advantage of my favourite AI-S prime lenses and my autofocus AF-D zoom lenses … happy days ! ð
But why were they selling on eBay for only âŽ37 including shipping from Germany … ??
First Impressions
My Nikon F70 finally arrived after 1.5 weeks, and I was surprised at how heavy the box was, those 585 grams really do add up …
When I took it out of its bubble-wrap I was genuinely taken aback by how heavy and chunky it was, and that’s even before I attempted to attach my 28mm f2.8 AI-S lens (250g / 9oz) or my trusty 35mm f2 AF-D (200g / 7oz). Hmm … my brain was already getting worried what it was going to be like carrying this around with a couple of lenses for a day …
Not to be deterred, I put in the two CR123 batteries, attached a lens and rested my finger on the shutter button to pre-focus … kerclunk .. what ?? But I barely touched it ! OK, settle down Paul … rest your finger again on the shutter button and pre-focus … kerclunk ðļðŪ
Woooo – this camera sure has a hair-trigger shutter button, not good!
Now my mind was going in overdrive worrying about how many wasted frames I’d have on my 2023-2024 âŽ12.50 per roll of Kodak Gold.
The “Fan” Interface …
This is a camera that genuinely requires a proper concerted read of the user manual before attempting any serious usage – e.g. how to switch between manual / aperture / shutter priority, how to modify exposure compensation, and how to switch between single vs. continous focus …
Turns out there’s a F70 ‘Fan Dance‘ that needs to be performed EVERYTIME you need to modify any of these parameters …
The following 3 buttons are used continuously to perform even the most rudimentary of tasks:
- ‘Function’ (F) – the button used to initiate the ability to rotate through the options (e.g. 1 = exposure compensation, 2 = PASM, 3 = ISO)
- ‘Set'(S) – the button used to initiate the ability to rotate through the values on the option you selected above
- Command Dial (D) – the dial that gets a heck of a lot of use with the F70 !
At first this is interesting and novel … but then you discover that Aperture priority doesn’t work as you might expect, when compared to Program mode. Rotating the command dial does nothing … you have to physically change the aperture yourself, however in Program mode the aperture is changed electronically … very weird ??
Then when you start using the F70 in the field for real, especially when using Aperture priority, trying to set the exposure compensation is sooooo tedious …
- Stop what you’re doing, take the camera away from your eye and hold the Fan display out so you can see it clearly
- Push the ‘Function’ button … rotate the command dial so the tiny arrow icon in the Fan display points to the exposure compensation segment (btw: it rotates the opposite way you’d expect)
- Push the ‘Set’ button … rotate the command dial and get the desired value
- Lightly tap the shutter button (careful !!) and bring the camera back up to your eye, and hope the light hasn’t changed
It’s terrible ! Even my old Nikon FE2 only required the single push of a lock button and the twist of the EC dial … but this F70 requires two buttons, and two sets of dial rotations … the workload has doubled in a camera that’s meant to be easier and more advanced !
I even tried memorising how many turns of the command dial would correspond to which Function segment would be on the Fan display, in the hope that muscle memory would speed things up … but it was no use ð
Conclusion
As you can imagine, I was utterly disappointed that Nikon could have designed such an advanced & backward compatible camera with such a crippling interface.
The more I tried to develop muscle memory on the Fan interface, the more frustrated I became with the double workload and placement of what was in each segment … for example, why put the exposure compensation in the second most furthest away segment, etc.
So here’s what happened next …
I took a walk down the streets of Kilkenny, went into the first antique shop I came across, and gave the owner my F70. “What do you want for it?” the owner asked me as he looked at the camera, “Nothing, it’s all yours” said I.
It was like a scene from the movie Jumanji, where I tried to get rid of the object lest it harm somebody else ðĪŠð
Anyhow, maybe you’ve had better luck with your Nikon F70 than me, but either way I’d be keen to hear of your ‘bad camera’ experiences in the comments section below !
As always, keep shooting film ððļ Paul
