Nikon F301 (N2000)

The Nikon F301 is one of Nikon's last solid amateur cameras. It was made in the late 80's. This camera has a built in motordrive, is mostly made of metal and has matrix metering. It was made along with the F501 (N2020) that featured AF. The camera I'm talking about has NO AF. It belongs to my parents who had fun shooting every 1990's holidays with it on the good old Kodak Gold 100 film.

With film, a strap and Batteries it weighs about 670 grams.

- Emden Harbour - Fuji Velvia - Nikon F301 50mm 1.4@f8 -

Using the Nikon Camera

This Nikon became my first-choice-tool as I started to get serious with photography. I used nothing but a 50mm and a 28mm Nikon lens. I borrowed everything from my parents. It is a solid camera, mostly made of metal with a stainless steel lens mount. It’s no tank like a F3 but much better than todays toy-Nikons. There is nothing to learn about this simple camera: It focuses easy and precise with Nikon lenses, has a huge, bright finder. It has Matrix metering and works totally automatically except for the focusing. You don't even have to advance the film. This seems practical but therefore makes the camera a bit heavier than a FE or FE2 - it needs four (4!!!) AAA type batteries to run.
New batteries last 20-30 rolls of Film, maybe longer. Be sure to use good Vartas, Energizers or the like. Never be cheap on power supplies! It happened that I stood out there in the mud shooting an upcoming storm and the batteries died. What a Scheiße!

Use with Film

The Nikon F301 does not rewind the film. You have to use the crank and then pull it to open the back.
It is easy to load film fast. A little window with blue-black fun fair stripes on the back shows you if the film advances properly. The F301 automatically jums to frame one if you press the shutter release. Therefore it only exposes 36 frames - my Nikon FE goes to 39 (frame 38) pictures on Velvia and 37 (frame 36) on Kodak Tri-X because it has no stupid automation like the F301 that skips frame 0. That’s a really weak point because I’m a poor student and can’t afford to waste my extra frames on the expensive films I use. The F301 supports film speed reading via DX or manually.

Metering

The F301 has a Matrix meter. This is an easy way to shoot. You won’t need to use the zone system as I sometimes have to on my Nikon FE and Mamiya 645. The F301’s meter
is very very accurate. I have absolutely no wrong exposures. As an AE lock serves the self timer switch pressed and held in the direction of the lens.

You can set the camera in manual mode and the well readable LED in-finder display shows you your set speed and the speed the meter recommends blinks. No stupid bar graphs as in newer Nikons.
There also is a P mode and a PHi mode. These modes control the aperture as well as the shutter. PHi selects faster speeds to allow you to shoot moving things.
If you want to control depth of field or use your lens at optimum aperture use the A mode as I do on every modern Nikon.

Shutter&Exposure

This Nikon runs from 1s to 1/2000s if you use the dedicated knob.
In A mode, which is what I use, it works to exposures half a minute long.
That is OK for longer exposures, but I won’t buy it for that reason because there is no screw-in cable release socket and the tripod mount is on the left which is not the best to dampen vibrations caused from the mirror. It also lacks a mirror lock-up.
For exposures longer than 2 seconds I wouldn’t mind, but you may need it with the critical speeds between 1/8s and 2s. As you use it for long exposures, be sure to release the shutter with the self timer. Better: Get a Nikon FE instead.

Conclusion

If you don’t mind a little more weight and size from the batteries and you turn off the annoying beeper, you’ll have a solid and inexpensive camera with matrix metering, a bright finder and the ability to use the great manual focus lenses made by Nikon.

Lenses

The Nikon system offers plenty lenses, but I am for a reasonable solution with this cheap film camera.
All you need will be a 50mm. Get the 50mm 1.8 instead of the too expensive 50 1.4 I own.
The 1.8 my be sharper wide open, weighs less and is smaller.
As a wide angle lens consider a 28mm 2.8, be sure not to get the 28mm E-Series - I have one and it’s awful used wide open - the 50mm E seems to be superb.
Remember: Every lens is sharp at f5.6 or f8 in the middle.
More than two lenses limit my ability to shoot, because it’s too much to carry and too much time I spend changing lenses.