The Leica M6 TTL 0.58 – Great Film Cameras

Posted on September 9, 2025September 9, 2025 by Nigel Williams

The M6 and M6 TTL are both regularly eulogised as the greatest rangefinders, and sometimes the greatest film cameras of all time. This accolade is usually reserved for the 0.85 viewfinder version, primarily because it handles critical focusing with fast lenses better than the other models. This was the M6 TTL model I decided to buy.

However, the M6 TTL that arrived from the dealer was the 0.58, which was an unwelcome surprise. This is a wide-angle variant, equipped with the lowest magnification finder on a Leica M film body, and aimed at wide-angle shooters and spectacle wearers who found it difficult to see the full framelines on higher magnification models. It is a model that has its fans, but is not typically the subject of the same degree of reverence.

A return was going to prove to be expensive due to import charges. So, after some negotiation with the dealer, I reluctantly agreed to keep the 0.58 at an advantageous price, with the intention of getting a 0.85 M7 to accompany it later. Surprisingly, and partly due to the influence of the Leica Q and Q2 (more of which later), it is the M6 TTL that has become my favourite Leica film camera.

I enjoy researching the background to the cameras I use, so this is the story of the M6 TTL, the development of the Leica M viewfinder variants, and why the 0.58 model has earned my affection.

Background: From the M3 to the M6

To understand the evolution of the Leica M series leading up to the M6 TTL, it is important to add a little context on two developments: the introduction of a built-in light meter and viewfinder magnification options.

A Note on Rangefinder Optics

Unlike SLRs, which show the scene directly through the taking lens via a mirror and prism, rangefinders cannot present what the lens ‘sees’ in the finder. Instead, the Leica M and other rangefinders use a separate viewfinder window for composition, which shows a wider field than the lens records. To frame what will actually be captured, bright framelines are projected into the finder. These change according to the lens that is mounted, sometimes as a single frame and sometimes in pairs. SLRs avoid this issue because the finder image comes directly through the lens, eliminating the need for framelines.

Rangefinders are also limited to lenses of a maximum of 135 mm focal length because of the combined constraints of viewfinder scale and focusing accuracy. As the focal length of the lens increases, the view through the finder represents a narrower angle, so the corresponding frameline shrinks within the viewfinder. This makes composition progressively more difficult.

At the same time, longer and faster lenses demand increasingly precise focusing, and the rangefinder’s Effective Base Length reaches its practical limit around 135 mm. Beyond this point, accurate framing and focusing become too difficult for practical use.

Finder Magnification

The Leica M3 of 1954 used a 0.91× finder, which was ideal for 50 mm and longer lenses but required auxiliary optics for wider focal lengths.

With the M2 (1957), Leica settled on 0.72× magnification as the best compromise, a standard carried through the M4 (1967), the M5 (1971), and the Canadian models, the M4-2 (1977) and M4-P (1980–1986).

Light Meter Development

The M5 (1971) introduced through-the-lens (TTL) light measurement, but the design was poorly received. Leica abandoned a meter with the M4-2 and M4-P, leaving users to rely on the shoe-mounted Leica-meter. By the early 1980s, however, virtually every professional SLR offered TTL metering as standard, making this omission increasingly untenable.

Leica realised the M needed to be brought up to date while retaining its core identity of a compact form, mechanical reliability, and longevity – without incurring prohibitive development costs.

TTL metering was the least intrusive upgrade Leica could make, requiring only a modest change to the body design (adding light metering diodes and LEDs in the finder) and preserving the fully mechanical shutter and manual exposure control.

Predecessor: The Leica M6 “Classic” (1984–1998)

The result was the Leica M6 (now known as the ‘M6 Classic’ – never an official designation). A prototype was developed in 1981, and the model was launched in 1984, becoming the first M with built-in TTL light metering. This was a centre-weighted system that reads from a 12mm spot on the shutter curtain and displays the exposure with a pair of LEDs in the finder. The M6 featured a die-cast zinc body with zinc top and bottom plates, and was offered only in a black finish.

The M6 was updated in 1986 with the addition of plastic protective inserts above the strap lugs and the addition of a chrome finish alongside black. In 1987, the top plate engraving was simplified to a large “M6” without “Leica” above it. Further stylistic changes occurred in 1988 when production moved from Wetzlar to Solms – the engraving changed to “LEICA GMBH GERMANY and the red dot changed from “Leitz” to “Leica.”

Later, there were numerous limited edition versions for collectors of both the M6 and M6 TTL, the most important of which was the M6J special edition in 1994, which introduced the 0.85× finder.

The M6J – 1994

After the M3, with its tele-friendly 0.91 magnification, 0.72× magnification became the defining standard for Leica M rangefinders. The M2, M4, M5, M4-2, M4-P, M6 Classic, all used the 0.72× finder exclusively, as did the 2014 M-A.

The lower magnification struck a balance: it preserved sufficient focusing accuracy for 50 mm and longer lenses, while making 35 mm framelines visible without auxiliary “goggles,” which was increasingly important for photojournalists and documentary photographers.

Whilst 0.72× might offer the best balance, a tele viewfinder is useful with 50 mm lenses, especially fast ones like the Summilux or Noctilux, where the higher magnification improves focusing precision, and it becomes essential for longer focal lengths, not least because it offers framelines for tele lenses.

Accordingly, Lecia added a tele option with the M6J in 1994, a Special Edition 40th Anniversary Leica M. This introduced the 0.85× finder, a first since the M3’s 0.91×. It also excluded the 28 mm frameline, reinforcing its focus on longer lenses, though, unfortunately for 75/1.4 Summilux users, a 75 mm frameline was not added as well.

The M6J generated demand for regular M6’s to be converted to the .85 M6J finder. Once the M6J production run of 1640 cameras (40 cameras for each year of the 40 years of M production) has sold out, unsurprisingly, Leica received many requests for a regular M6 with the higher magnification finder. Thus, the .85 finder M6 finder was introduced in the Leica M lineup four years later in 1998.

Leica M6 TTL (1998–2002)

By the late 1990s, TTL flash metering had become standard even in mid-range SLRs from Nikon, Canon, and Minolta, which set expectations for both professional and enthusiast photographers. Leica’s rangefinders were primarily used by photojournalists, street photographers, and documentary shooters, many of whom avoided flash entirely. However, a subset of users, particularly those doing event or portrait photography, wanted more accurate flash results than manual flash offered.

Leica responded by adding TTL off-the-film flash metering to the M6 design, while also addressing the ergonomics of the shutter dial and metering display. Here is a rundown of the most significant differences between the M6 and the M6 TTL:

M6 TTL Changes

TTL Flash Control
- Hotshoe engraved with “TTL” and a flash bolt.
- Four contacts in the shoe instead of one.
- Finder now included a flash-ready LED in addition to the three meter LEDs.
Revised Meter Display
- From two LEDs (> and <) to three LEDs (> o <)
Shutter Speed Dial
- Enlarged for easier use at eye level.
- Rotated in the logical direction matching meter arrows (opposite to M6 Classic).
Body Height
- 2.5mm taller than the Classic to accommodate the TTL circuitry
Advance Lever
- Now with an articulated plastic tip, often criticized but useful in cold climates

There were three variants of the M6 TTL, two of which were introduced at launch, which are shown in the table below.

M6 TTL Version	Introduced	Frameline Configuration
M6 TTL 0.72×	1998	28 + 90 mm 35 + 135 mm 50 + 75 mm
M6 TTL 0.85×	1998	35 + 135 mm, 50 + 75 mm 90 mm
M6 TTL 0.58×	2000	28 + 90 mm 35 mm 50 + 75 mm

Wide Angle Shooting – and External Viewfinders

My Leica M3 28mm setup, with an external 28mm viewfinder and light meter mounted on dual shoe. A 3rd party winder completes the ruin of the camera’s clean lines.

Before Leica introduced wide-angle framelines into the M viewfinder, photographers relied on external viewfinders mounted on the accessory shoe to compose with lenses wider than 50 mm. The Leica M3, with its high-magnification 0.91× finder, had framelines only for 50, 90, and 135 mm lenses. To use the then-new 35 mm Summicron, Leica supplied “goggles” (optical adapters) that modified both view and rangefinder, or an external 35 mm finder such as the SBOOI. As Leica added 35 mm framelines in the M2 (1957), external finders became primarily associated with 28 mm, 24 mm, and 21 mm lenses, which were too wide for the in-camera framelines of the time.

These finders allowed accurate composition but required separate focusing through the camera’s rangefinder, then recomposing with the accessory finder. Even into the M4-P and M6 era, when 28 mm framelines were added, lenses of 21 mm and wider still required an external finder, making them a distinctive part of Leica rangefinder shooting.

A Lightweight Film Camera

The M6 TTL isn’t the lightest manual focus metered 35mm camera. That distinction, in my collection at least, goes to the featherweight Olympus OM-1m, closely followed by the Nikon FM2N. The table below shows the leaders for that type of camera in my collection.

However, it is the lenses that make it such a great choice for landscape photography when weight is at a premium, as you can carry the highest quality glass without much of a weight penalty.

Manufacturer	Model	Introduced	Type	AE	Wt (g)
Olympus	OM-1n	1979	SLR	N	510
Nikon	FM2N	1984	SLR	N	540
Nikon	FE2	1983	SLR	AE	550
Nikon	FM3A	2001	SLR	AE	570
Leica	M6 TTL	1998	RF	N	585
Leica	M7	2002	RF	AE	610
Nikon	F3 HP	1982	SLR	AE	715

Shooting with the M6 TTL 0.58

My first real shooting opportunity with the M6 TTL came at a friend’s 60th birthday, which he hosted near his home in Belap, Switzerland. It was a spectacular setting as the high-altitude resort overlooked the Great Alestch Glacier, the longest and largest glacier in the Alps. On the day we were leaving, low clouds rolled in, and it was an unforgettable experience to walk amongst them, with the scenery appearing and disappearing as the clouds rolled past.

Along with the 28mm Elmarit-M lens that I use so often, I took the Summicron-M 50mm and Elmarit-M 90mm f2.8 that I used with the M7. I included these on the basis that I was likely to be focused at infinity, so focusing accuracy with the 0.58 wouldn’t be an issue – an assumption that proved to be correct.

The M6 TTL is a pleasure to shoot with. Loading was trouble-free, and rewinding was quicker than with the M3. The framelines and rangefinder patch are bright, and I never encountered the path flare that some users find so troublesome.

The camera has a very solid tactile mechanical feel with a quiet shutter. Accurate, usable exposures are easily obtained by metering from a mid tone or shadow with texture, and the three-dot exposure display is intuitive. Perhaps best of all, those jewel-like miniature lenses are a joy to use. The body, film and lenses took up little space in my pack, and given the exertions of the hiking, I was glad they weighed so little.

Aftermath: Leica M7, MP M-A and The Return of the M6

In 2002, the M6 TTL was succeeded by the M7, which introduced an electronically controlled shutter and aperture-priority auto-exposure and retained the same choice of viewfinder magnifications (0.58×, 0.72×, and 0.85×).

A year later, in 2003, Leica launched the MP (‘Mechanical Perfection’), which was a return to a mechanical shutter and the M3’s elegant, clutched but slow film winder. It also offered upgraded viewfinder optics to reduce flare. The MP was originally offered in all three magnification options, but is now only offered in 0.72 form.

In 2014, Leica introduced the M-A, a stripped-back, all-mechanical film body with no meter, positioned as the spiritual successor to the M3 and M2. It was produced only with the 0.72× finder, reaffirming that magnification as Leica’s universal standard.

Nearly two decades after the original, Leica revisited the M6 (2022): a modernised interpretation of the 1984 M6 Classic, with brass top and bottom plates, improved coatings in the finder, and 0.72× magnification. The model sported the three-LED light meter display of the M6 TTL but omitted both the larger shutter dial and TTL flash metering.

Final Word

A year or so after I acquired the M6 TTL 0.58, I purchased a black 0.85 M7. This late-model film camera, which features a few additional refinements I appreciate, including Aperture-Priority Auto-Exposure (AE), an exposure compensation dial (±2 EV in 1/3-stop increments), and DX coding with manual override. On the last point, the one control that lets the M6 TTL down is the fiddly ISO dial on the back. The M7 does introduce a battery dependency, but has two manual backup speeds of 1/60s and 1/125s, and I always carry spares.

In theory, I should prefer the M7. In practice, the M6 TTL has become my go-to Leica. I think this is for two reasons. The first, and most important, is that I now shoot with a 28mm lens most often for landscapes and street photography, rather than a 35mm lens. This is a focal length I came to really appreciate with the Leica Q and subsequently the Q2, and for that, it is ideally suited.

Secondly, I prefer the M6 TTL’s manual exposure display to the Auto Exposure mode on the M7, despite the promise of higher accuracy offered by the quartz-timed stepless speeds in that mode. The M7 offers the same manual focus display as the M6 TTL, though limited to the engraved shutter speeds in manual exposure.

Much praise has been heaped on the Q series with its built-in 28mm Summilux, whilst its tele and standard siblings shade the wide-angle Ms. I can understand why that is the case, but for me, the 0.58 has proved to be a very happy accident, and I wouldn’t swap it.

From Wet to Dry: The Gelatin Dry Plate Era, 1870s–1900s

Posted on August 31, 2025September 1, 2025 by Nigel Williams

The gelatin dry plate, introduced in the 1870s, was a major milestone in photographic history. Unlike the wet collodion process, which required plates to be sensitized, exposed, and developed while still wet, dry plates were factory-prepared and could be stored for months before and after exposure.

Each dry plate consisted of a sheet of glass coated with a light-sensitive gelatin emulsion of silver halides. This made photography far more practical as exposures were dramatically shorter and cameras became more portable.

Development

The gelatin dry plate emerged in the 1870s as a solution to the limitations of the wet collodion process, which demanded swift preparation and immediate development. In 1871, English physician Richard Leach Maddox proposed using a gelatin emulsion of silver bromide on glass as a more stable light-sensitive coating.

His idea was refined over the next decade by inventors such as Charles Bennett, who in 1878 discovered that heating the emulsion increased its sensitivity, making much shorter exposures possible. For the first time, photographers could purchase factory-prepared plates that remained sensitive for months, eliminating the need to carry portable darkrooms into the field.

Printing

A variety of printing processes became available during the dry plate era, which are summarised in the table below.

Medium	Description	Main Use	Pros	Cons
Gelatin Silver Print (developing-out paper, DOP) 1885	Paper coated with gelatin-silver emulsion; image developed chemically after exposure.	Became the standard black-and-white print medium from 1890s into the 20th century.	Sharp detail, good contrast; relatively stable when well-processed; widely available.	Early versions had cold, blue-black tone (less warm than albumen/ platinum); could still fade if poorly fixed.
Platinum Print ca. 1873	Paper sensitized with iron salts and platinum; image formed from platinum metal.	Favoured by Pictorialists, fine-art and portrait work.	Rich, subtle tonal range; extremely permanent; matte, velvety surface.	Expensive materials; long exposures; process nearly died out during WWI (platinum shortage).
Carbon Print Popularised 1860s	Pigmented gelatin tissue exposed with a negative, then transferred to final support.	Artistic photography; high-quality archival prints.	Permanent image (carbon pigment); wide tonal control; multiple colour options.	Laborious multi-step process; not for rapid commercial use.
Gum Bichromate Print 1890s	Paper coated with gum arabic, pigment, and dichromate; exposed and developed by washing away unhardened gum.	Pictorialist, painterly effects; art photography.	Painterly, flexible, could layer colours; strong artistic control.	Low detail compared to silver; very slow, contact printing only.
Photogravure 1879	Intaglio printing: gelatin resist and etched copper plate inked and pressed on paper.	High-end art books; Pictorialist works; fine reproductions.	Rich continuous tones; luxurious, permanent prints.	Complex, expensive, required printing press.

Camera Design

Camera design began to shift dramatically in response to the introduction of the gelatin dry plate. Earlier wet-plate photography had tied cameras to bulky tripods and portable darkrooms, but the new plates, which were sensitive, durable, and ready-made, freed photographers from those constraints.

The 1870s saw the refinement of the folding field camera, with bellows for portability and interchangeable lenses for versatility. Lighter wooden bodies, and more precise shutters made cameras easier to transport and quicker to operate. With reduced exposure times, photographers could capture instantaneous images of movement, street scenes, and everyday life far more easily.

Gelatin Dry Print — A very late Gelatine Dry Plate Print from 1909. British battleships HMS ‘Dominion’ with HMS ‘Hibernia’ in distance, Source: Wikipedia Commons

The gelatin dry plate era bridged the gap between the era of handcrafted photography and the age of mass production, paving the way for the roll film and snapshots of the late nineteenth century.

For more on early photography you might consider these articles, which also be found on this site:

Made with Collodion: The Media that Shaped An Era

Posted on August 29, 2025August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

The collodion process of 1851 transformed how images were made, shared, and preserved.

It was also known as wet-plate photography and involves coating a piece of glass with a collodion emulsion, sensitising it in silver nitrate and then taking the picture immediately so that it can be developed whilst the plate is still wet.

Collodion ushered in a new standard of clarity and reproducibility compared to earlier processes, while albumen prints brought a mass-produced format into family albums and parlours.

However, during the collodian era, there was an extensive range of methods to create images, including direct positives as well as prints.

I found the easiest way to get to grips with the various media types made from the collodion process was to put them in a table, which you can see below.

Each medium had its strengths and limitations and collectively they shaped a photographic era that bridged the artisanal origins of photography and its industrialized roll-film coming of age.

Medium Introduced	Description	Positive/ Negative Main Uses	Pros	Cons
Albumen Print 1850	Paper coated with egg white (albumen) and silver salts, contact printed from negatives.	Positive (print) Dominant 19th-century print process	High-gloss surface, fine detail, warm tonal range; could be mass-produced.	Faded easily without good fixing/washing; labor-intensive coating process.
Ambrotype 1854	Under-exposed collodion negative on glass backed with black to appear as positive.	Negative used to make a unique Positive Studio portraits; popular keepsakes.	Cheaper and faster than daguerreotypes; sharp detail; less reflective.	Unique image (no copies); fragile glass; limited tonal depth.
Tintype (Ferrotype) 1856	Under-exposed collodion negative on black-lacquered iron, exposed as direct positive.	Negative used to make a unique Positive Working class portraits, itinerant/carnival photographers.	Durable, cheap, quick to produce; popular for portraits/traveling photographers.	Lower image quality; usually small format.
Salt Print 1839	Paper soaked in salt and silver nitrate, contact printed from a negative.	Positive (print) Early landscapes, architecture, scientific documentation	Soft tonal range, relatively easy to produce, allowed multiple prints.	Survived in low volume into collodion era, but prone to fading; less detail than albumen prints.
Collodion Positives on Paper 1850s	Direct collodion image on paper to serve as a unique positive.	Positive Experimental niche process	Lightweight inexpensive positives.	Rare; lacked popularity and longevity.
Carte de Visite (albumen format) 1854	Multiple small albumen prints from collodion negatives mounted on card.	Positive (print) Mass social phenomenon; portraits of family/celebrities	Cheap, portable, mass-produced, socially fashionable.	Small size limited artistic impact; often faded.

Footnote: Later Nineteenth Century Processes

After the collodion era gave way to more convenient dry plates, photographers began experimenting with more artistic printing methods. These “exotic” processes were less about sharp detail and more about mood and craftsmanship. Platinum and palladium prints created soft, velvety tones; gum bichromate and carbon printing added painterly layers of pigment; oil and bromoil let artists brush ink directly onto the image; and photogravure gave photographs the richness of fine art prints. Together, they defined the Pictorialist movement of the 1890s–1910s, when photography strove to look and feel like art.

The Life and Cameras of Thomas Ottewill

Posted on August 28, 2025August 30, 2025 by Nigel Williams

For a camera maker of such influence, Thomas Ottewill is biographically elusive. We have examples of his cameras, but we know little about his business, less about his family life and nothing at all about his final years and death. In this article I have attempted to assemble what is known and research what is not.

Much remains unknown, but what follows is a timeline of his life and cameras, based on the many sources that can be found online, followed by a summary of his legacy. The main source for the cameras is the excellent British Camera Makers, an A-Z Guide to Companies and Products.

Context: Photography 1851-1865

Thomas Ottewill was a leading figure in the shift from opticians and instrument-makers to a specialised manufacturing and retail industry, with British firms scaling up the production of cameras, lenses and sensitised materials. During that period, much else changed.

An 8 x 12″ Ottewill Sliding Box Camera – Source Peter Coeln Photography

It is the collodion era. Frederick Scott Archer’s wet collodion (1851) rapidly displaces the daguerreotype and calotype because its glass negatives offer an improvement over the calotype process, which relies on paper negatives, and the daguerreotype, which produces a one-of-a-kind positive image. By the International Exhibition of 1862 the catalogue could state that, “with some few exceptions, all [exhibits] were produced by the collodion process.”

Albumen paper, developed by Blanquart-Évrard in 1850, becomes the dominant print, pairing with collodion negatives and enabling large-scale production.

The period witnesses mass adoption via new formats: the carte-de-visite (patented in 1854) turns portraiture into an affordable, collectible commodity and stereoscopy becomes a household entertainment after its 1851 Crystal Palace showing.

Photography professionalises and institutionalises. The Photographic Society (RPS) is founded in 1853 with the explicit mission to promote the art and science of the medium, publishing the Journal of the Photographic Society from the same year.

It also expands in purpose, illustrated by Roger Fenton’s 1855 Crimean War campaign, one of the earliest systematic documentary projects of conflict.

These are Thomas Ottewill’s times. This introductory description of the period is necessarily brief, so for more context you might like to read the Early Photography Timeline on this site or perhaps the articles on Made with Collodion, Fox Talbot, The First Camera Lens, and Wet Plate Photography.

Formative Years

1821 Thomas Ottewill is born in Maidstone, Kent, a town where many nineteenth-century Ottewills originated from, moving to London for work as the century progressed. The surname itself is a rare southern variant of Ottewell/Ottiwell/Otwell from the Norman personal name Otuel. (Sources: 1861 Census, Government Records Office, Geneanet.com)

1842 Thomas marries Jane Dyson, daughter of Robert, Coachman, at St. Pancreas in May. Thomas is working as a Cabinet maker and living at Clark’s Place Islington. (Source: marriage record)

1844 Thomas and Jane’s first child, Henry is born. The couple went on to have four sons and three daughters, as shown in 1861 census. Sarah Jane, 1846; Alfred, 1848; Amelia, 1851; Herbert 1853; James 1856; Emily 1858. (Source: 1861 Census)

Early Career

Pre 1851 Ottewill works at London optical and photographic firm Horne, Thornthwaite & Wood (‘Horne & Co.’) prior to starting his own firm. (Sources: Early Photography, Advertisement 16th July in Notes & Queries)

1851 Ottewill launches a business at 24 Charlotte Terrace, Islington, initially specialising in daguerreotype apparatus, as Thomas Ottewill. (Source: Company Details, Early Photography)

As can be seen in this listing, Ottewill was both early and unusual as a specialist camera-maker in 1851. The table above shows that most London suppliers in the daguerreotype era came out of optics (e.g., Shew, Gogerty) or “philosophical/instrument” shops (Horne, Thornthwaite & Wood; Hobcraft), with only “Thomas Ottewill, camera manufacturer” listed as a dedicated maker.

This listing was made only a dozen years or so after photography’s 1839 debut, and in the same year collodion breaks through, which puts Ottewill in the first-wave of camera makers, and distinct from the opticians who typically focused on lenses and retail and often jobbed out wooden bodies.

Over the 1850s–60s the trade would diverge. Opticians like Ross concentrated on lenses/branding while specialist cabinet-shops (Ottewill, later Hare, Meagher and Garland) built the cameras. These were frequently rebadged for the opticians and other retailers. Ottewill sits right at that pivotal point: he trained hands from cabinet-making, sold under his own name, and also manufactured for optics houses, helping move camera production from the bench of the general “instrument maker” into dedicated camera workshops.

Cameras

Thomas Ottewill started by producing Dagurrotype cameras. Whilst his first cameras are likely to have been sliding box cameras, his first identifiable camera model is the folding sliding-box of 1853.

1853 OTTEWILL’S DOUBLE FOLDING CAMERA (1853): sliding box (registered design), for 10 × 8 inch wet-plates. Once the lens panel and focusing screen frame had been removed the inner and outer boxes folded inwards on side hinges. (Lewis Carroll, the author, is said to have been a user of one of the Double Folding models). (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

This wet-plate camera featured a collapsible design, where the front and back panels could be detached and placed flat on the baseboard to create a compact, field-portable package. The design is described in detail on the Early Photography site:

Ottewill’s design combined the folding principle with the sliding box design. Both the inner and outer boxes carry hinges on their sides so that they can fold inwards and collapse. The outer box folds from a little way above the baseboard, this leaves space for the folded inner box. To collapse the camera remove the dark slide, remove the front panel, open the door on the top of the outer box, with the inner box drawn back a frame can now be seen at the front of the inner box, this is removed, both boxes will now collapse.

Ottewill advertises the camera in Notes and Queries in June that year: T. OTTEWILL (from Horne & Co.’s) begs most respectfully to call the attention of Gentlemen, Tourists, and Photographers, to the superiority of his newly registered DOUBLE-BODIED FOLDING CAMERAS, possessing the efficiency and ready adjustment of the Sliding Camera, with the portability and convenience of the Folding Ditto. Every description of Apparatus to order.

The reaction to the camera at the time was effusive. Photographic Journal (then Journal of the Photographic Society, December 21, 1853) praised its combination of strength and portability writing “there is none which more fully combines the requisite strength and firmness with a high degree of portability and efficiency.”

The Role of the Simple Sliding Box Camera

Whilst Ottewill’s folding double-body was aimed at field work where bulk and weight mattered, a good deal of photographic work, such as portrait studios and copying, prized body rigidity and alignment over compactness. A plain sliding-box has fewer joints, less flex, and is therefore potentially more rigid, which was important when mounting the heavy lenses of the time.

Partnerships Form and Dissolve

1854 The business becomes a partnership: Ottewill & Morgan, with William Morgan, about whom nothing else seems to be known.

1855 The partnership of Ottewill & Morgan is dissolved on the 12th April. The business rebrands to Thomas Ottewill & Co, a partnership between Thomas Ottewill and photographer/artist Frederick Aaron Gush (1817-1869). Gush was the brother of Victorian portrait painter William Gush (1813-1888).

Bellows and Stereoscopic Cameras

1856 CAPTAIN FOWKE’S CAMERA: one of the first to use bellows: the front (fixed), and rear (moving) standards secured to a baseboard. The front standard carried a tapered wooden, four-sided extension to hold the lens panel. This model was still being advertised, with improvements, in 1858, and shown as available in teakwood

Captain Fowke’s Camera was one the first camera with concertina-pattern pleated bellows, designed by Capt. Francis Fowke, R.E., patented No. 1295 (31 May 1856). Ottewill built the production examples.

Ottewill’s advert for Fowke’s Portable/Bellows Camera described it as “Invented for and used by the Royal Engineers… the most portable as well as the lightest camera in use.” (Source: National Science & Media Museum blog)

By 1856 Ottewill claimed to ‘have erected extensive workshops adjoining their former shops, and having now the largest manufactory in England for the making of cameras, they are enabled to execute with dispatch any orders they may be favoured with’ (source: Advertisement, Photographic Notes, no. 14,vol. 1, 1November 1856, p. 229.)

Ottewill continues to advertise in Notes and Queries: OTTEWILL’S REGISTERED DOUBLE-BODY FOLDING CAMERA, with Rack-work Adjustment, is superior to every other form of Camera, and is adapted for Landscapes and Portraita, – May be had of A. ROSS, Featherstone Buildings, Holborn and at the Photographic Institution, Bond Street.

1857 SINGLE LENS STEREOSCOPIC CAMERA: required two pictures to be taken in succession; the camera being slid along a slightly curved track on a mounting platform to make the two exposures. (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

Charles Dodgson immortalises Ottewill’s double-folding camera in a parody of Longfellow’s poem ‘Hiawatha’, in which he describes the camera, the wet-collodion process and the process of making a photograph.

Architect-photographer C. G. H. Kinnear’s designs a tapered-bellows field camera. The introduction of bellows was a milestone in camera design as it provided a lightweight method of extending body sections. Kinnear’s tapered bellows enabled the camera to fold into a very compact form because each pleat nested into the next, larger pleat. Ottewill and other manufacturers would later make improved versions of the camera.

Ottewill & Co. expands operations, occupying adjacent properties and “extensive workshops.” The company claimed to be the largest camera maker in England at the time.

1858 STEREOSCOPIC BOX CAMERA: a folding/collapsible box; much the same as the designs of Meagher and Hare. In 1859 advertised as the NEW STEREOSCOPIC BOX CAMERA. (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

A ‘Monster camera’, an oversized, large-plate version of Captain Francis Fowke’s folding bellows camera built by Ottewill, is shown at the 1858 Photographic Society exhibition. I can’t locate its dimensions, but period price lists show Ottewill selling very large formats (≥24×22 up to 30×30 inches), which is likely the class to which the 1858 “monster camera” belonged. For example, C. E. Clifford’s illustrated catalogue (National Art Library/RPS copy; ca. 1860–63) lists the sizes of “Improved Double-Body Folding Camera” in a table, which runs to 30×30 inches.

On the 18 May 1858 The Ottewill Gush partnership dissolves by mutual consent. Ottewill assumes all debts and continues the business alone; Gush moves on to other partnerships.

An Early Swing Back

1859 IMPROVED KINNEAR’S CAMERA: conventional design; optionally with swing back. The sizes in which this model was made have not been traced specifically but they are known to have been made in a range, or to special order. (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn – they suggest 1860s for the introduction)

The “Improved Kinnear Camera”, was derived from the design of architect-photographer C. G. H. Kinnear’s tapered-bellows field camera of 1857. A Christie’s lot essay says Ottewill made an Improved Kinnear-pattern camera in 1859 and “claimed [it] was the first to introduce a swing back.”

A swing back is an adjustable rear standard: the ground-glass/plate frame pivots on one (or sometimes two) axes so the sensitized plate needn’t stay square to the baseboard. The swing back was used chiefly for plane-of-focus control and small compositional refinements.

Whilst Ottewill’s swing back was undoubtedly early, some sources state that the movement was introduced earlier:

Tilt and Swing to the Back. These movements are found on studio cameras as early as the 1840s. Cameras fitted with tilt and swing are shown in Knight’s catalogue (1853) and described in Willats’s catalogues of 1849 and later. The 1849 catalogue claims it was introduced by Dr Leeson in 1845. (Source: Early Photography)

Meagher shows a Kinnear-derivative with a swing back described at a Photographic Society meeting in 1860.

Regardless of who introduced it first, by the mid-1860s the movement is routine on studio cameras, becoming a standard control on professional models through the 1870s.

The Early 1860s, Growth and Bankruptcy

1860 OTTEWILL’S MINIATURE CAMERA mahogany, with a brass lens mount and very similar in appearance (apart from the material) to the Skaife Pistolgraph… even to the wooden box and ball-mounted stand. Simple flap-type shutter (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

1860s OTTEWILL’S DOUBLE-BODY FOLDING CAMERAS; and the SUPERIOR SLIDING-BODY FOLDING CAMERAS: made in a range of (unspecified) sizes — the latter in vertical/horizontal format, or in a square pattern; optionally in mahogany or teak (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

This 1860s “double-body” and “superior sliding-body” models are an evolution of the 1853 model offering more formats (vertical/horizontal/square), materials (including teak), and working features like repeating backs, while staying within the sliding-box-folding tradition that distinguished Ottewill’s field cameras.

1860s STUDIO CAMERAS and PORTRAIT CAMERAS: several types and sizes of sliding-box cameras; some with sliding/repeating backs (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn)

1861 The census of that year shows Ottewill employs 21 men and 3 boys. On the 31 December Ottewill files for bankruptcy. The court requires Ottweill to surrender himself to Henry Philip Roche, esq, a Registrar of the said Court, at the first meeting of creditors, on the 15th of January the following year. (Source: London Gazette)

1862 On the 15th of March, the Bankrupty Court grants Ottewill an Order of Discharge. (Source: London Gazette)

The Collis Partnership and Debtors Prison

1863 The firm evolves into Ottewill & Collis & Co., with James Collis (formerly with Ross & Co.) as partner. Ross was a leading London firm of “manufacturing optician.” that had introduced an influential doublet portrait lens in 1841, placing the firm among the earliest English manufacturers of photographic lenses. Ottewill made much of the connection. An 1867 advertisement stated that they had been manufacturing for Ross for 15 years and that Mr Collis was previously working for Ross for 13 years.

1864 In October Ottewill is adjusged bankrupt for a second time, and is held as a Prisoner for Debt in the custody of the Sheriff of Middlesex, at No. 1, Breams’-buildings, Chancery-lane. (Source: London Gazette).

The Breams’ buildings were not a prison like Newgate , but a Sheriff’s officer’s “sponging-house” (lock-up) used to hold debtors after arrest on a writ while they tried to settle or arrange terms. A debtor was seized by a sheriff’s officer and taken to a sponging-house, and only if no arrangement was made would he be brought before the court and committed to prison.

Contemporary descriptions of Chancery-Lane lock-ups paint a picture of closely supervised rooms, fees for everything, and constant pressure to pay. Debtors could receive visitors and have food sent in, but at their own expense, while officers’ charges mounted. (Sources: The National Archives and The Spectator Archives)

Last Mention

1865 Ottewill faces creditor hearings and examination. The last mention of him appears late in that year in the London Gazette relating to his bankruptcy material.

1867 James Collis, a former employee of Ross in the accounts department, is accused by Ross of embezzlement and £20 is offered for his apprehension. (Source: Early Photography).

Late 1860s: OTTEWILL’S PLATE CHANGER: one of the earliest designs; carried eighteen plates and could be used on any suitable camera taking a conventional plate carrier. (Source: British Camera Makers, Channing & Dunn – no date for introduction provided)

43 Barbara Street Islington

A note that Ottewill was “possibly living at 43 Barbara St., Islington” in 1870 from the Early Photography site, is the last mention I can find of Thomas Ottewill.

The 1871 census shows Jane Ottewill living in 43 Barbara Street, working as a dressmaker with her daughter Sarah (also working as a dressmaker), James (aged 15, working as a stationer) and Emily (aged 12, scholar). Jane is listed as married, not as a widow.

After domestic service, needlework (dressmaking, millinery, shirt-making) was the default resort for urban women, mostly piece work done at home, often working extremely long hours in poor conditions. Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor records peak-season extremes with women “working frequently their 20 hours a day… often sitting up all night”. These were the conditions later reformers would call the “sweating system.”

Given Thomas’s first bankruptcy was a decade earlier (31 Dec 1861), and that his financial troubles continued on-and-off from then on, It is likely that Jane to begin taking in paid work well before the 1871 census records it. Michael Pritchard’s The development and growth of British photographic manufacturing and retailing 1839-1914 notes that “the business stopped completely for a period of months” when Thomas Ottewill was made bankrupt in 1864, which would necessitate anohter income to feed the family.

It is quite likely that Jane’s work shifted from supplemental to principal income as Thomas’s finances collapsed the second time.

I have not been able to find any records to confirm Thomas’s death. Jane appears to have died in 1889 in Islington (Oct-Dec 1b/173) aged 70.

Legacy

At the 1862 International Exhibition the work of ‘the photographic cabinet-makers’ George Hare, Patrick Meagher and Thomas OttewiIl drew much attention. One reviewer, Samuel Highley, noted that their cameras ‘are of the very best of English workmanship, and contrast very favourably with the productions of our foreign neighbours’. All three businesses were specialist camera makers with photographic manufacturing being the major part of their businesses. (Source The development and growth of British photographic manufacturing and retailing 1839-1914, Michael Pritchard)

Looking back, the British Journal Photographic Almanac in 1898 noted that Ottewill ‘may be regarded as the source to which the best school of English camera-making traces its origin’

From these reviews we can conclude that both as a maker and mentor, Thomas Ottewill helped set the course of early British camera manufacture. His workshop trained a small group who went on to lead the trade, including George Hare, Patrick Meagher and John Garland, T. Mason and A. Routledge so that his influence propagated through their later firms.

In design terms, he showed innovation with the double-folding field camera and Captain Francis Fowke’s bellows camera marked a key transition from sliding boxes to bellows. By the mid-1860s his workshop helped popularise Kinnear’s tapered-bellows idea with “Improved Kinnear” models, while continuing to supply leading optics houses. His equipment was praised by Charles Dodson (Lewis Carroll) and reached royal hands. The Royal Archives preserve bills from Ottewill & Morgan and Ottewill & Co.

Ottewill’s legacy is one of refined, durable cameras that helped define British field and studio work, and a training pipeline that seeded excellence across the London trade.

Leonard Misonne: Alchemist of Atmosphere

Posted on July 24, 2025August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

Rather infrequently, a photograph just stops my world for a moment, and the image totally absorbs me. This has happened most frequently at exhibitions, but sometimes it just takes a single photograph. Waterloo Place (1899) by Leonard Misonne (1870-1943) is one of those. Definitely a photograph, but almost a painting, it seems to me a practically miraculous work. This article is the result of the impact of that photograph.

Leonard Misonne was a pictorialist photographer. Pictorialism was a photographic movement from the late 19th to early 20th century that emphasised artistic expression and beauty over factual documentation. The pictorialists were a talented group of people who, in addition to having the skill to take pictures with the cumbersome and slow equipment of the time, realised their vision through a complex end-to-end process that required considerable skill.

They employed extensive darkroom manipulation, sometimes using paintbrushes; they often created their own photographic emulsions and experimented with alternative printing methods. Some even made their own paper. Physics, chemistry and art all played a part in creating a photograph that often looked more like a painting.

Among the pictorialists, Leonard Misonne is remembered for his mastery of light and atmosphere. Amongst the subjects he photographed, he applied these capabilities to the cities of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the results are captivating.

His urban work, such as Waterloo Place (1899) and Sortie de la gare de Namur (1938) showcases his talent to best effect. That’s an opinion, not a fact, but this post reviews his life, work and techniques, with particular emphasis on his urban work.

Leonard Misonne Pictorialist — Waterloo Place (1899)

Early Life and Background

Leonard (Léonard in French) Misonne was born in 1870 in Gilly, near Charleroi, a major coal-mining centre, into a wealthy family whose affluence afforded him the freedom to pursue his interests.

His father, Louis Misonne, was an industrialist and lawyer who made his fortune from coal mining, and Leonard trained as a mining engineer at the University of Leuven. He quickly abandoned the profession, as his inclinations lay elsewhere.

From an early age, his asthmatic condition, though a physical hindrance, instilled in him a fascination with the movement and condition of air and the weather.

He became a keen cyclist, travelling through the countryside and cities of Belgium with a sketchbook or camera to hand. These journeys contributed to his careful observation of light, cloud, and shadow, which would later help to define his photographic work.

Artistic Influences

Although not a painter-turned-photographer like Edward Steichen, Misonne’s photographic vision was influenced by 19th-century painters who emphasized light, atmosphere, and mood.

The most well-known of these today is Gustave Doré, from whose engravings Misonne absorbed chiaroscuro, the dramatic use of light and shadow to create depth and volume, famously exemplified by Caravaggio.

However, The most historically important of his influences was French landscape painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. A national treasure in his lifetime, he is known more to curators and art historians than the general public today. At the time, however, parallels with his work earned Misonne the nickname the Corot of photography which was a huge endorsement.

Misonne was also influenced by at least two artistic movements. The Barbizon School was a group of French painters who painted directly from nature, and the later Tonalists were American artists who created paintings awash in mist or atmospheric fog.

Philosophy and Techniques

With these influences, Leonard Misonne rejected the realism of much early photography and sought to elevate the medium to the level of fine art. This was the Pictorialist mission. He subscribed to the Pictorialist belief that photography should evoke rather than record, capturing more than just the facts of a scene.

To this end, he employed a variety of alternative printing processes, often modifying them to suit his needs.

One of Misonne’s preferred techniques was the bromoil process, which allowed him to suppress detail and selectively control tone. The method began with a traditional silver bromide print that he then bleached, hardened, and inked with lithographic brushes. This created the painterly textures needed for his misty streetscapes and glowing landscapes. He learned the process from Émile Constant Puyo, a key figure in French Pictorialism, during a visit to Paris around 1910.

Misonne also experimented with the Fresson process, a secretive carbon print technique developed by the Fresson family, known for its matte finishes and tonal control. Another favoured method was mediobrome, a hybrid of silver gelatin and pigment-based printing which allowed for both photographic realism and artistic manipulation. Misonne’s prints made with mediobrome exhibit a haunting, diffused light, which was a hallmark of his style.

Hybrid Techniques

He also developed his own hybrid techniques, most notably photo-dessin and flou-net. Photo-dessin (“photo-drawing”) blended charcoal or pencil sketches with photographic precision, often resulting in images that hovered somewhere between a drawing and a photograph. Flou-net combined softness (flou) with select sharpness (net), creating clarity amidst fog.

All of these methods were in service of what Misonne considered essential: light. His photographs are suffused with mist, low sun, and glowing haze. These were natural elements that were amplified, not fabricated, through his darkroom techniques. Misonne made light itself the subject of his photography. He often placed figures and scenes against the light, backlit by early morning sun or streetlamps in fog, so that their forms became silhouettes or halos within a luminous atmosphere.

One of his most famous quotes is ‘The subject is nothing, light is everything.’

Urban Atmosphere

While his images of the countryside, especially those of the Belgian Ardennes, were widely praised at the time, it is Misonne’s urban works, which captured the industrial beauty of cities like Brussels, Liège, and London, that I find unique and most appealing. Across all of his work, atmosphere was not a secondary consideration to Misonne; it was the subject itself. He was less concerned with what was seen than with what was felt.

A Lynchian Parallel

Despite the cultural and aesthetic contexts being worlds apart, there is something about the dreamlike, foggy ambiguity in industrial settings that reminds me of the work of David Lynch, whom I also greatly admire. Lynch was another great artist who was also less concerned with what was seen than with what was felt. Another parallel between the two artists is decribed in an article in Open Culture. The Art of David Lynch points out that the term ‘Lynchian is necessarily tied to a painterly sensibility’. In Lynch’s case, the painterly influences were René Magritte, Edward Hopper, Arnold Böcklin, and Francis Bacon. Hopper’s Nighthawks and Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead, both of which I’ve been lucky enough to see up close, both come to mind here.

The intent behind their work was, of course, very different; Misonne was in pursuit of an idealised vision, even when melancholy. Lynch’s work, with its industrial darkness, dream states, and fog, emphasises decay and is famous for producing substantial quantities of anxiety and existential dread.

Notable Urban Works

Several of Leonard Misonne’s photographs stand out for their urban atmosphere. Many make use of rain and fog as part of the effect. These works seem to me to be some of his most accomplished:

Waterloo Place Perhaps his most celebrated urban image (certainly by me, and shown in this post)
Sortie de la gare de Namur (also an accompanying image) A view of a departing train in dense steam. The tracks recede into haze, and figures blur into shadows
Rain, Belgium, also known as Effet de Pluie (the third image in this post) A rainy street with umbrellas and glowing reflections
La Grand Place de Bruxelles The famous square, seen through a filter of diffused winter light.
Le Voile (The Veil) A foggy street scene where pedestrians seem to vanish into opacity
Rue de Village A quiet city street at dusk, with horse-drawn carriages and gaslight just beginning to show.

The Legacy of Leonard Missone

Leonard Misonne died in 1943. He had suffered from severe asthma throughout his life and complications related to this condition led to his death.

His works were celebrated in his own time, but today his reputation today is more specialized, and he is better known in the context of the history of early art photography – a similar fate to his artistic influence, Corot.

Among the Pictorialists, he is usually ranked just below the most internationally recognised figures like Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and Edward Weston and so falls out of public consciousness.

To my mind, Leonard Misonne is the most accomplished of the Pictorialists in conjuring urban atmosphere, and there is real magic in his work. On this site Leonard Missone joins Brassaï, Fan Ho, Vivian Maier, Cindy Sherman, Saul Leiter and William Klein (so far) – all of whom had the same effect on me – their work moved me, so much so that I felt compelled to learn and write about their work.

SLR vs Rangefinder Metering

Posted on July 22, 2025July 22, 2025 by Nigel Williams

I shoot with both the Leica rangefinders and the Nikon SLRs. The most frequently used are my Leica M6 TTL 0.58 and Nikon F3, which is the camera that got me back into shooting with film. They are both legendary cameras, but very different to shoot with.

I’ve found the key to knowing them better is to gain an understanding of their metering systems. These, I learned, are separated by design philosophy and intended user as well as the underlying camera technology.

Nikon: SLR TTL Metering Through the Focusing Screen

Let’s start with the SLR. The Nikon F3 is a single lens reflex (SLR)of 1980 in this example. It was built for professional photojournalists, sports photographers, and anyone needing fast, reliable exposure in unpredictable environments. The F3 has a TTL (through-the-lens) metering system. It works like this:

Nikon F3 HP

Light enters through the lens.
It reflects off the mirror up to the focusing screen.
The focusing screen diffuses the light, spreading brightness across a visible field.
A silicon photodiode sensor reads this averaged light.
The focusing screen acts like a diffuser, helping the camera analyse brightness across a broad field.

This system allows the meter to “see” what the lens sees – including vignetting and out-of-focus area, making it perfect for delivering quick, intuitive exposures, and ideal for changing light and fast subjects.

For the F3, Nikon chose an 80/20 bias for the F3’s light meter. 80% of the metre’s emphasis is on a 12mm circle in the center of the frame. The remaining 20% averages the rest of the screen. The result is a broad center-weighted pattern.

From the F4 onwards, Nikon offered Matrix metering. See the second table for more details of the F3’s successor models – the F4, F5 and F6.

Leica: Metering from the White Patch

The Leica M6 TTL rangefinder was launched nearly twenty years after the F3 in 1998 (though the F3 was still being produced at that time). It was produced for the niche that Leica occupied by the time – photographers who prioritised craft, discretion, and classic rangefinder handling over automation or frames per second.

It was a refined version of the original Leica M6 (1984–1998). While the original M6 also offered TTL metering, the TTL in the newer model refers specifically to TTL Flash metering. This meant the camera could now meter flash exposure through the lens, something the original M6 couldn’t do. Personally, that’s not important to me. The reason I chose the TTL model was the larger shutter speed control, which I find easier to use.

Leica M6 TTL

As the M6 TTL is a rangefinder, unlike the F3 it has has no mirror, no focusing screen, and you don’t ‘see’ through the lens. Instead, you compose through a separate optical viewfinder, while a TTL meter reads light reflected from a small white patch on the shutter curtain.

The M6 TTL meters light through the lens, but only from a small central area, about 12–13% of the frame. This metering zone corresponds roughly to the 90mm frame lines in the viewfinder, which is visible when a 28mm lens is mounted. This is the most common lens on my 0.58 M6 TTL.

Since there’s no focusing screen to average light across the image, the camera measures only from a narrow reflective patch inside the lens throat.

The meter behaves more like a semi-spot meter – it is accurate but limited. Leica assume (correctly in most cases, I think) that their photographers will meter, then recompose. This is ideal for slower, methodical shooting where tone matters more than speed.

F3 SLR Vs M6 Rangefinder Summary Comparison

Feature	Leica M6 TTL	Nikon F3
Viewfinder type	Rangefinder	SLR
Metering system	Center-weighted selective (~13%)	Center-weighted TTL (~80%)
Design intent	Precision, manual control	Speed, general-purpose shooting
Ideal for	Deliberate exposures, tonal control	Fast shooting, balanced exposures
Reflective surface	White patch on shutter curtain	Focusing screen and mirror system

Summary of Rangefinder and SLR Successors

Feature	Leica M7	Nikon F4	Nikon F5	Nikon F6
Viewfinder type	Rangefinder	SLR	SLR	SLR
Metering system	Center-weighted selective (~13%)	Matrix (5-segment), Center-weighted, Spot (3.5mm)	3D Color Matrix, Center-weighted (customizable), Spot (4mm)	3D Color Matrix II, Center-weighted (customizable), Spot (4mm)
Design intent	Classic rangefinder with auto exposure	Versatile, electronic pro workflow	Advanced metering and AF for high-speed pro use	As per the F5, but with increased digital-era precision
Ideal for	Rangefinder shooting with auto exposure convenience	Flexible metering in dynamic environments	High-speed, accurate exposure in fast-changing light	As per the F5, but with more precision and flexibility
Reflective surface	White patch on shutter curtain	Focusing screen and multi-sensor prism system	1005-pixel RGB sensor linked to AF and lens data	Enhanced 1005-pixel RGB sensor with i-TTL integration

Final Thoughts – SLR vs Rangefinder Metering

Researching and understanding SLR vs Rangefinder metering systems has been helpful in getting the most out of my M6 TTL and F3, but it has also helped me understand how different the cameras really are. The M6 TTL demands more from me during exposure, but offers more precision. The F3, meanwhile, provides faster exposures, which means I’m less likely to miss the opportunity.

Magic without Silver – Ilford XP2 Super

Posted on July 22, 2025July 22, 2025 by Nigel Williams

Introduction

Ilford XP2 Super 400 is best known for a unique characteristic: though it is a genuine black and white film, it can be processed using standard C41 processing alongside everyday colour films on the high street.

There’s much more to XP2 Super 400, of course. Ilford emphasises several virtues, including fine grain, sharpness, wide tonal range, wide exposure latitude and enhanced negative contrast.

Unsurprisingly, it has a fan base – I’ve seen it described in photographers’ blogs as ‘The People’s Black and White Film – cheap, accessible and plentiful’. I’ve also seen it eulogised as ‘the one…with its silvery highlights, shadow detail and deep blacks’.

I will declare myself a fan. I originally shot with it as part of my exploration of black and white film, but I’ve become a regular user. This article is a result of that exploration.

Ilford XP2 Super 400 — Deal seafront from the pier, shot with a Nikon F6 and XP2 Super 400

The History of Ilford XP2 Super (and Chromogenic B&W Film)

Ilford XP2 Super is part of the XP (eXpanded Process) series, launched by Ilford Photo (UK) in the early 1980s as a response to the emerging chromogenic black-and-white film market.

To give XP2 its full backstory, it’s worth taking a brief diversion to summarise the history of chromogenic black-and-white films. These emerged in the mid-20th century as an offshoot of colour negative film development. Unlike traditional B&W films, which form an image from metallic silver, chromogenic B&W films form their images from dye clouds, developed through C-41 colour chemistry. In other words, they can be developed simply by just about any lab.

In the 1950s and 1960s Kodak and other companies experimented with dye-coupler technology in colour emulsions. This laid the groundwork for black and white chromogenic films and by the 1970s the use of C-41 chemistry to simplify black and white lab work had become attractive enough for consumers and press photographers for a market to develop.

Back to the XP Series, and in 1980 Ilford released XP1. This was among the first commercially available chromogenic B&W films. In 1988 XP1 was replaced by XP2, which offered improved grain, contrast control, and better exposure latitude. In 1998 the film was re-engineered and launched as XP2 Super, the version still in production today, featuring fine grain for ISO 400, broad exposure latitude (‘ISO 50–800’) and of course, compatibility with standard C-41 labs.

The other chromogenic black and white films were Fuji’s Nepoan 400CN and Kodak’s BW400CN. In 2014, Kodak discontinued BW400CN, citing falling demand. Fuji followed suit in 2020. Today, Ilford XP2 Super is the last chromogenic B&W film still in production.

Magic Without Silver?

Whether or not you think there’s any magic in Ilford XP2 Super, the film itself does contain silver in the form of halide crystals (just like traditional B&W film). Moreover, when exposed to light, the image is formed initially in silver. However, during C-41 development, the silver halides trigger dye couplers that form the final image from dyes. The silver is then bleached and fixed away, leaving only the dye image – without silver.

Appearance

XP2’s grain is virtually invisible in well-exposed areas, especially compared to silver halide-based films like HP5 or Tri-X. XP2 has smooth midtones, and offers slightly compressed highlights and shadows, which is ideal for architecture, and well-lit landscapes – which is what I use it for. When I get a good, well exposed shot, XP2 rewards it.

Who Uses Ilford XP2?

XP2 hasn’t built a celebrity or cult following like Tri-X, but I’ve read that it was valued by photojournalists working on tight deadlines in the 1990s and early 2000s, who needed fast, lab-friendly B&W film. Wedding and portrait photographers, especially in the UK and Europe, where high-volume C-41 labs were common, were also users.

Today, it is embraced by fine art photographers seeking grain-free wide tonal range, and those in architectural or documentary fields looking for the same. More recently, XP2 has gained popularity among some ‘hybrid shooters’, who scan the negatives rather than print in the darkroom.

Getting the Best from XP2 Super 400

The first step in getting the best results from any film is to know its strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths – Good Light and a Little Over Exposure

Beyond convenient processing, XP2 is excellent in good light. With proper or slight overexposure and good light, XP2 delivers sharp, high-contrast images with a wide tonal range, which is especially good for landscapes.

The film has ‘high exposure latitude’ (film speeds can be ‘pushed’ and ‘pulled’) and apparently can be exposed between ISO 100 and 800 on the same roll and developed normally. I have tried one-stop variations successfully.

Weaknesses – Underexposure and Low Light

XP2 is vulnerable to underexposure: Underexposed areas tend to block up with deep blacks and lose their midtones. I have to be careful with XP2 as I tend to create more low-key than high-key images.

It’s also not the best in low light. Shadows can become muddy and somewhat lifeless. Though XP2 is known as being a ‘forgiving’ film, it is not as forgiving as traditional silver-based films in low light.

Shooting XP2 for Best Results

I’ve learned that XP2 thrives in bright daylight . A slight overexposure (ISO 200–320) can help preserve shadow detail.

I scan my images for this website. XP2 scans well, but when it’s underexposed, or the image is very high contrast, the scanner can amplify noise (especially in shadows), and the resulting scan simulates grain that isn’t technically in the emulsion. This is evident in the shot below, which looks quite grainy.

Ruined boat on the Kent Coast. Shot with a Leica M6 TTL on XP2 Super 400.

This is especially the case when you increase contrast (especially to give a bit more structure to a flat scan), as the texture becomes more apparent.

In the image here, the upper, darker sky shows grain. The battered, weathered wood is also detailed and “grain-revealing.” I’ve learned that even fine-grain film will show more texture when the subject contains lots of edges and patterns. There is some loss of shadow detail on the right of the shot. The shot was taken in bright sunlight, but I underexposed the image slightly.

Metering with the XP2

If you want to avoid losing shadow detail, as I have above, spot metering is your best bet. Just identify your darkest important shadow, not pure black, but a shadow where you want visible texture and take a spot reading of that area. Then expose 1 to 1 ½ stops below that reading and you should be in great shape.

If you only have a centre weighted meter, as I have both on my Leica M6 TTL and Nikon F3, (and no hand held meter), you need to know the size of the metered area to use it effectively. See the table below for the details on how to use centre weighted metering with two very different cameras.

Aspect	Leica M6 TTL	Nikon F3
Metered Area	~13%, central patch	~80%, central weighted
Where to aim	Shadow texture (precise area)	Balanced area (avoid sky)
Exposure compensation	Open 1 stop after metering shadow	Overexpose by ⅓–⅔ stop

For more on this, see the article SLR vs Rangefinder Metering on this site.

Legacy

While many photographers prefer silver-based films, chromogenic B&W has served as a practical solution for many working photographers from the ’80s onward.

XP2 remains unique as the only mainstream black and white film that uses colour negative development dye clouds instead of silver grain. It also has a unique look, and for many, including me, that’s it’s biggest appeal.

The Nikon FE2 – Great Film Cameras

Posted on April 4, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

The Nikon FE2 isn’t quite as well known as some of the other mid-range film SLRs Nikon has produced. It is quite similar to, but somewhat shaded by, the engineering miracle that is the FM3a with its hybrid shutter. The mechanical FM series also seems to better known than the electronic FEs. However, despite being occasionally overlooked, the FE2 is a fine film camera.

The FE and FM Series

As one of Nikon’s semi-professional SLRs, the FE2 shares the same rugged, metal internal chassis and general design principles as its siblings, the FM, FM2, FE, FA, and FM3A.

The FM and FE formed part of Nikon’s four product lines of F, FE, FM, and EM. These targeted different classes of users and were designed to change Nikon’s brand image from a manufacturer of high-end SLRs to an “all-round manufacturer”, accommodating a wide variety of consumers from beginners to professional photographers.

While they look quite similar, the Nikon FE and FM cameras are quite different internally. The Nikon FE and FE2 both have an electronic shutter with aperture-priority automation, and the light meter uses needle matching in the viewfinder. The FM is all-mechanical (except for the light meter) and uses a “centre-the-LED” system.

the table below provides an at-a-glance comparison of the FM and FE Series. Note that the later FE10 and FM10, manufactured by Cosina, sharing the same designation but based on a different chassis and designed for a different market, have been omitted. For brevity I’ve used the term ‘automation’ to refer to shutter automation, of which these cameras either offered none or aperture priority. For other automation options such as shutter priority, programmed auto etc. you need the Nikon FA.

	FM	FE	FM2	FE-2	FM-2n	FM3A
Shutter	Mechanical	Electronic	Mechanical	Electronic	Mechanical	Both
Automation	None	Aperture	None	Aperture	None	Aperture
Max. Shutter Speed (Sec)	1,000		4,000
Flash Sync (Sec)	1/125		1/250
Lens Compatibility Since	1958		1977
Introduced	1977	1978	1982	1983	1984	2001
Discontinued	1982	1983	1984	1987	2001	2006

FE and FM Series (excluding Cosina manufactured models)

What Makes the FE2 So Good?

What struck me first about the FE2 is the how bright the viewfinder is. It is brighter than the FE and nearly as bright as the FM3A, with excellent close-to-100% coverage at 93%. The viewfinder is Nikon’s interchangeable Type K2 focusing screen with the useful split image rangefinder and etched circle that indicates the area of the centre-weighted meter.

The FE2’s feature I like most the intuitive needle-matching light meter, which is also used in the FE and FM3A (both of which are reviewed on this site). If you like a light meter, and I do, this analogue system is the most intuitive I have ever come across. It makes manual exposure so easy that I seldom use aperture automation.

The exposure lock works extremely well on the FE2, as the needle connected to the light meter locks once it is engaged. This isn’t the case with the FE – you just need to trust that it is engaged.

A fast maximum shutter speed is always a bonus for me, and the FE2’s operates at up to 1/4000-second shutter, which provides a lot of flexibility. This enables you to shoot with a wide aperture in bright conditions or use ISO 400 film on a bright day, which is advantageous if that roll is to be used in both bright and darker conditions.

The other features that make it a very capable everyday shooter for both beginners and advanced photographers are:

Aperture priority automation
60/40 centre-weighted metering
Exposure compensation (1/3 stop per click)
Superb damping (so good mirror lock up was omitted)
1/250 sec flash (the world’s fastest sync speed SLR then in 1983)
Choice of replacement viewfinders (replacement sets come with tweezers)

The FE2 Shooting Experience

Setting ISO Speed

The ISO film speed setting control is on the same ring as the exposure compensation control, on the right of the top plate, just like the Nikon FE. You depress the button to the right of the dial to set ISO and lift the ring to set the film speed. Lifting the ring feels both fiddly and slightly flimsy, compared to the smaller ring on the shutter speed button on the FM2n for example.

Loading and Unloading Film

Loading film is straightforward and much like other Nikon SLRs. Once you have slid the safety lock mounted under the rewind crank to disengage it, you can lift the film rewind knob. Nikon revised the location of the safety lock between the FE and FE2 and it the later model handles better as a result.

Once you have raised the rewind knob completely the back of the camera back pops open and you can load the film in the usual 35mm fashion – ensuring the perforations along the edges of the film mesh with the sprockets. When the film is engaged with the spool, press the camera back until it snaps into place. Unloading is similarly familiar: depress the button on the bottom of the camera and turn the re-winding crank in the direction of the arrow until you feel the resistance in the crank drop.

Power On

To turn the camera on, you pull the film advance lever open (to unlock the shutter release) and half push of the shutter release. The camera automatically shuts off to save power after a few seconds. The power source is two readily available button alkaline LR44s, or one more specialist lithium 1/3N battery. The FE2 can shoot at at 1/250s when the batteries are drained but without the light meter.

Through the Viewfinder

Looking through the viewfinder, the aperture you have selected is displayed in a small window to the top of the frame. This is the Nikon Aperture Direct Readout (ADR) system. To the left there is a shutter scale that displays both the selected shutter speed and a light meter readout via a pair of needles. The second longer, thinner black needle is connected to the light meter. In auto-mode this needle indicates which shutter speed will be used, whilst the thicker, shorter green needle is set it A.

In manual mode, the green needle is set by the shutter speed dial and needs to be matched to the light meter reading shown by the other needle. You can adjust either the aperture or shutter speed to obtain a match. It’s a great system, and in good lighting I much prefer it to the LED system of the FM2n (or the F3).

Lenses

I prefer prime lenses to zooms on manual focus cameras, and as I like to travel light I generally carry a wide 24mm and a standard 50mm. If I am travelling light I’ll might just take the excellent 28mm Voigtlander shown in the photo above or a 50mm. My 50mm of choice is the f1.8 AI-s pancake. All the lenses I use with the FE2 are AI-s.

FE2 versus the FE

The FE2’s predecessor, the Nikon FE, is similar to the Nikon FM introduced in 1977 but the internals are electronic. Unlike the FE2, neither camera features a model number on the front of the camera.

Advantages of FE2 over the Nikon FE

The most apparent advantage of the FE2 over the FE is that the faster shutter. The titanium focal plane shutter is two stops faster at 1/4000s vs 1/1000s for the FE, with the FE2’s flash sync at 1/250 vs 1/125. The backup mechanical shutter, which I don’t expect to need to use, is also more usable at 1/250s vs 1/90s.

There are other refinements: the viewfinder is brighter than the FEs, the light meter needle is locked stationary when the exposure lock is applied, and the exposure compensation is in 1/3 stop fine-tuning increments. (The FE’s scale is in 1/2 stops). The camera back lock also has been re-positioned, making it easier to operate.

Advantages of FE over the Nikon FE2

The Nikon FE has a surprisingly long list of small advantages over its successor. They seem quite minor to me, at least, but some photographers prefer the FE. As much as I have enjoyed shooting with the FE, on balance I prefer the brighter, faster FE2.

Power Switch The FE’s power switch is very simple – just pull out the film wind handle. There’s an additional step on the FE2 – a half push of the shutter release. The camera automatically shuts off to save power. This seems to annoy some reviewers, but it doesn’t trouble me.
Legibility in the Viewfinder The shutter scale speeds are more larger and easier to read than on the FE2, as there are two fewer speeds to accommodate. I only noticed this in a direct comparison between the two, though – it is not as if the FE2’s display is illegible.
Battery Life This FE uses less battery power than the FE2 because its faster shutter needs stronger shutter springs and the batteries have to power the electromagnets to cope. All Nikons seem restrained in their battery usage, so this doesn’t trouble me either.
Compatibility with Non-AI Lenses The FE can use Nikon lenses going back to 1959, while the FE2 can’t use non-AI lenses. I don’t have any non-AI lenses, most of mine are AI-s or AI.
Battery Test Light The FE has a dedicated battery test light, which the FE2 lacks. This is definitely a nice feature to have but I don’t have it on most of the other cameras I use.
Cost The FE is less expensive than the FE2.

Pre Frame 1 Metering

There is one difference between the FE and FE2 that you may see as an advantage either way, depending on your point of view. This is Pre Frame 1 Metering.

When you load a new film, the FE2’s light meter doesn’t operate until the counter on the film advance gets to frame 1. Before frame 1 (frames 00 and 0), the shutter always fires at its single manually operated shutter speed of M250 (1/250th of a second).

Nikon added this feature because if you have set the camera to auto and accidentally fire the shutter with the lens cap on or in a dim enough environment, the camera will set an extra long exposure – potentially tens of minutes long! This can be overridden by setting the shutter speed to a fast manual speed or the mechanical backup speed, M250.

The FE does not have this feature, so experienced film photographers can squeeze up to two more frames (frames 00 and 0) out of a roll of film, which they appreciate. These early loading frames are really designed to ensure by the time you get to frame 1, your camera is properly wound, and you don’t get partial frames, but they can be utilised for shooting in many cameras. They are numbered 00 and 0 to provide a reference number to reference them for prints, etc.

Discontinuation

The Nikon FE2 was officially discontinued in 1987. A quick glance at the Year-by-Year Camera Timeline on this site shows that the market was extremely dynamic at that time, with autofocus becoming established, along with the first glimpse of digital cameras and the emergence of the bridge camera.

1985 Minolta introduces the world’s first fully integrated autofocus SLR with the autofocus (AF) system built into the body – the Maxxum 7000 a.k.a. the Dynax 7000
1986 The disposable camera is popularised by Fujifilm with the 35mm QuickSnap
The Canon T90 marks the pinnacle of Canon’s manual-focus 35mm SLRs
The Canon RC-701 becomes the first still video camera marketed, offering 10 fps (frames per second) high-speed shutter-priority and multi-program automatic exposure
1987 Canon launches the EOS (Electro-Optical System), an entirely new system designed specifically to support autofocus lenses
1988 The Nikon F4 is introduced as the first professional Nikon to feature a practical autofocus system.
The Fuji DS-1P, the first digital handheld camera, is introduced, though it does not sell
The first of the Genesis series from Chinon helps to define the category of 35mm bridge cameras

More detail on the battle between Nikon and Canon for Auto Focus Dominance can be found in a short separate article. Regardless, manual focus cameras quickly became a niche product and Nikon’s final offering was the FM3A, with its 1/4000 second hybrid mechanical/electronic shutter.

Afterword – The Nikon FE10

There is a later Nikon with an FE designation. However, it was not a successor model to the FE and FE2 as it was built on a different chassis and designed for a different market. The Nikon FE10 of 1996 is a manual focus, F-mount film SLR manufactured under license by Cosina. It has a rather unappealing ABS plastic body in champagne silver and black body and was designed as a low cost beginner’s camera based on Cosina’s C2/C3 SLRs.

As such is unlikely to appeal to FE and FE2 owners, but Nikon’s fingerprints can be seen all over the enhancements to the donor Cosina. Depth-of field preview, AE Lock and exposure compensation, to name just a few, are features that make it usable by more experienced photographers. As a result it has some positive reviews from those that appreciate its light weight and very low cost.

Conclusion

I really enjoy shooting with the Nikon FE2 – it offers a very similar experience to the FM3A, a favourite of mine. It is both easy and rewarding to shoot with, and as it’s less of a collector’s piece than the FM3A, it’s one you can take anywhere.

Thoughts and Further Reading

If have experiences to share with the Nikon FE2, please leave me a comment below. I’d be delighted to hear from you. And if you are interested in classic or vintage cameras, there are articles on this site on:

The Nikon F – Nikon’s first SLR
The Nikon FE
The Nikon F3 Pro Camera
The Nikon FM3A – Nikon’s last manual SLR
The Nikon F6 – Nikon last film camera
The Leica M3 – Leica’s legendary rangefinder
The Konica I – Konica’s first rangefinder
The Kodak Folding No 2 Autographic Brownie
Fox Talbot and Early Photography
Wet Plate Photography
From Chemistry to Computation (Photography timeline)
Pictorialism
Timeline of Early Cameras

If you’ve any experience with the Nikon FE2, please leave me a note in the comments – I’d love to hear about it.

Early Auto Focus Cameras

Posted on April 4, 2024June 11, 2024 by Nigel Williams

Although I’ve shot with quite a few auto focus film cameras, I haven’t any hands-on experience of the early, historically significant, models from the 70’s and 80’s described in this post. I only dimly recall the point and shoots I used for family photographs in the ’80s and 90s, and the auto focus film cameras I have used since I got serious about photography all date from the 1990s or later. The earliest models I own are the excellent Contax T2 and the notorious Konica Aiborg (‘eye-borg’) both from 1991.

Early Auto focus — Contax My T2 and a friend’s G2 resting on the seat of his car.

I’ve sampled an autofocus rangefinder (Contax G2, 1996), a trio of point and shoots (Contax T2, 1991, Nikon 28ti, Fujifilm DL Supermini, both 1994), a 35mm mid range SLR (Nikon F100, 1999), and a top of the range SLR (Nikon F6, 2004). In medium format, I’ve used the Pentax 645 nII (2001) extensively.

The shooting experiences and results have all been good except for the Contax G2, the autofocus of which was possibly faulty and the Aiborg, which produced good results but was frustrating to handle.

This isn’t the story of those later AF models – though the Contax T2 makes an appearance at the end. Instead, this is a brief account of the pioneering autofocus efforts of the 1970s and 1980s. The article started as a paragraph in a review of the Nikon FE2 and developed a life of its own.

As I did my research, it became clear that this is also the story of the transition from SLR to compact cameras in consumer market and the rise of Canon as a dominant player in the photographic industry. It’s also clear I should get a Nikon L35F – it sounds excellent!

If you’re not familiar with the different types of AF systems, it’s worth reviewing the short description that follows.

Types of Auto Focus Systems

Active Auto Focus

Active auto focus systems measures the distance to the subject using waves of infrared light or ultrasonic sound and then adjusts the optical system for correct focus. This kind of AF can be used in poorly-lit environments, but only works on relatively close, stationary subjects. The familiar ‘AF Assist’ button found on many cameras uses an active AF system.

Passive Auto Focus

As the name implies passive auto focus systems use the same incoming light as the optical system and don’t beam sound or light waves on to the subject. Instead they make use of Contrast Assessment, Phase Detection or both.

TTL Auto Focus

TTL auto focus (Though The Lens) means that the system is integrated behind the photo-taking lens.

Contrast Detection

Contrast Detection (or Assessment) evaluates what the camera ‘sees’ and then moves the lens a fraction and then re-evaluates to determine whether there is more or less contrast. If contrast has increased, the system continues to move the lens in the same direction until contrast is maximised. If contrast decreased, it moves the lens in the other direction. This is repeated until contrast is at the highest level attainable.

Phase Detection

Phase Detection (PD) works on similar principles to a range finder by dividing the incoming light into pairs of images and comparing them. Mirrors and lenses, or a prism (beam splitter) are used to split the rays coming from opposite edges of the lens and a secondary lens system refocuses the rays onto the film plane.

When a point is in focus, the light rays coming from it will equally illuminate opposite sides of the lens and it is ‘in phase’. If the lens is focused in front of or behind the point in question, the light rays at the edge of the lens arrive in a different position ‘out of phase’.

The distance between the two images is then measured to see how far front-focused or back-focused the subject is. The camera then uses this information to instruct the lens which way to turn its focus and by how much. Phase detection AF is incredibly fast compared to contrast detection, and is well suited to moving subjects.

The Genesis of Auto Focus

The first auto focus patent for a ‘self focusing camera’ was filed in the United States back in 1931, by the prolific, yet largely unknown, Armenian-American inventor and entrepreneur LG Simjian (1905 –1997). Simjian held over 200 patents, mostly in optics and electronics and conducted pioneering development on the flight simulator, ATM and teleprompter.

As a medical photographer he became interested in portrait photography which led to him to invent a self-photographing camera, the PhotoReflex. This, in turn, led him to his work on auto focus.

Patents were also filed in the 1940s and 1950s and both Canon and Nikon made reference to prototypes in the 1960s and 1970s, but the first camera equipped with AF to break cover came from Leitz (Leica) at the 1976 Photokina event in Cologne, and the company is usually credited with its invention.

1976 – Leica’s SL-2 Prototype

Leitz started patenting auto focus technology in 1960 and continued to develop their system over the next decade and a half. As Leica’s cameras became more sophisticated, their engineers recognised their light meter’s sensitivity to contrast. This developed into contrast detection: two LEDs on top of the viewfinder detected the highest contrast of a subject and a motor turned the focusing ring. The prototype was based on the Leica SL-2 and was named Correfot. An observer familiar with the prototype commented:

“It worked surprisingly well in low light. It wasn’t that fast because it took a number of gears for the motor to generate enough torque to turn the focusing ring, but at the time it didn’t bother me. We hadn’t seen anything like it. The motor housing was converted to hold six batteries that lasted only an hour. It was not something they could really market.”

Leitz, a conservative company, decided not to commercialise the system and sold it to Minolta.

1977 – Konica C35 AF

Konica’s point and shoot compact C35AF of 1977 was the first commercially viable auto focus camera. This used Honeywell’s Visitronic AF (VAF) system, a patented mechanical autofocus system that used light-sensitive detectors comparing the two images in its rangefinder.

The C35AF was an autofocus version of the Konica’s C35 automatic camera with a Hexanon 38 mm f/2.8 lens, a leaf shutter, built-in flash, and automatic exposure.

1978 – Polaroid SX-70

The first AF Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera arrived in 1978 in the form of the Polaroid SX-70 Sonar OneStep instant camera, which was equipped with an active sonar autofocus system. This is essentially the original Polaroid Land Camera, a true (folding) SLR, with a sonar autofocus bar grafted onto the body.

1979 – Canon AF35M

The Honeywell Visitronic used in the Konica C35 AF was the system of choice of most manufacturers offering AF until Canon’s CAF system arrived in 1979. This system quickly became the standard for autofocus cameras. The CAF equipped Canon AF35M of the same year (the first of the Sure Shot range) offered auto focus, auto exposure, auto wind on and auto rewind. Canon claimed it as the world’s first 35mm autofocus camera.

The stage was set for a contest for auto focus supremacy and the compact cameras, and Canon, had a head start.

1981 – Pentax ME-F and Chinon CE-5

Auto focus 35 mm Single Lens Reflex cameras (SLRs) arrived in 1981 with the Pentax ME-F, which was based on the Pentax ME Super of 1979. This required the autofocus SMC Pentax AF 35–70 mm zoom lens equipped with a drive motor. It is easily recognisable by the bulky battery compartment below the lens. The ME-F used through-the-lens (TTL) electronic contrast detection system but focused poorly and did not sell well.

In the same year Chinon produced the CE-5, a Pentax K mount SLR that used infrared with large heavy lenses with lens-mounted motors. In the words of the manufacturer:

“Chinon “direct focus” electronics incorporated in the CE-5 match precisely to similar electronics in the optional 35 – 70mm zoom auto focus lens. Just depress the CE-5 shutter button to activate the 35 – 70mm AF lens; instantaneously the lens barrel rotates to the precise focus! This ingenious system even prevents accidental shutter release before the lens has completed focusing”.

1983 – Olympus OM-30 and Nikon F3AF

In 1983 Olympus introduced the OM-30 (OM-F in some markets), an updated version of the OM-G/OM-20), that could be used with an auto focus 35-70 mm lens which had a motorised focusing ring.

The camera offered three focus modes. With electronic autofocus mode, touching the release button focuses the lens ‘instantly’ (‘one touch autofocus’) with an electronic beep for focus confirmation. In electronic focus-aid mode, focus is obtained by rotating the lens focusing ring while watching LEDs. A tone sounds when the camera has obtained focus. Lastly there is ‘optical mode’, which is manual focus via a microprism/split image rangefinder and matte area.

Unfortunately, the auto focus mode was often inaccurate, slow and dependent on one zoom lens. As it offered focus confirmation with other lenses Olympus also promoted it as ‘the first focus-confirmation SLR for a photographer as serious as you’.

Nikon introduced auto focus with the F3AF which was based on the F3, and utilised TTL contrast detection. The launch was accompanied by two new auto focus lenses with internal focus motors, an 80 mm f2.8 and a 200 mm f3.5. These lenses featured Nikon’s usual optical excellence but their AF performance was relatively poor and the offering wasn’t successful.

Nikon also introduced its first compact AF 35mm camera, the L35AF, which was well received due to its excellent f2.8 35mm lens and accurate AF. The same factors make it popular with film photographers today for whom it has some bonus features. There’s a 46mm filter thread, and through the lens metering; there are icons in the viewfinder that will tell you where it is focusing as you shoot, and it also has a manual setting for ISO to over-ride DX if you want to push or pull the film.

1984 – Compact Auto Focus on the Rise

Nikon was the last of the major SLR manufacturers to offer compact AF cameras with the L35AF. By the end of 1984, that model had outsold all of Nikon’s SLR bodies (F3, FA, FE2, FM2, FG, FG-20, and EM) combined in that same time period.

At the same point in time Japanese 35mm SLRs had only 33% of the worldwide market versus 67% for 35mm compact cameras. In 1977 market share was 57% in favour of SLRs.

During the 70’s and ’80s there had been a shift from metal bodied, manually operated mechanical SLRs to more compact, automatic plastic-bodied models. This was supported by the rapid advances in electronics, including the rise of the integrated circuit, which made both automation and miniaturisation easier. The SLR manufacturers targeted amateur photographers using rangefinders and thought they would upgrade to SLRs equipped with sufficient automation. As the market share figures above show, they were not successful and compact cameras became the norm for amateur photographers.

1985 – Minolta 7000 and Canon T80

The Minolta 7000, released in 1985, was the first SLR with an integrated autofocus system – both the AF sensors and the motor were housed in the camera body. It was the first AF SLR that could focus quickly, accurately, and operate in low light levels and made use of phase detection (PD) autofocus. Minolta also provided a wide selection of lenses and accessories and priced their new Alpha (A) mount camera at a relatively affordable price point for mid-level enthusiasts. It sold well.

Canon introduced the Canon T80 as its first autofocus 35mm single-lens reflex camera that same year. It looked like nothing that came before, or after it, for that matter. The T80 had a modified FD mount with signal transmission capability known as AC, and a linear CCD array for TTL image contrast detection. There were three AC auto focus lenses available: an f1.8 50mm prime and two zooms – 35-70mm and 75-200mm.

Learnings from the Canon T80

The T80 was discontinued just over a year after its launch. The effort wasn’t wasted though as Canon explained on the 30th anniversary of EOS:

Early Auto focus cameras — Canon T80 (Image credit: Mike Caine, Flickr, CC)

“The idea of a fully-electronic mount is largely attributable to the experience we gained from developing the T80, an AF camera that used lenses with built-in motors. In the case of telephoto lenses, having the motor inside the camera made it difficult to achieve high-speed focusing. Coordinating the aperture drive was also a test of limits due to the complex mechanisms of both the camera and the lens. However, we persevered because we felt that the future of next-generation cameras hinged on the development of a new, fully-electronic mount.”

In March 31 of that year Canon leaders and engineers from around the world met to discuss the development of a new system, known at the time as the “Entirely Organic System.”

1986 – Nikon F-501

Japanese industry analysts were predicting that the shipment of AF SLR cameras in Japan in 1986 would outstrip manual focus models. Nikon responded by hurrying to implement the ‘body-powered’ AF Nikon F-501 in April 1986 with TTL passive phase-detection autofocus and in the same year introduced new autofocus (AF) lenses.

The polycarbonate-bodied F-501 was the first successful auto focus SLR and offered automatic film loading and advance as well as a built-in motor drive. This provided single or continuous modes and a maximum film advance speed of 2.5 frames per second (frame/s) in continuous mode. Nikon adopted some design concepts from the camera in the Nikon F4.

The new lenses relied on the autofocus motor in the camera body to drive the focus mechanism via a screwdriver on the lens mount and could communicate electronically with compatible AF cameras.

1987 – The All New Canon EOS System

Canon introduced its ‘built from scratch’ AF system, which used a new lens mount for lenses with its own AF motors – the EF. Breaking compatibility with Canon’s FD mount, the aperture and focus were controlled via electrical contacts, with motors in the lens itself. In Canon’s own words from the same 30th EOS anniversary interview with the leading engineers:

“Before the EOS series was launched, our cameras featured the FD lens mount. However, a fully-electronic mount was essential in order to achieve a high level of AF technology with our wide variety of interchangeable lenses. To realise a high-precision AF that moves the focusing lens elements optimally according to the focusing distance or zoom position, it was a must for the lens to exchange information with the camera as well as to eliminate any mechanical error. This is why we chose to control the camera system by linking the camera with the lens via electrical communication. Through this, we were able to achieve high-speed and high-precision AF even at such super telephoto focal lengths as 600mm. What’s more the aperture was also electrically linked to enable smooth video shooting and playback, a feature that is taken for granted on cameras today.“

The system was introduced with the Canon EOS 650 in March and within two months it was the best-selling SLR in Japan and Europe.

1988 – The Nikon F4 and the Second Generation of AF

The Nikon F4 was introduced in 1988 as the next generation in Nikon’s line of F series professional cameras and was the first professional Nikon to feature a practical autofocus system. The F4 offered outstanding backward compatibility as it could mount any of Nikon’s manual focus or AF lenses from 1959 onwards.

The second generation of AF SLRs also began to appear in that year, the Minolta 7000i and Nikon F-801 being the most notable.

1989 – Compact Auto Focus Dominates

Of the 818,000 SLR produced in Japan in 1989 Over 90% were AF models. The manual focus SLR era that had been dominated by Nikon was over. Canon was the SLR market leader and Minolta was in second place. However, Minolta’s lead over Nikon was only temporary and the company was soon overhauled.

It wasn’t just manual focus SLRs that were declining. According to worldwide market share (CIPA figures) Japanese 35mm SLRs had only 15% of the market versus 35mm compact’s 85% in 1989. SLR dominance was effectively ended by auto focus compacts.

Post Script

The design of phase detection autofocus came from Honeywell and their patents of the 1970s. Honeywell sued Minolta for patent infringement and won, so all the camera manufacturers had to pay Honeywell for the rights to use phase detection autofocus.

A 1991 court decision found Minolta guilty and Minolta paid Honeywell $127.5 million in back royalties, and for license rights to continue using autofocus technology. The world’s camera manufacturers paid Honeywell over $300 million for licenses to their autofocus patents.

The Contax T2

The earliest auto cameras arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, but as we are wrapping up the story in the early ’90s it seems reasonable to give the Contax T2 of 1991 a mention.

The T2 was one of a range of high-end compact cameras produced by Contax between 1984 and 2002. The manual focus T was introduced equipped with a Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* 38 mm lens. The T2, used the same lens in an active autofocus system.

The T2 offered a high degree of automation, including auto focus and Program AE, coupled with a decent level of user control, including Aperture Priority exposure, manual focus and exposure compensation. Constructed of titanium and with a renowned lens, the T2 was a luxury model that has since become sought after and expensive.

It is rather too bulky to fit in any but the most capacious of pockets but it is very portable nonetheless. Its ideal for when you want a film camera with you and space and weight are at a premium. Those events where ‘professional cameras’ (those with removable lenses) are prohibited are also ideal for the T2.

The only real drawback to the T2, other than its cost, is that Program AE mode and Aperture Priority f2.8 share the same setting, so you can’t shoot wide-open unless the exposure level permits it.

Into the Digital Era

In the SLR market lens-mounted motors became the norm for auto focus, and in 1998, Nikon introduced AF-S lenses with their own ultrasonic “silent wave” motors built in, only a year before the launch of the digital Nikon D-1.

Nikon had the benefit of backward compatibility, but Canon had over a decade of experience with EOS by then and had gained a significant advantage. The two titans would continue to slug it out in a contest that was soon to enter the digital era, but they would be joined by electronics behemoth Sony, which acquired Minolta and its auto focus technology….

The Nikon F – Great Film Cameras

Posted on March 24, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

When I chose my first DSLR many years ago I chose a Nikon. Since then I’ve stayed with the brand into the Z mount era. When I went back to film in 2016 it was with a Nikon F3, and since then I’ve shot with most of Nikon’s pro and mid range film cameras, including the mighty F6, the engineering miracle that is the FM3A and the camera that took Nikon to market dominance in the SLR market – the Nikon F. This is its story.

Genesis of the Nikon F

The story of the Nikon F starts in the rangefinder era which began with the Leica I of 1925. A milestone in photographic history, the Leica I popularised the use of the accessory rangefinder. The Leica II and Zeiss Contax I with their built in rangefinders put the technology firmly on the map, and by the late 1930’s the low-cost Argus C3 rangefinder was the world’s best selling camera.

The Nikon I Rangefinder

Fast forward to post-war Japan. After WWII the Japanese camera industry was getting back on its feet. Nippon Kogaku K.K. (as Nikon was known until the late ’80s) introduced a 35mm rangefinder, now known as the Nikon I, which used a shutter and rangefinder mechanism based on the Leica II. However, the Nikon I bore a greater resemblance to the Contax rangefinder with a similar top focus wheel, removable film back, and a slightly modified Contax bayonet lens mount. It was launched in 1948 – about the same time as the Konica I rangefinder (also reviewed on this site).

By the late 1950s Nippon Kogaku (henceforth ‘Nikon’) was selling well engineered 35 mm rangefinder cameras such as the Nikon SP of 1957 (Nikon’s first professional camera) and the S3 of 1958 in competition to Leica. However, a limitation of the rangefinder was that telephoto lenses with a focal length of 135 mm or more required a cumbersome optional reflex box.

The Nikon SLR Development Program

Single-lens reflex cameras (SLRs) had the advantages of the reflex box integrated in the camera. Nikon recognised the future potential of SLR cameras and in 1955 launched a program for their development in parallel with their rangefinder models.

The trial Nikon SLR model was based on the body of the Nikon SP, with a mirror box inserted. Only the mirror box, pentaprism and bayonet mount were newly developed. The new camera was designed by Yoshiyuki Shimizu and his team, who sought to create a system camera that could be adapted to a wide range of photographic situations.

The Birth of Nikon F, 1959

in 1959 when Nikon launched the The Nikon F, SLRs had been available for years but had not gained great acceptance by professionals. This was due to their weight, reliability, and dim viewfinders, when compared with the professional standard – the Leica M3.

The SLR deficit

The deficiencies of most post WWII SLRs are described by Nikon’s Camera Chronicle: “Before focusing, the user had to set the lens aperture to its maximum setting to brighten the viewfinder with shallower depth of field. After focusing, the user had to manually adjust the lens aperture to the desired setting. If he did not do this, the photo would be overexposed. When the shutter was released, the viewfinder became dark. The user couldn’t check composition and lost track of moving subjects. After the film was advanced to the next frame, the mirror returned to its original position. Only then did the viewfinder brighten”…… The Nikon F would change all that.

Five Features that changed the photographic landscape

With the Nikon F, Nikon introduced an SLR that could compete with the rangefinders, combining several concepts that had already been introduced elsewhere into one extremely versatile camera:

Interchangeable bayonet lens mount (Kine Exakta, 1936)
Pentaprism viewfinder (Contax S,1949)
Interchangeable Viewfinders and focus screens (Exakta Varex,1950)
Instant return reflex Mirror (Asahiflex IIb,1954)
Automatic diaphragm for wide open composition (Zeiss Contax/Pentacon F 1956)

Or was it six?

The Nikon’s F Titanium foil focal plane shutter added a true ‘first’, but it was the incorporation of existing important innovations in one camera that changed the camera landscape, making the SLR an attractive option for professionals.

You want more reasons?

For a professional considering the camera there were other factors that made it attractive. Firstly, the combination of the automatic diaphragm and instant-return mirror made it faster than competing SLRs. Secondly, it had the same acclaimed control layout as the high-end Nikon SP rangefinder. Thirdly, the viewfinder was relatively bright and evenly illuminated due to the Fresnel lens integrated into the focusing screen. Lastly, the Nikon felt solid but was relatively compact and not overly heavy as the body dimensions (except for depth) were quite close to those of the SP.

Nikon had, in one camera, eliminated most of the disadvantages of the SLR versus the rangefinder, leaving just its advantages apparent. The Japanese company also had two other very strong cards to play, both of which had their origins in Nikon’s engineering excellence – reliability and flexibility.

Reliability

Nikon ensured reliability by subjecting the camera tests of endurance, heat run, low temperature durability and vibration to ensure that it could withstand hard use under any conditions. The shutter endurance test was particularly tough with 100,000 cycles of repetitive action, conducted with the aid of its motor drive.

The result was a camera so tough it became known as “the hockey puck” for its ability to withstand damage and resist mechanical failure. Accordingly it was selected for extreme missions such as space with NASA, combat (notably the Vietnam war) and exploration (Everest, in 1963).

Flexibility – The System Camera

The Nikon F was designed as a system camera, enabling its use with a variety of viewfinders, choice of focusing screens, motor drives, and other accessories. At launch, Nikon offered an extensive selection of lenses ranging from wide-angle to telephoto, including the fast 58mm f/1.2 standard lens.

Once again, the concept of a modular camera had existed prior to the Nikon F, but Nippon Kogaku improved upon it with an impressive array of options. The first camera to introduce the concept was the Leica I of 1930 which had a standardised interchangeable screw mount lens and an accessory shoe.

The F Mount

The Nikon F incorporated a new bayonet mount, the F-mount, which featured a large diameter and a short flange distance to accommodate a wide range of lens designs. Moreover, the F Mount’s design enabled extraordinary longevity and allowed Nikon to become the leader in lens/camera compatibility. The F-Mount accommodated advancements such as AI (Automatic Indexing, 1977) and AIS (Automatic Indexing Shutter, 1983) in and is one of only two SLR lens mounts (the other being the Pentax K-mount) which were not abandoned by their manufacturer to introduce autofocus.

Four Historic Turning Points

Upon its release, the Nikon F received widespread acclaim for its design, durability, reliability, and flexibility. The camera’s significance extends beyond its technical capabilities, marking a turning point in the photographic industry, establishing three turning points in the history of photography:

Signalled the end of the rangefinder era and the rise of the SLR
Established the SLR as the camera of choice among professional photographers, especially photojournalists and those working in challenging environments.
Promoted Nikon to a leading brand in the photographic industry with Leica losing ground
Established the rise of Japan as the leader in the photographic industry, with Germany losing ground

Notable Users

The Nikon F had many users of note, such as renowned photographers David Douglas Duncan, Gordon Parks, Don McCullin and Bert Stern. NASA took an F into space; it became one of the key instruments documenting the Vietnam war, and the F is associated with possibly the most iconic photo shoot in history. Below are some of the highlights.

David Douglas Duncan and LIFE Magazine

In June 1950, David Douglas Duncan, (aka DDD) a renowned photographer at LIFE Magazine visited Nikon’s Ohi Plant with Fortune’s Horace Bristol. Guided by Nikon President Masao Nagaoka, they compared their Leitz and Zeiss lenses to Nikkor with Nikon’s projection inspection equipment, determined that the Nikkors were superior and bought M Mount Nikkor lenses for Leica.

When the Korean War broke out shortly afterwards, DDD went to the front line with two Leica IIIc’s equipped with a Nikkor lenses. Subsequently, he was joined by Carl Mydans, also from LIFE, who also visited Nikon and bought Nikkor lenses for his Contax rangefinder.

The two photographers took almost all of the pictures of the Korean War carried by LIFE with their Nikkor lenses, and won the “U.S. Camera Awards” of 1950. Subsequently, the Nikon rangefinder and it’s Nikkor lenses became popular with all LIFE photographers. Their reputation quickly spread throughout the US and the rest of the world and helped establish Nikon as a global brand.

NASA Missions

The Nikon F’s journey into space with NASA began with its modification for the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. This included reformulating adhesives, redesigning the battery chamber, and enhancing the durability of plastic parts. The film advance lever, shutter release, and film rewind mechanisms were also modified to facilitate ease of use by astronauts wearing gloves. Additionally, the (ISO) dial was re calibrated to match the the film emulsions developed for NASA missions.

The Nikon F in the Vietnam War

The Nikon F was adopted by many photojournalists during the the Vietnam War, which became one of the most photographed conflicts in history. I grew up with the Vietnam War on the news but realised how little I understood about it when I read Max Hasting’s Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-1975. It is an astonishing story, and a tragedy on a truly epic scale.

The Nikon F’s robust design made it ideal for photographers working in the difficult and unpredictable conditions of Vietnam. It was subject to jungle humidity, dirt and dust, and the rough handling that came with working in a conflict zone. David Douglas Duncan, who we met earlier, Eddie Adams, Nick Ut, Tim Page and Don McCullin all used Nikon F cameras during the Vietnam War.

It wasn’t the only tough camera of course, some Vietnam War photographers would take the Nikon F for normal/long lenses and a Leica for wide angle lenses.

One of the most famous stories about the Nikon F and the Vietnam war is how it saved a British Photographer’s life. In 1968, Don McCullin was documenting the Vietnam war for The Sunday Times Magazine. While stationed at Prey Veng he was spotted by a Cambodian solider who opened fire. McCullin had his Nikon F to his eye, and the bullet from the AK-47 struck the the solid brass top-plate of the Nikon, deflecting the round and saving his life

There are many other stories. I found an excellent account of a soldiers experiences in Lee Dudley’s Nikon F and the Vietnam War

Bert Stern, Marilyn Monroe and a Nikon F

Portrait photographer Bert Stern received a phone in June 1962 which resulted in one of the most famous celebrity photoshoots in history. Stern waited for hours for Monroe to appear in her Bel-Air Hotel, accompanied only by his Nikon F, but it gave him the opportunity to photograph her for next 12 hours and resulted in 2,571 photos. Marilyn Monroe would die only six weeks later, and the images, known as The Last Sitting, became iconic.

The Nikon F in the movies

The first of Nikon’s SLRs was quite the film star, as described in Michael Pritchard’s excellent book ‘A History of Photography in 50 Cameras‘.

“The Nikon F reinforced its reputation and established itself as modern design icon through its starring roles in films such as Blow-Up, with David Hemmings as a fashion photographer in London; Apocalypse Now with Dennis Hopper as a Photojournalist; and, later, with Clint Eastwood as National Geographic photographer in The Bridges of Madison County.”

Clint Eastwood’s Nikon F was eye catching in black with an chrome eye-level prism, but for me it has to be Dennis Hopper, festooned in Nikon Fs, as a crazed Photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse now that steals the show. I found Hopper’s role interesting enough to write an article on it: The Photojournalist of Apocalypse Now.

There are the other films the Nikon F plays a part in: Blow-Up (1966); The French Connection (1971); Diamonds are Forever (1971); Apocalypse Now (1979); Cannonball Run (1981); The Year of Living Dangerously (1982); The Killing Fields (1984); Full Metal Jacket (1987); Gorillas in the Mist (1988); Groundhog Day (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1995); City of God (2002); Walk the Line (2005); Ford v Ferrari (2019).

Nikon F Hall of Fame

You can also peruse an excellent Nikon F Wall of Fame, featuring the likes of Mick Jagger, Sean Connery and many more.

Shooting with the Nikon F

The Nikon F still has some rangefinder DNA so loading film isn’t like other Nikon SLRs. I am not a big fan of the bottom-loading system, but if I was shooting regularly with the F, I’m sure I’d get used to it. Other than that, it’s remarkably straightforward.

Nikon F Brill Windmill — Man, Bird Windmill. Brill Windmill, shot with the Nikon F

Loading Film

To load film, you turn the lock on the bottom plate from ‘closed’ to ‘open’ and the camera’s bottom plate and the back cover come away as a single unit. Next, insert the 35mm film roll into the film chamber on the left side, and then thread the film leader onto the take-up spool on the right as normal.

You will need to set the ‘A-R’ ring around the shutter release button on the top plate to “A” (Advance), then wind the film on so that it passes under the take-up spool, ensuring the film meshes with the sprockets. After that, you can then replace the camera back and lock it by turning the lock to the “close” position. The shutter can then be cocked and released until the frame counter displays “1”. The counter resets itself automatically to two frames before zero when the camera back is removed, so it should just be two shots.

Speaking of which, the frame counter is located in the centre of the film advance lever. Opposite the frame counter is a reminder of the total number of frames – this is set manually using a tiny indicator pin on the dial.

On the bottom plate there is film-speed reminder which can be set manually to indicate colour or black and white film and to set a reminder of the ISO. One quirk is the flash sync, which consists of a pair of vertical contact points either side of the rewind knob for the F accessory hot shoe.

Shooting

After loading the Nikon shooting is extremely simple straightforward. With the eye level finder the Nikon F offers no light meter, and there’s no automation. You just set the aperture and shutter speed and focus. The viewfinder, unencumbered by a light meter display, provides a clear, bright view of whatever you are shooting. The maximum shutter speed is 1/000 if a second which is fine unless you are shooting with a large aperture on a very bright day.

Serial Numbers and Model Variants

Nikon F bodies were produced between March 1959 and October 1973. You can date your camera from the serial numbers. The earliest Fs are 640xxxx.

Early Nikon Fs can also be identified by a self timer with slanted serrations, a prism engraved Nippon Kogaku rather than screen printed, a back with patent pending numbers and marked ‘Made in Japan’ on the closing lock. Later models had this inscription on the baseplate near the tripod socket. Sometime in the 67xxxxx series the inscription on the top plate changed from the Nippon Kokaggu triangle to Nikon. This detail is shown left from an early (first 1000) model which at the time of writing was for sale at Grays ofWestminster.

The latest series was 745xxxx, and the very last model was 7451052. Based on that we can tell that around 745,000 cameras were shipped.

Nikon gave the 500,000th F to the photographer who had the biggest impact on the rise of Nikon, David Douglas Duncan.

The Nikon F ‘Apollo’

This is less exciting than it sounds, as the late model ‘Apollo’ variant of the Nikon F has minor cosmetic changes to match parts used on the F2 which was in production by that time. There is no actual link to the space program, other than time of manufacture. The Apollo updates are a plastic-tipped F2 type advance lever and self timer and stronger strap eyelets and start at 7335000. Later Apollos had an F2 type threaded PC connection also. Around 116,000 ‘Apollo’ Fs were produced.

The Nikon F Red Dot

In 1965 when Nikon introduced the first TTL metering finder, Photomic T, the top plate of the Nikon F was slightly revised and Nikon added a red dot in front of the serial numbers to designate the modified bodies. The red dot appears on body serial numbers 659xxxx to 66xxxxx (approximately). Bodies from 67xxxxx onwards incorporated the revision without the red dot.

Motor Drive Models

The F36 motordrive was based on the system pioneered by Nikon’s S2 Rangefinder, the S36 and came from the factory matched and synchronised to a specific body. In this configuration the Nikon F offered offered 3 frames per second (fps). This was with the automatic mirror and diaphragm in operation and maximum speed could be increased to 4 fps with mirror lock up (MLU). There was also a 250 exposure version. In 1971 the F High Speed model delivered a 7 fps with MLU, and in 1976 a new High Speed model bettered this with an equivalent 9 fps for photographers at the Montreal Winter Games.

Finishes

There were two finishes available at launch: satin chrome metal/black leatherette and black enamel. The engraved letters, numbers and symbols are black-filled on chrome-plated bodies or white-filled on black-painted bodies. Well used black Nikon F bodies that display paint wear, particularly on edges of the covers are said to have become brassed, which was a badge of honour amongst professional photographers.

Black eye-level F’s are usually more expensive as they are less common and the association with black with professional photographers. In 2024 a mint copy like this is selling for a little over £1,000 on eBay.

The Photomic Head

The first Nikon F meters were clip on Selenium meters attaching to the top of the camera over the prism and shutter speed dial. Being Selenium meters, they did not need batteries.

The Nikon F’s “flag” Photomic meter head of 1962 introduced the F’s first built in light meter, ingeniously including the prism and meter in one unit. Sadly it is bulky and asymmetric, and to my eyes ugly, but by placing the meter in the prism head assembly, Nikon was able to continually update its metering system at a relatively low cost.

In 1965 the Photomic T introduced TTL (Through the Lens) metering, in 1967 the Photomic TN followed with centre-weighted metering and 1968’s Photomic FTN displayed shutter speeds in the finder. If you are set on a Photomic the FTn has a greater film sensitivity range and a larger aperture coupling range in addition to the shutter speed display, so it makes the most sense.

I’m sticking to my eye level prism. As much as I like a built in light meter, the lines of the Nikon F are just too good to spoil with the Photomic. I have one on my F2 and it feels like a more acceptable trade off, but I just can’t take the ‘F’ off the F.

Purchasing a Nikon F

As with all classic or vintage film camera bodies the main consideration is the condition of the shutter. Whether a beater or a mint example, you want a Nikon F with a titanium foil shutter free of perforations, ripples, or little tears at the edges. If you are able to do a hands on inspection it is also worth checking that each of the shutter speeds trigger the shutter. Shutter speeds can of course drift and become inaccurate over time which is hard to detect pre purchase, but can usually be corrected (or at least improved) with a good CLA (Clean Lubricate and Adjust).

After that check for dark patches in the viewfinder which could be a sign of an ageing prism, which is de-silvering. This is a fairly common problem. Finders tend to be pricey for Fs so getting one with a good prism is important.

I have seen accounts that say the Nikon F does not have door seals – and others that say that it does but they are hard to see and never need replacing! Regardless, there are definitely mirror and prism cushions which can deteriorate, but there are kits available to replace them.

Successor – The F2

The Nikon F had a number of design issues originating from its evolution from the Nikon SP rangefinder, most notably the removable back. Another issue was that electronic metering had been added, rather than designed in from the start. Nikon listened to its user base and developed a successor, with an internal design mantra of “quicker and stronger.”

The new F2 of 1971 offered a rounder body, a swing back and a more comfortable plastic-tipped film advance lever. The F2 was also designed for metering from the start. The battery holder was moved to the bottom of the camera and the batteries were changed to more modern silver oxide cells, activated by an on/off switch that was changed to be a partial pull of the film advance lever.

The result was a mechanical SLR that is considered by many to be the finest ever produced. It is an improved and more practical camera but it does not have the same place in my affections as the Nikon F.

Thoughts and Further Reading

If you have experience with shooting a Nikon F, I’d love to hear from you. Please leave me a comment below. You might also find the following articles on this site interesting:

The Nikon F6 – Nikon last film camera
The Nikon FM3A – Nikon’s last manual SLR
The Nikon F3 – Back to film
The Nikon FE
Nikon Film Cameras in the Movies
The Photojournalist of Apocalypse Now
The Konica I – Konica’s first rangefinder
The History of Konica – A history of firsts
Ten Days in Japan – Travel in Japan
When Photos Looked Like Paintings – Pictorialism movement
From Chemistry to Computation (History of Photography)
Cameras Year by Year (20th Century Camera timeline)

The Konica I Rangefinder

Posted on March 15, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

If you are familiar with early rangefinder cameras, the Konica I (1947-1951) will look and feel familiar enough. If not, and it is your first encounter with a rangefinder, or if you are used to modern rangefinders, the little Konica offers a distinct shooting experience.

The Konica I Rangefinder. This is a Type F from 1951.

The Konica I is based on the design of a late 1930s 35mm prototype called Rubikon, which was re-purposed for X-ray photography during WWII. After the war, Konishiroku (the company name at that time) returned the Rubikon to its original design and renamed it ‘Konica’. This was derived from ‘Konishiroku’ and ‘camera’, a similar naming convention to ‘Leica’ and ‘Yashica’. The result was the 1947 Konica I rangefinder, the company’s first 35mm camera.

Whilst researching the Konica rangefinder, I discovered that Konica has a long and fascinating history with many firsts and wrote a short article on it, which you can find here.

Early Rangefinder Development

The first rangefinder cameras, sometimes referred to as “telemeters” – a pleasingly futuristic sounding term – appeared early in the twentieth century. Kodak was first to market with a coupled rangefinder camera in 1916 with the Kodak 3A Autographic Special. Kodak’s pioneering autographic feature creates another interesting diversion – you can read about it in my review of The Kodak No. 2 Autographic Brownie.

The Leica I of 1925, not itself a rangefinder camera, popularised the use of accessory rangefinders. A few years later in 1932, The Leica II and Zeiss Contax I were launched and gained popularity. In 1936 the Contax II integrated the rangefinder into the viewfinder, an innovation that was introduced by Leica only in 1954 with the legendary M3.

The Konica I Rangefinder

The Konica I is a coupled rangefinder film camera with a single eyepiece and an excellent 50mm Konishiroku Hexanon coated 50mm f/2.8 lens. The Hexanon is a Heliar type with 5 elements in 3 groups and the Konirapid-S leaf shutter offers speeds of 1–500 second and Bulb (B).

First Impressions

The first thing you are likely to notice about the Konica I is how solid it feels. While it doesn’t have quite the ‘milled from solid steel’ feel of a Leica M3, it has a real quality feel to it.

Significantly, the rangefinder is bright, which is another hallmark of quality. Moreover, unlike many early rangefinder cameras, there is a single window rather than two separate rangefinder and viewfinder windows – like the Leica M3 of 1954. Unlike later Konica rangefinder models, there are no framelines and no parallax compensation, which is reflected in some poor framing on the first roll of film I shot.

Like many cameras with leaf shutters in the first half of the twentieth century, most of the controls including the shutter cocking lever, shutter release, shutter setting ring (and scale) are on the lens barrel. Right at the front is the shutter speed dial. The lens itself is retractable and requires pulling out and turning to lock in place, which is the same as on the Leica I.

A Closer Look

The top plate is engraved ‘Konica’ with the serial number (see variants below), and there is a winding knob, rewinding knob and a frame counter. On the rear of the top plate is a single rangefinder/viewfinder eyepiece and an unmarked, initially mysterious, button. Below, the bottom plate has a locking disk for opening and closing the camera back, a small silver film rewind button and a tripod socket.

Like many rangefinders, the Konica I uses helicoid focusing. This system rotates the lens element along a helical thread and moves it closer or further from the film plane. It was adopted by Oscar Barnack of Leica for the precise and repeatable focus in a short throw that it offered. Focus is operated via a ‘fingertip lever’ on the lens barrel, where the distance and (tiny) Depth of Field scales are engraved. The focus range on my model is 1-10m and infinity.

A useful cable release can be found on on the lens barrel along with a less useful (for me) and rather obtrusive flash connection post (or plug), which is marked bright red. The flash sync speed for those models that have it is 1/50 second.

I don’t know what the rangefinder base of the Konica I is (though I could measure it), nor could I find the viewfinder magnification. Accordingly, I can’t work out the rangefinder’s Effective Base Length. However, as the Konica I features a fixed 50mm lens that’s not too much of a concern; long lenses or ultra fast lenses make this a more important consideration.

Konica 1 — Brill Windmill at dusk, shot with the Konica I rangefinder

Loading

Loading the Konica is simple enough. You open the camera back by turning the locking wheel on the bottom plate from ‘C’ to ‘O’ in the direction of the marked arrows. Insert the film canister into the camera, and pull the film leader across to the take-up spool in the normal fashion, engaging the film perforations onto the sprocket. You can then advance the film with the wind on knob on the top plate and reset the exposure counter to zero.

Shooting with the Konica I

Shooting is slower and requires a few more steps than later rangefinders, as the controls are not connected in the way that they are on later models. The shutter is not cocked by the film advance – this came with the Konica III in 1956; the shutter has separate levers for cocking and firing, and the winding knob needs a separate winding button (the mystery revealed!) to drive the exposure counter.

In a charming review of the Leica I Model A: First review of the new 1930 model the reviewer ‘Cyclops’ describes this feature as a film advance computer. He goes on to remark that “this intelligent and pioneering system clicks along, frame by frame, so you always know exactly where you are. What will they think of next? The same review describes the shooting process as Having wound on your film set your aperture, decided on exposure time, calculated the distance to the subject and framed the scene you are ready to go“. This is similar to what you will experience with the Konica, though with the luxury of a single window.

Preparing to Shoot

Before taking a picture, firstly pull out the lens and twist left until it locks in place. Failure to do this will result in very blurred pictures. There is only one true locking position, but it can feel like it is locked in others.

Secondly, make sure you have removed the lens cap. This is obvious, I know, but rangefinders can’t ‘see’ through the lens, so if you leave it on, you won’t notice any difference in the viewfinder.

Thirdly, you’ll need a light meter reading or use the Sunny 16 rule – there is no built-in light meter. I am OK at estimating lighting, but I prefer to confirm with a meter. I use an app on my iPhone (myLightmeter Pro), which works really well and is very convenient.

Shooting Steps

Here are the shooting steps. As you will see, there are a couple more than you would find on later rangefinders like the Leica M3.

Set the required aperture using the iris adjustment tab at the bottom of the lens barrel. It is quite small and is marked with concentric rings.
Set the required shutter speed with the shutter speed dial at the front of the lens barrel.
Focus the lens using the knurled focus lever. It has a nice smooth action.
Cock the shutter using the lever on the lens barrel. If the shutter is uncocked the lever is visible in the viewfinder window. The back of the lever is painted red to act as a flag.
Fire the shutter using the shutter release trigger using your index finger. This felt natural to me after just a few frames.
Press the frame counter button
Wind on the film (full turn) to the next frame.

I noticed a couple of things when I took my first roll of film. Firstly, the shutter release is very sensitive and so has a finger support to prevent accidental releases. Secondly, there is no automatic double exposure prevention, as you can always cock and release the shutter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this was corrected by the Konica II, but for Konica I users this combination can lead to wasted frames.

The overall experience is satisfying if you enjoy slow photography and the quality of the images is excellent. However, the wind on button does take some getting used to.

Manufacturer’s Instruction Manual

If you are looking for more information on shooting the Konica I, you can find a scanned copy of the Konica I Rangefinder manual at Mike Butkus’s site.

Identifying Model Variants

During my research, I found that my Konica I (which I purchased from the excellent Coeln Cameras) is a Type F. I also discovered that the camera was originally known just as The Konica and only gained the designation Konica I, or Konica Standard later.

Type Ab and As models had ‘Made in Occupied Japan’ engraved on the top plate, whilst B and Type C models had this embossed in the bottom leatherette. Type C can be distinguished form the B as the name ‘Konishiroku’ is omitted from the back door. Subsequently, the Type Cs introduced the Konirapid-S Shutter, whilst the Type D updates the text on the camera bottom to read ‘Made in Japan.’ Type E introduced the Hexanon f/2.8 lens. Finally, the Type F can be identified by the ‘Made in Japan’ engraving on the metal door lock wheel on the bottom plate.

Lens Variations and Serial Numbers

Konica I Ab and As models were fitted with the f3.5 Hexar lens. With the Type B and C models a Hexar f2.8 version became available and the superior Hexanon f2.8 was introduced with the E model. According to the Konica Collector website, the f3.5 Hexar serial numbers run up to 37,600, the 2.8 Hexar to 46,000 and the 2.8 Hexanon to 68,700.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Combined viewfinder and rangefinder with bright rangefinder patch
High quality construction
Excellent f2.8 Hexanon lens
Compact with retractable lens
Inexpensive to purchase

Cons

No double exposure prevention
Need to remember to press the wind on button before advancing the film
No strap lugs
No parallel compensation
Highly sensitive shutter trigger easy to release accidentally

Thoughts and Further Reading

If you have thoughts or experiences you’d like to share on the Konica I, I’d be delighted to hear from you – please leave me a comment below. There is more to read on classic cameras, the history of photography and travel on this site. You might be interested in these articles:

The History of Konica – A history of firsts
The Nikon F – Nikon’s first SLR
The Nikon F3 – Back to film
The Nikon FM3A – Nikon’s last manual SLR
The Nikon F6 – Nikon last film camera
Ten Days in Japan – Travel in Japan
The Kodak Folding No 2 Autographic Brownie
When Photos Looked Like Paintings – Pictorialism
From Chemistry to Computation (Photography timeline)
Timeline of Early Cameras

The Understated Genius of Saul Leiter

Posted on March 11, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World

I have long enjoyed the photography of Saul Leiter and my admiration for his work was increased by visiting the “Saul Leiter: An Unfinished World” exhibition at MK Gallery, curated by Anne Morin.

This exhibition mixes Saul Leiter’s colour and black and white photographs, paintings and commercial fashion photography. There is a comprehensive chronology printed on the wall but the exhibition “encourages encourages viewers to find their own relationships and paths through Leiter’s unfinished world.” Given Leiter’s work and the world-view that underpins it, this approach makes a lot of sense.

The title is equally apposite and befits a collection of ‘tiny fragments of an unfinished world’. This was his world view, “little pieces of images juxtaposed and conjoined, to form ever-expanding fields.”

Many of Leiter’s pithy quotes adorn the walls, which I found both helpful and inspiring. All in all, it is a fine and very worthwhile exhibition. A review in the Guardian called it a “glorious survey of an impressionist with a camera.” I completely agree with that assessment, but the exhibition unlocked something I didn’t expect – an encounter with the person behind the lens. To my great surprise I found Saul Leiter the person as inspiring as his work.

The Photography of Saul Leiter

Saul Leiter had no formal training in photography, but the genius of his work was recognised by the influential Edward Steichen, who included it in two important MoMA shows in the 1950s.

Leiter’s work is characterised by abstract form and bold composition. He did a great deal of very fine black and white work which makes much use of much shadow and blur, and I enjoyed it greatly. However, it is his colour slide photography that has had most impact on me.

I like it when one is not certain of what one sees. When we do not know why we are looking at it, all of a sudden, we discover something that we start seeing. I like this confusion.

The experience Leiter describes here is often that of the viewer of his photography. There are large expanses of negative space, sometimes enveloping a detail; abstract lines that resemble brush strokes; reflections, fogged glass; fog; shadows and silhouettes. Much of street photography has a documentary feel but Leiter’s takes it to another more abstract, impressionist dimension.

He often makes use of steamed up windows for their abstracting quality, uses snow as a flat white backdrop and blurs foreground objects . He sometimes used expired colour film, which could produce surprise colour shifts.

Street photography depends greatly upon chance encounters, but as the Guardian review of the exhibition noted, “He finds chance and arbitrariness because he is looking for these things, and uses all his artistry to bring them out.”

He has other recurring themes. In addition to the inclement weather, translucent materials and properties of light that help him him gently smear his palette he regularly returns to cars, buses, hats and famously, umbrellas.

Painterly Parallels

His work is painterly, with fans and critics seeing parallels to the work of great artists like Edward Hopper, Piet Mondrian and Mark Rothko. The parallel with Hopper strikes a chord with me. I have seen some of Hoppers’ work, most notably, Nighthawks, in The Art Institute of Chicago. There are similarities in both the colour palette and the emotional undercurrent, though it occurs to me that Leiter’s urban experience is more about introversion than the isolation Hopper is known for.

Art critic Roberta Smith wrote in 2005: “Mr. Leiter was a photographer less of people than of perception itself. His painter’s instincts served him well in his emphasis on surface, spatial ambiguity and a lush, carefully calibrated palette.”

Harlem, 1960

One of the photographs that impressed me the most at the exhibition was one of his most famous photographs: Harlem, 1960. There is great description of the image in The arts desk: “A black man in a panama hat and beige jacket smokes a cigarette as he walks under the black awning outside a bar. There’s nothing to this chance encounter with a passer-by, except for an amazing synchronicity of colour. The man’s beige jacket matches the lettering on the awning announcing HOUSE, while his tie matches the red cab of the lorry parked behind him and the lettering on the vehicle advertising Walker’s Gin. A man in a black coat walking the other way frames the left side of the picture while a black dustbin frames the right side. The coup de grâce is the beige and red sign overhead that reads BAR and completes the colour composition.

If this were a painting by Whistler, the image might be called Harmony in Beige, White, Red and Black and it would have been artfully contrived. Leiter’s photograph, on the other hand, was completely unplanned. “I’ve never had a system or a project,” he insisted. “I don’t go out looking for things. I wander around with my camera, like a flâneur.” The paradox is that he responded to “unimportant things” spotted en passant, yet the viewer often has to spend time unravelling this split second of information.“

The Unseen Saul Leiter

Much of his colour work was taken on slides. This enabled Leiter to project his photographs on the walls of his apartment, which was important to him as he couldn’t afford to have prints made at the time.

The MK Gallery bookshop had a copy of The Unseen Saul Leiter, which is a book of 76 Colour slides with several chapters of commentary. Most of the slides are Kodachrome, but some are Anscochrome or Ektachrome. The images were taken mostly in the years 1948 to 1966, Saul’s first two decades of living and photographing in New York.

The book is important as, until it was published, the majority of Leiter’s images known to the public were those published in Early Colour, which largely introduced his extraordinary talent.

The origins of The Unseen book were an academic project. In 2017 the German scholar Elena Skarke approached the Saul Leiter Foundation because she wanted to write her dissertation on his work. She visited his studio (now the foundation’s headquarters) and decided to focus on the colour transparencies for her research.

The Unrecognised Pioneer of Colour

Saul Leiter was a pioneer in the use of colour photography. In the 1940s, when black and white photography was the norm for serious work he embraced colour, which he used in a completely unique way, often using a 150 mm telephoto lens in his colour street photography, the compressed view contributing to provided the painterly feel.

Colour Photography in the 1940s

At that time colour photography was the realm of ads and amateurs. Walker Evans, the famed documentary photographer of the great depression called colour photography “vulgar,” and he was far from alone in this sentiment.

One day I bought a roll of colour film and I took pictures. Then I got a small box with slides. I liked what I saw. I liked colour even though many photographers looked down on colour or felt it was superficial or shallow. – Saul Leiter

Colour Photography in the 1970s

The recognised pioneers of colour photography were William Eggleston, Helen Levitt and Stephen Shore, who gained recognition much earlier than Saul Leiter, becoming famous advocates for the medium in the 1970s. Sadly, Leiter barely made a footnote at that time.

For many years William Eggleston was recognised as the first photographer to use colour as a defining artistic choice. Happily that that view is fading and Leiter is getting the recognition he deserves – along with a better sense of perspective. After all, Alfred Stieglitz made and exhibited colour photographs using the Autochrome process in 1909.

Whilst I respect the work of all of those photographers, it has not had the same impact on me as Saul Leiter’s. He is in that very small group of photographers for me whose work is arresting in the true sense of the word – it stops you in your tracks. A few of those photographers have articles of their own on this site, including Cindy Sherman, Vivian Meyer, William Klein, Fan Ho and Brassaï.

Perhaps being left alone in relative obscurity helped him develop his unique and introspective world view. Geoff Dyer, in a review of his work in the Telegraph asked what it meant to be an ignored artist and asserted that “For Leiter – left alone to his colourful craft – it was the making of a master lensman.”

Zen Saul

Leiter was a thoughtful man with diverse influences. His library consisted of thousands of books and he was influenced by Japanese woodblocks and ink paintings as well as impressionist and post-impressionist painters.

During the research I conducted after the exhibition I came across an article by freelance photographer Belinda Jiao entitled Saul Leiter Street Photography Analysis: Techniques, Influences, Philosophy which shed more light on the influence of Japanese culture.

Love of Japan

I learned that he loved all things Japanese, which is a passion I share with him. The Ten Days In Japan I had in 2015 were wonderful. Belinda provides an illuminating quote from Pauline Vermare, the curator of the exhibition Photographer Saul Leiter: A Retrospective: there were etchings of paintings by Koryusai hung on his wall; among the heaps of collected items were Japanese calligraphy papers, vinyl records of Japanese musicals, and a massive library of books dedicated to Japanese literature, poetry, ceramics, ukiyo-e and Zen.

The same article describes the strong parallels between Leiter’s work and Zen Buddhism, which celebrates the living in the moment yet without attachment to earthly pleasures. It is also a shared characteristic also commonly found in Japanese ukiyo-e (translates into ‘Pictures of the Floating World’) prints, which has a strong emphasis on depicting the here-and-now, the banal fragments of being human.

The article also pointed out the correlation between Leiter’s choice of subject matter and those that feature regularly in ukiyo-e art – everyday life objects and elements of weather.

Although Leiter rejected the notion that he had a philosophy at all, the more you examine his work and its influences the more you appreciate his depth.

I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera.

Increasingly, I wonder if that quote is accurate, or whether it is just a reflection of Leiter’s lack of ego.

The Prophets – Impressionism & Les Nabis

Saul Leiter’s biggest influences in the art world were the post-impressionist artists Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard, who were both members of ‘Les Nabis’, which means ‘the prophets’ in Hebrew. This was a movement that embraced bold colours, flattened and abnormal perspectives, combining late-Impressionism’s focus on light, Japanese-influenced lines, and Paul Gauguin’s striking use of colour.

The Cameras of Saul Leiter

It seems almost wrong to concern ourselves with the more mechanical aspect of his work, but to translate East Village light into the magic of his images Saul Leiter needed optics.

Leiter experimented with colour photography used slide film such as Kodachrome; he also enjoyed using expired film stock with its surprising and odd shifts in colour and his unusual perspectives often come from the use of telephoto lens. These are probably the most salient technical factors in his work. The cameras themselves tell us less, but I am always curious about which makes and models the great photographers used. We learn this from these entries in the timeline from the Unfinished World Exhibition:

1939 c. Is given a Detrola camera by his mother.

1948 Begins working with colour slide film. Works primarily with: Argus C3, Auto Granflex Junior, Leica and an early Rolleiflex.

1960-80 – Continues to do fashion photography which is published in Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Show, Vogue (UK), Queen and Nova. Photographs are also included in Life, US Camera, Photography Annual and Infinity. Travels to Mexico, France, Italy and Israel. Often uses a Leica M4 for commercial work in the 1970s and after; for street photography uses Leica CL, Minox 35EL and Canon A-1 and AE-1, among others.

2003 – Receives a grant of $10,000 from Olympus along with his first digital camera, an Olympus E-1. Proceeds to purchase many digital cameras including Leica and Lumix models.

By 2005 Leiter had taken his last shot on film, ending a sixty-year relationship and turned full time to digital photography, which he embraced with great enthusiasm.

Painting

Saul Leiter painted daily from his mid teens years until his death. In his formative years abstract expressionism was large and expansive, but Leiter’s paintings, which are most water-colours, are much smaller in scale. I found them interesting but they didn’t move me in the way his photography does.

His friend, the painter Franz Kline, once said to him: ‘If only you painted big, you’d be one of the boys.

Early Life

Saul Leiter (1923–2013) was born into an Orthodox Jewish family, Leiter set out to become a Rabbi like his father but in 1946 he defied this family’s expectations and abandoned his studies. His interest in art led him to move to New York City in 1946, where he pursued painting and photography. His mother had given him a Detrola camera as a child, not knowing the instrument would help reshape his life

I got fed up with the whole religious world and all the preoccupations with purity and nobility and observance—I wanted to be free of those things.

In those formative years, eminent photojournalist W. Eugene Smith and abstract expressionist artist Richard Pousette-Dart (founder of the New York School of painting) encouraged Saul to pursue photography. It was through his friendship with Pousette-Dart that he recognised the creative potential of photography.

Fashion Photographer

His friends encouraged him to take up photography as a way to earn a living and he became a successful fashion photographer, with commissions for Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue and Elle. Leiter’s fashion photography paralleled his personal work, imbued with his unique style – he photographed models soft-focused or behind glass.

I started out as a fashion photographer. One cannot say that I was successful but there was enough work to keep me busy. I collaborated with Harper’s Bazaar and other magazines. I had work and I made a living. At the same time, I took my own photographs.

He preferred shooting in his home neighbourhood of New York’s East Village, where the vibrancy of the streets provided all he needed.

I take photographs in my neighbourhood. I think that mysterious things happen in familiar places. We don’t always need to run to the other end of the world.

Leiter never for self promotion or networking, and with little work and debts mounting in 1980s, he was forced to sell his Fifth Avenue studio. He continued his personal work from his East Village apartment, which he shared with artist Soames Bantry, his longtime partner who often sat for his photographs and paintings, and who died in 2002.

Recognition and The New York School

Although Edward Steichen exhibited some of Saul Leiter’s colour photographs at the Museum of Modern Art in 1953, for forty years afterwards they remained virtually unknown to the art world.

The concept of the ‘New York street photographer’ was born at the same time Leiter started working in the late-1940s. But Leiter wasn’t swept along by its momentum. He was not a conventional street photographer. He lacked the bleakness of Robert Frank or the knowing irony of William Klein which helped propel the popularity of their work and that label.

Saul Leiter may have faded entirely into obscurity if it weren’t for Richard Avedon, who, in 1992, recommended that his work should be included in the book The New York School: Photographs, 1936–1963. This led to other books and exhibitions.

Except for his inner circle, few saw Leiter’s personal colour work until towards the end of his life. Saul Leiter: Early Colour, a book of street photographs, was published to great acclaim in 2006 only a few years before his death in 2013. The instant success of Early Colour transformed Leiter’s life. His precarious finances improved with the increased print sales that followed the book.

The majority of his work, however was left unprinted, with tens of thousands of negatives and slides stored in boxes at his home.

Outlook

It strikes me that Saul Leiter’s outlook on life was deep but bright. He was introspective and contemplative but also cheerful. This is reflected in his photography, which often captures magic in the everyday. He saw what others didn’t and was upbeat where others weren’t. Though I never met the man, I feel an attachment to him that goes beyond his work.

It is not where it is or what it is that matters but how you see it

I see this world simply. It is a source of endless delight

A photographer’s gift to the viewer is sometimes beauty in the overlooked ordinary

Photography is about finding things. And painting is different, it’s about making something

Afterword

While I am a photographer who works mainly in black and white I do use colour occasionally. If I am going to produce a colour image I prefer to use film and I have a great affection for the tones of Kodak Portra. Since the light of my encounter with Saul Leiter and his artistry I intend to review my colour work and see where that takes me.

When Photos Looked Like Paintings – Pictorialism

Posted on March 11, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

What is Pictorialism? — Waterloo Place by Leonard Misonne (1899)

There is something magical to me about pictorialist photography, particularly urban pictorialism, as shown here in Leonard Misonne’s accomplished example from 1899. Here, Horse-drawn carriages seem to dissolve into the luminous haze, while lamplight glows softly through the mist, diffusing across a street slick with rain. The placement of the two men on the left, even the angle of the umbrella, seem to me to be just perfect.

There is much to admire in photographs like this, as well as in the photographers themselves. In addition to having the skill to take pictures with the cumbersome and slow equipment of the time, the pictorialist’s vision was realised through a complex end-to-end process that required yet more skill and talent. They had to be skilled in darkroom manipulation, often making their emulsions and embracing alternative printing methods. Some even made their own paper. So, there is much to appreciate about these photographers and their work, but what exactly is pictorialism?

Summary – Pictorialism in 100 words

Pictorialism emerged in the late 19th century, driven by photographers’ desire to reinvent the medium of photography as an art form, emphasising beauty, tonality, and composition to elevate photography to the same level as painting. The Pictorialists used soft-focus, experimental techniques and processes, artisan chemicals and special papers to create their atmospheric images and increase their artistic impact. The movement was most active between 1885 and 1915. It waned with the rise of straight photography, which valued sharpness and documentary precision, but set the stage for future artistic photography and innovation in the field of photography.

But is it Art?

To explore the much asked question ‘what is pictorialism?’ we need to ask a more fundamental question that is central to the movement and its development. That is, ‘is photography art’?

From its inception, when it took a mastery of optics, chemistry, and an arcane workflow to take and process a photograph there had been a debate about the nature of photography. Was this new invention only capable of reproduction or could it transcend its machine origins and produce art?

In the early years of its development, photography was sometimes looked down upon as purely mechanical, but as early as 1853 the English miniaturist Sir William John Newton was championing the cause of photography as art. Newton also suggested that photographers could make their pictures more like works of art by throwing the subject slightly out of focus and using retouching techniques.

Pictorialist Influences

Hill and Adamson

Photographers David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson had a strong influence on the development of Pictorialism. The partnership was formed in Edinburgh in July 1843, just four years after the invention of photography was announced. In the four years that followed they produced an extraordinary body of work that included portraits, landscapes and social documentary using the Calotype process.

The strong sunlight needed to produce a successful calotype meant that Hill & Adamson were required to work outdoors and one of their most important achievements was the portrayal of The Fishermen and Women of the Firth of Forth, shot at Newhaven, a small fishing village on the outskirts of Edinburgh. The portraits are considered to be the first social documentary photographs and were compared by some critics of the time to those of Rembrandt. Alfred Stieglitz would later describe Hill as “the father of pictorial photography” and would featured the duo’s photographs in his publications and the galleries of the Photo-Secession.

Julia Margaret Cameron

Julia Margaret Cameron was also an important pictorialist influence whose pictures would be championed by Stieglitz in CameraWork (volume 41, 1913). Cameron’s photographs had a romantic and expressionist style and often used slightly blurred focus. She considered her pictures art well before the pictorialist movement got underway and took inspiration from artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo.

When Cameron received the gift of a camera in December 1863 her husband was in Ceylon attending to the family’s coffee plantations, and her children were no longer at home. Photography became her focus and a link to the writers, artists, and scientists of her well-connected circle. Although she took up photography as an amateur with no knowledge and she worked at it with great energy and once she had developed her technique started to vigorously copyright, exhibit, publish, and market her work. She developed close links to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A). IT was home to her first exhibition in 1865 and home to her portrait studio in 1868.

Cameron was an outstanding portraitist, producing brooding head and shoulders shots of the famous men of her acquaintance including English poet laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson and mathematician, scientist and photography pioneer Sir John Herschel. Her work also consisted of theatrical tableaux from myth, the Bible, Shakespeare, and the works of Coleridge and Tennyson. Today, she is considered one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century.

Oscar Gustav Rejlander

Oscar Gustav Rejlander was one of the fathers of art photography, and a pioneer of photomontage. Originally a painter, he rejected the contemporary view of photography as a scientific or technical medium and made photographs that imitated painting, inspired by the Old Masters.

It was a visit to Rome in 1852 that was the catalyst for his interest in photography. Shortly after his return, Rejlander took photography lessons with Nicolaas Henneman, previously an assistant of William Henry Fox Talbot, after which he adapted his artist’s studio in Wolverhampton for photography. In 1857 Rejlander produced his masterpiece, a 31-by-16-inch image, by joining 30 negatives together. The Two Ways of Life was both technically ambitious and controversial, depicting an elaborate and moralising allegory of the choice between vice and virtue. Rejlander photographed each model and background section separately, using more than thirty negatives. These were then combined into a single large print which demonstrated the aesthetic possibilities of photography.

The picture caused a sensation initially but became the lead example in a polarised public debate on art, photography and whether combining images was acceptable.

Lady Clementia Hawarden

Rejlander admired the work of another photographic pioneer, Lady Clementina Hawarden, whose work is sometimes compared to Julia Margaret Cameron’s, though to my mind it is very different. Rejlander observed that ‘she aimed at elegant and if possible, idealised truth’.

As a Victorian woman, coming to photography in the late 1850s, Hawarden’s work was confined to her first-floor studio in her elegant Kensington home. Her images pushed the boundaries of art and photography using a careful selection of props, clothing, and model poses using her daughters as her subjects were her daughters. Their likenesses in her work were often reminiscent of the pre-Raphaelite artists.

Hawarden’s photographs demonstrated technical excellence as well as innovation and she became an expert in indoor photography. This expertise was recognised by two silver medals the Photographic Society of London.

Peach Robertson’s Pictorial Effect

Rejlander’s work also inspired Henry Peach Robinson, a British photographer who, like Rejlander, had previously trained as an artist. He achieved fame with his five-negative print of 1859, Fading Away, depicting a young consumptive dying in her bed surrounded by her family. Like Rejlander’s work, the tableau caused controversy due to the photograph’s artificial technique and morbid subject matter, with critics questioning whether a single picture from multiple negatives made photography untruthful.

Robinson, a member of the Photographic Society, published his manifesto Pictorial Effect in Photography in 1869. The work, which gave the movement its name, included compositional formulas taken from a handbook on painting and made the case that rules created for one art form could apply to another.

Emerson and Naturalistic Photography

In the 1880s the British photographer Peter Henry Emerson proposed an alternative artistic vision for photography. He was a dedicated student of the arts, influenced and inspired by the naturalist school of painters, which included Jean-François Millet. Millet’s rendered his landscapes and peasant scenes in low tones and with a softened atmosphere, but they were realistic enough for him to periodically face the charge of being a socialist.

Emerson’s vision was that photographs should reflect nature and be produced without artificial means. He believed that the tone, texture, and light of the scene were enough to make photography an art form. This point of view became known as naturalistic photography after the publication of his treatise Naturalistic Photography in 1889, in which he outlined a system of aesthetics. This treatise insisted that photography should show real people in their own environment, and avoid costumes, posed models or backdrops.

Improvements in Technology

Emerson embraced the photogravure process which was refined by Karl Klíc, a painter living in Vienna, who patented an improvement on William Henry Fox Talbot’s earlier process. The Talbot-Klíc process allowed for deeper etched shadows and the transfer of the negative image to a copper plate using gelatin-coated carbon paper. It was published in 1886.

Pictorialist Steichen — Wind, Fire, Therese Duncan on the Acropolis, Athens by Edward Steichen (1921)

In 1888, the introduction of the point-and-shoot Kodak camera, together with printing as a service, greatly accelerated the popularisation of photography. This only intensified the public debate about the role of the medium, which reached its peak by the end of the century.

You can read more about the development of photography in the articles From Chemistry to Computation or The Timeline of Early Photography.

As photography became popular serious amateurs, many inspired by Emerson’s ideas and images, began to explore the medium’s expressive potential. This resulted in the first truly international photographic movement – The Pictorialism Movement. The movement represented a shift of focus from Emerson’s Naturalism to the broader expression of photographers as artists.

What is Pictorialism?

The pictorialist photographers produced pictures that were the polar opposite of the output of point-and shoot. They used soft focus techniques, a range of darkroom techniques and alternative printing processes to produce beautifully rendered, skilfully composed, highly picturesque, atmospheric and often otherworldly images. These were hand printed (usually on hand-coated artist papers) using artisan emulsions and pigments, making the production of an image much closer to the creation of a painting.

The movement sometimes goes under other names including “art photography”, “Impressionist photography”, “new vision, and “subjective photography.

Pictorialism was closely linked to influential artistic movements such as Tonalism and Impressionism, and the Pictorialists took inspiration from popular art, adopting its styles and ideas to demonstrate that photography was an artistic process.

The emergence of Pictorialism was also the product of the meeting of photography and art in practical terms. Artists started to use photographs to capture images that would be rendered as paintings later, whilst some Pictorialists had been trained as painters.

No Accepted Definition

There is no accepted definition of Pictorialism. The Britannica definition is “an approach to photography that emphasizes beauty of subject matter, tonality, and composition rather than the documentation of reality.” This is helpful, though in addition to an approach it is also variously defined as a style, particularly of fine art photography, and as an aesthetic or international movement, including an art movement. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago captures much of this in this description:

“The international movement known as Pictorialism represented both a photographic aesthetic and a set of principles about photography’s role as art. Pictorialists believed that photography should be understood as a vehicle for personal expression on par with the other fine arts. Responding to both the new Kodak camera “snapshooters” and formulaic commercial photographers, the Pictorialists proudly defined themselves as true amateurs—those who pursued photography out of a love for the art.”

Understanding Pictorialism

To understand Pictorialism it’s worth reviewing what Pictorialist pictures have in common. Landscape photographer Sandy King (who still works with 19th century hand made photographic processes) offers an excellent description of its characteristics:

Only images which show the personality of the maker, generally through hand manipulation, can be considered works of art
An interest in the effect and patterns of natural lighting in the outdoor landscape
An impressionistic rendering of the scene, in which overall effect is more important than detail
The use of symbolism or allegory to reveal a message
The use of alternative printing processes: carbon and carbro, gum bichromate , oil and bromoil, direct carbon, and platinum.

A review of the techniques Pictorialists used to convert the camera into something closer to a paintbrush is also enlightening. These included darkroom manipulation, the combining of multiple negatives, the use of artisan emulsions, printing using photogauvre, gum bichromate, or bromoil, or with precious metals like platinum, and the use of paintbrushes and handmade paper.

Like a painter, these photographers could build up the surfaces or reduce them to a wash, applied with a paintbrush. The effects could be enhanced by increasing or flattening contrast in the darkroom.

In addition to giving the pictures their unique look, these techniques also ensured that no two prints looked identical, even if they came from the same negative.

Who were the Pictorialists?

Some of the most notable Pictorialists are Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946); Edward Steichen (1879-1973); Edward Weston (1886-1958); Paul Strand (1890-1976); Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79); Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901); Peter Henry Emerson (1856-1936); Robert Demachy. (1859-1936); Frederick H. Evans (1853-1943); Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) and Gertrude Käsebier (1852-1934).

You can find is a more comprehensive list of Pictorialist Photographers at the A-Z of Pictorialist Photographers on this site.

Women Pictorialists

As the A-Z list shows, many prominent Pictorialist photographers were women at a time when photography was largely male dominated. Female practitioners included Anne Brigman; Alice Boughton ; Julia Margaret Cameron; Imogen Cunningham; Mary Devens; Gertrude Käsebier; Adelaide Marquand Hanscom Leeson; Emily H. Pitchford; Sarah Choate Sears; Eva Watson-Schütze.

Léonard Misonne

As Waterloo Place is the pictorialist photograph I admire the most, it would be remiss of me not to mention the photographer behind the shot. Léonard Misonne (1870-1943, Belgian) was not only a master of mood but also of meticulous photographic craft, using and adapting alternative processes to infuse his images with atmosphere.

One of Misonne’s preferred techniques was the bromoil process, which allowed him to suppress detail and selectively control tone. The method began with a traditional silver bromide print that was then bleached, hardened, and inked with lithographic brushes. This created soft transitions and painterly textures, ideal for his misty streetscapes and glowing landscapes. He learned the process from Émile Constant Puyo, a key figure in French Pictorialism, during a visit to Paris around 1910.

Misonne alos developed his own hybrid techniques, most notably photo-dessin and flou-net. Photo-dessin (literally “photo-drawing”) blended charcoal or pencil sketches with photographic precision, often resulting in images that hovered somewhere between a drawing and a photograph. Flou-net combined softness (flou) with select sharpness (net), creating a dreamlike clarity amidst visual fog.

All of these methods were in service of what Misonne considered essential: light. His photographs are suffused with mist, low sun, and glowing haze. These were natural elements that were amplified, not fabricated, through his darkroom techniques. Misonne made light itself the subject of his photography. One of his most famous quotes is ‘The subject is nothing, light is everything.’

Pictorialist Clubs and Organisations

These photographers, who considered themselves artists, formed clubs and salons such as The Linked Ring, The Royal Photographic Society, The Photo-Club of Paris and The Trifolium of Austria all of which promoted photography as fine art. As part of the advocacy for the expressive power of the photograph these clubs and organisations produced lavish journals and exhibition catalogues featuring beautiful hand-made photogravures.

The Photo Secession

In 1902 Alfred Stieglitz formed the Photo-Secession, a society with the stated aim of seceding from the accepted idea of what constitutes a photograph. It was inspired by art movements in Europe, such as the Linked Ring. Stieglitz described the aim of Photo-Secession as “to hold together those Americans devoted to pictorial photography in their endeavour to compel its recognition, not as the handmaiden of art, but as a distinctive medium of individual expression.” He described its attitude as “one of rebellion against the insincere attitude of the unbeliever, of the Philistine, and largely of exhibition authorities”. The “membership” of the Photo-Secession was largely set by Stieglitz’s predilections. The core members were Edward Steichen, Clarence H. White, Gertrude Käsebier, Frank Eugene, F. Holland Day, and later Alvin Langdon Coburn.

The Photo-Secession actively promoted its pictorialist ideas through the influential quarterly Camera Work and the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (also known as the 291) which provided a place for the members to exhibit their work. Painter and photographer Edward Steichen and other notable artists were instrumental in developing the program of exhibitions at the gallery, which featured exhibitions by important European artists such as Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, and the Cubist works of Pablo Picasso that would influence artists across media around the world.

By 1910 Photo-Secession had become divided over the degree of manipulation of negatives and prints that was appropriate and divided. In 1916 Käsebier, White, Coburn and others formed the Pictorial Photographers of America (PPA) to continue promotion of the pictorialism. A year later Stieglitz formally dissolved the Photo-Secession, although it had not been active for some time.

The Decline of Pictorialism

The heyday of Pictorialism was from the 1880s to 1915. Unsurprisingly for such a romantic movement it lost momentum after the World War I and was a spent force by the end of World War II. It was superseded by the sharp focus of Modernism in Europe and the West Coast or Straight photography movement in the USA, the greatest exponents of which were Edward Weston and Ansel Adams.

Later Pictorialists and Neo Pictorialism

Pictorialism had all but disappeared by the 1920s, but some photographers persisted with it. Adolf Fassbender, for example, kept making pictorial photographs into the late 1960s. In the 1990s the label neo-pictorialist was applied to some photographers influenced by the original movement. An article in Vice describes the emergence of neo-pictorialism well:

“A century after the fight for legitimacy, photography is now cycling back to its beginnings with a rise in traditional and alternative processes through companies such as the Impossible Project and Lomography seeking to reclaim analogue photography and leave behind the freneticism and immediate gratification of a digital photograph—much in the same way that Pictorialists sought to slow down the photography of their time with an eye to the myriad possibilities of the medium.”

Photography as Art

The ideas of Newton, Rejlander, Robinson, and Emerson’s were not the same, but they were all pioneers for photography to be considered a legitimate art form. This is a question that rarely crops up today, but for those who wish to ponder it I’ll take a proof point from many possible options. In 2011 a grey image of the Rhine by German artist Andreas Gursky sold for $4.3m (£2.7m) at auction, setting a new record at the time. The grey and featureless landscape was described by the artist as an allegorical picture about the meaning of life. That sounds like art to me.

More About Early Photography

If you are interested in the history of photography, you might also might these articles interesting:

From Wet to Dry: The Gelatine Dry Plate Era
The Kodak Folding No 2 Autographic Brownie
Autographic Photography (Kodak’s account of the benefits)
The First Camera Lens
Fox Talbot and Early Photography
Wet Plate Photography
From Chemistry to Computation (Photography timeline)
Early Aperture Scales
Timeline of Early Cameras
Brassaï’s Dark and Beautiful Realm

Revision History

This article was originally written in September 2015 and was thoroughly updated and revised in March 2024.

The Leica M3 – Great Film Cameras

Posted on March 1, 2024August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

When I went back to film in 2016, it was with an SLR, the Nikon F3, and the idea of shooting with a rangefinder had never occurred to me. During lockdown, I became curious about other kinds of cameras and acquired a couple of inexpensive rangefinders: an Agfa Optima 1535 and a Yashica Electro 35 GSN. Enjoying the rangefinder experience (albeit a highly simplified one) and getting some decent results from these very inexpensive cameras, I decided that I needed a proper rangefinder and found myself a Leica M3. It was made in 1962 but still looked brand new.

1962 Leica M3 with 50mm Elmar. The winding crank is an aftermarket addition.

Genesis of the M3

By the time the M3 was launched in 1954, Ernst Leitz GmbH of Wetzlar, Germany had already provided the photographic industry with two defining moments in the history of photography. The Leica I of 1925 had created the new ‘miniature’ 35 mm format and in 1930 the Leica II introduced interchangeable lenses and a built in rangefinder.

M is for Messucher

The ‘M’ in M3 comes from “Messsucher” the German word for “measuring viewfinder/rangefinder” which was the M3’s main feature: a ‘high-magnification’ (0.91x) single viewfinder/rangefinder eyepiece which placed the rangefinder focusing patch inside the viewfinder. Previous generations of Leicas, known as screw-mount or ‘Barnack’ Leicas, had separate eyepieces for focusing and framing.

I put ‘high magnification’ in quotes because there is no actual magnification, but the M3 is as close to 1:1 as you can get in the world of Leica rangefinders, where negative magnification is the norm. This is not the case with all manufacturers. Nikon’s rangefinders of the 1950s, such as the S2, for example, did offer 100% magnification.

3 Lenses

The ‘3’ in ‘M3’ referred to three sets of frame lines seen through its single bright viewfinder window, for three lenses: 50mm, 90mm and 135mm. These were automatically corrected for parallax.

Most of the M3’s features were not new, but like the Nikon F SLR of 1959, the Leica M3 combined a number of existing innovations in a superbly engineered package. The 1930s saw a great deal of innovation and saw the introduction of the newly standardised 135 film cartridge (Kodak Retina I, 1935) and affordable rangefinders (Argus C3, 1936). Many of the features that were improved (or in some cases perfected) in the Leica M3 came to market during this decade:

The Zeiss-Ikon Contax I rangefinder offered a bayonet lens mount in 1932
The Kine Exakta, the world’s first popular 35mm SLR had a film winder in 1936, though it was not the first model to introduce this.
The Contax II offered a combined range/viewfinder in 1936
Automatic parallax compensation arrived with the scale-focusing Minox of 1937

The World’s Best Rangefinder?

The Post Mill at Brill, shot with Leica M3 using a red filter

However, the Leica M3 was the first camera to feature true projected parallax-compensating frame lines for its 50mm, 90mm, and 135mm lenses. Even better, the right frame automatically appears in the viewfinder as the photographer mounts a lens of the corresponding focal length. This is known as auto indexing. Handily, the effect of using other lenses can be previewed using the manual frame selector lever located below the front finder window.

The M3 uses a horizontal cloth focal-plane shutter with a maximum speed of 1/1000 second and a maximum flash sync of 1/50. It is extremely quiet – nearly as quiet as a leaf shutter.

To describe the M3 just by its features doesn’t do it justice. It feels like so solid, with its top and bottom plates of chrome-plated brass, that its hard to image it has any component parts. One reviewer suggested the M3 should have its own element on the periodic table! To this day it is regarded by many as the finest rangefinder ever built. To some, it’s the finest camera, ever. Even today, in terms of design excellence and manufacturing quality it is astonishingly good,

Impact and Notable Users

For the professional or enthusiastic amateur photographer of the 1950s, the M3 offered the brightest and clearest view in the combined viewfinder/rangefinder, the best lenses available, a bayonet lens mount for quick lens changes, and a film advance lever for faster shooting. All this in a package weighing a little over 600g! This came at a price as the M3 cost about 50% more than the already expensive Leica III, but Ernst Leitz spared no expense in making the M3.

The reception of the Leica M3 was exceptionally positive, with photographers praising its build quality, reliability, and optical performance. It quickly became the camera of choice for many of the era’s leading photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Robert Frank, W. Eugene Smith, Elliott Erwitt, Garry Winogrand, and David Douglas Duncan.

Variants

The Leica M3 was launched as a ‘double stroke’ (DS) model and updated to a ‘single stroke’ (SS) model in 1958. As this was the first lever wind-on model, Leitz was concerned about stressing the film and breaking it, so it split the winding into “double strokes.” This turned out to be unfounded. Mine is a later SS model, and I see no reason to prefer a DS, though some users consider the original mechanism superior.

Shooting Experience

Loading and Unloading

Horse at the ruins of Hampton Gay, shot with Leica M3

After the magnificent feel of the Leica M3, the loading experience is less impressive, as loading is a little slower than most 35mm models I have used. Leitz kept bottom loading from the Barnack era but with improvements. These included the addition of removable take-up spool to make the process of attaching the film leader easier by allowing it to be threaded outside the camera, and the addition of a rear door flap. When lifted, this flap provided enough access to ensure the film is correctly positioned over the sprockets and the pressure plate.

The rewind knob was also preserved, so there is no crank. To rewind the film, you move the lever on the front of the camera to ‘R’ (reverse), lift the knob out from the central advance indicator, and twist until the knob eventually resists. This is quite a slow process. I put an aftermarket crank on mine, which speeds up the rewind and doesn’t look too bad on the camera.

Through the Looking Glass

However, things improve significantly once that is over the way and you peering through that bright, clear uncluttered viewfinder. The frame lines on the M3 are limited to three and display one at a time – which is great. Newer Leicas have six and appear in pairs. The M3 is best suited to a classic 50mm lens and that’s what I use most.

Before I got an M6 TTL with 0.58X magnification and 28mm framelines I configured the M3 with an external viewfinder and it delivered good results. There are also 35mm ‘Goggles’ available, which I haven’t tried, but apparently you lose some of that magic viewfinder brightness.

Focusing, including critical focusing, is also much easier on the M3 than any other rangefinder I have used, including later Leicas like the M6 TTL. I’ve never had a blurred shot yet, which is definitely not the case with the other elderly rangefinders I’ve used.

Leica Lenses

The M3’s Elmar 50mm

Leica lenses are fabulous. My 1962 M3 came with a period-correct collapsible Elmar 50mm f2.8, which is the successor to the original Leica f/3.5 50mm Elmar of 1925-1961.

The Elmar was superseded by 50mm Summicron, Summilux, and Noctilux lenses in the 1970s. By that time Leitz had sold just over half a million lenses, so there are plenty about. The tiny Elmar is finished in chrome. It is an excellent lens and looks great on the M3.

Summicron f2 50mm

I have also have a lightly faster f2 50mm Summicron-M in the form of the Type IV (11819) made from 1979-1993, which has a 39mm filter thread and a separate metal vented hood. It is very compact and astonishingly good. It is easy to recognise by its tapering, almost conical shape.

The latest generation of this lens (APO-Summicron-M ASPH f/2.0) has a much higher specification, which offers better correction of colour and aspherical aberrations, a floating lens element and built in lens hood. This version is much more costly at £7,200 at the time of writing, vs £1200-1500 for the 11819.

In addition to the finest optical performance Leica lenses are accompanied by what many refer to as the ‘Leica look’ – as described in this Art Photo Academy article.

What makes Leica lenses so different is their exceptionally high micro-contrast, i.e., an ability to register a nearly full variety of tonal variations between slightly darker and slightly brighter areas of very similar colours. It is the high micro contrast that is responsible for rich colours and smooth tonal transitions that all amount to the three-dimensional “feel”.

I have observed that phenomenon with Leicas, both with the digital Q2, and on film with the M3 and M6 TTL: some shots do have a noticeably more three-dimensional look than I see with pictures taken on other cameras.

Adding a Light Meter

Though using the Sunny 16 rule is straightforward enough, and black and white film is very forgiving, I always have a light meter to hand in the form of the iPhone app myLightmeter Pro. Some photographers seem to regard the use of a light meter as a weakness, but that’s not my point of view. I usually estimate the light, take a meter reading and then set the shutter and aperture – it’s interesting to see how often you and the meter agree, and it helps develops your estimation skills. Also, given the M3 allows the shutter speed to be set between the marked speeds, a light meter reading can be beneficial in making the best use of the ‘in-between speeds’ as a form of exposure compensation. That’s a bit of a stretch for Sunny 16…

An accessory shoe-mounted external light meter is another option. I’ve used the Voigtlander VC Meter II, which uses ‘over and under’ LED exposure arrows controlled by aperture and shutter speed dials. There are other options, too. The DOOMO Meter D looks similar but has plus and minus LEDs, and their Meter S offers an OLED display screen. HEDECO also offer an OLED model, the Lime Two.

Adding a 28mm Lens and Viewfinder

1962 Leica M3 with 28mm Elmarit, external light meter and viewfinder

For landscape photography, the 50mm sometimes isn’t wide enough, so I added a Voigtlander external viewfinder and a 28mm Elmarit-M f2.8 lens. I picked up the E46 filter thread version (11809), which is the last non-aspherical (ASPH) version and has a plastic hood which blocks a little of the viewfinder. This is an excellent lens, with low distortion. It is small and light and less costly than either later versions ,though they are even smaller and take the E39 filter thread which isn’t visible through the viewfinder.

To use the Elmarit-M with the external light meter and 28mm viewfinder required the use of a one-to-two slot adaptor – I found one made by Voigtlander. The clean lines of the M3 were utterly compromised by the resulting Frankenstein’s monster, but it works perfectly well.

Close Focusing

One downside to rangefinders, which I have to say hasn’t affected me at all, is their design is not suited to close focusing – close up they get their beams crossed. Most M mount cameras focus down to 0.7m with the M3 needing a little more runway at 1m.

The Successor, M4

Leitz shipped more M3s than any other M film camera, with over 220,000 units sold by the time production of the M3 model ended in 1966. Its successor model was the M4, which sold just 58,000 units. This was due to the declining market share of rangefinders and the rise of SLRs. It was not due to any deficiency in the M4, which offered several enhancements over the M3. These include an angled rewind lever, a self-resetting film counter and frame lines for 35, 50, 90 and 135mm lenses.

The M3 was the high watermark of rangefinders. Historically, that is certain. If we are speaking of models that is more open to debate but it still provides a very special photographic experience and exceptional results.

Thoughts and Further Reading

If you have experience with shooting a Leica M3, I’d love to hear from you – please leave me a comment below. You might also find the following articles on this site interesting:

Leica Film Cameras in the Movies
Around the World with a Leica Q
The Konica I – Konica’s first rangefinder
The History of Konica – A history of firsts
When Photos Looked Like Paintings – Pictorialism movement
From Chemistry to Computation (History of Photography)
Cameras Year by Year (20th Century Camera timeline)
The Nikon F6 – Nikon last film camera
The Nikon FM3A – Nikon’s last manual SLR
The Nikon F3 – Back to film

The Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie

Posted on February 19, 2024September 2, 2025 by Nigel Williams

The Kodak No. 2 Folding Brownie was introduced in 1904 as part of the the Folding Brownie series. This was Kodak’s least expensive folding roll film camera range with a more basic specification than their Kodak branded counterparts. The smaller B ‘Folding Pocket Brownie Model B’ was launched in 1907. Both models took 120 roll film.

If you are looking to obtain one, you should ensure that you don’t confuse either model with the 1910 No 2A Folding Pocket Brownie that took 116 film, which is no longer available. I have read that you can use 120 film in 116 cameras with an adaptor. This will apparently produce six very large (11 x 6 cm) images!

Like my No 2 Kodak Autographic Folding Brownie, I bought this folding pocket Brownie at a camera fair hosted by ImageX in Bicester, Oxfordshire. It came in its original cardboard box and was in excellent condition, the only sign of usage being on the handle. The red bellows look just like new.

When I opened the camera up I was delighted to find an original sticker inside. This was the original purchase sticker from Boots the Cash Chemist, showing a price of one pound one shilling, which had been there since purchase in 1911!

Kodak No. 2 Folding Brownie — 1911 price tag inside the camera

I paid rather more than that, but it was a very fair price for such a good example. Looking online afterwards I found a less well preserved model for just under £20.

Folding Cameras

Folding cameras originated in the 1850s, replacing the 1840s sliding-box design. The lens and shutter are attached to a lens-board which is connected to the body of the camera by light-tight folding bellows. When the camera is fully unfolded it provides the correct focus distance from the film.

Folding cameras dominated camera design until the 1930s and remained significant into the late 1940s. The design persisted into the 1970s in specialized cameras such as the Polaroid SX-70 Instant film camera, and the Speed Graphic press cameras. See the article Early Cameras, a Timeline on this site for more on early camera design.

Kodak’s Folding Cameras

Kodak produced numerous folding models from the 1890’s until the 1960s. The first was the Folding Pocket Kodak which was introduced in 1897. The last was the Kodak 66, Kodak’s only post-war folder for 120 film rolls, which was manufactured in the UK between 1958 & 1960.

The Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie

The Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie is a horizontal format folding camera. Like larger large format models, the lens standard is pulled out on a track fixed to the wooden baseboard, which is fitted with a small focusing scale, which locks. It has an attractive set of red bellows (black after 1911) that can be set to three focusing positions: 100, 20, 8 feet.

The rectangular metal body has a leatherette covering a hinged back and two tripod sockets. There is a small ‘Brilliant’ finder fixed to the left side of the baseboard. A brilliant finder uses a combination of lenses and prisms to provide a bright image for composing the image. The finder on this model can be rotated through 90 degrees to allow the camera to be used in either portrait or landscape orientation.

The No 2 Folding Brownie uses a meniscus achromatic lens, the story of the which is the same design as The First Camera Lens, which is a subject of another article on this site. It uses the either the Pocket or Brownie automatic shutter.

Folding Brownie Vs Folding Pocket Brownie

The original No 2 Folding Brownie original had a wooden lens board and had a sliding latch on the back which was apparently unreliable. The Model B Pocket version abandoned the sliding latch and replaced them with had a pair of concealed buttons under the leatherette. The model name is printed inside the camera back and is also embossed into the handle on the top face. It is about 20% smaller than its predecessor.

Camera Controls

All the controls except the film wind on key are located on the lens barrel. The shutter (marked A on the diagram below) has five-blades and settings for I (Instant), B (Bulb) and T (Timed). The Instant setting was originally approximately 1/45 of a second, but likely to be slower in action. The shutter (C) is tripped from a small lever also on the lens barrel.

A typical Kodak control layout of the time

The aperture settings (marked B on the diagram) are marked 1-4. This refers to a simple numbering system used on simple Kodak cameras. This system can be confused with the U.S. Universal Scale System, (also called the “Uniform Scale System”) found on many pre-1920 cameras. See the short article on Aperture Scales on this site for more on this.

According to About Lenses published by Kodak in 1922, the aperture settings for cameras with Meniscus Achromatic lenses are No.1 (f 11), No. 2 (f 16), No. 3 (f 16), No. 4 (f 22).

The film is advanced by a key which is marked with an arrow to indicate the correct direction. The frame number can be seen in a small circular red window on the back of the camera. The camera takes 8 exposures of 6 x 7 cm images on No. 120 film.

The No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie in Use

As usual with very old cameras, I kept my expectations from camera under control, but I didn’t experience any of the light leaks and the camera operated as expected.

A handheld shot of Deal sea front from the pier. Tripod required, but nice tone with ISO 25 film.

One film was shot handheld and one with a tripod. The tripod head I had with me was of the gimbal type, which limited me to shooting in portrait mode, but provided a lot of weight and so felt really solid. The handheld shots were all extremely blurred, so I suspect the shutter speed is well below its original 1/45 of a second. Based on the results I estimate it is now at about 1/15 of a second.

Opening and Loading the Camera

Kodak No 2 Pocket folding brownie — Brill Windmill, shot with the The No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie

The camera is easy to open – you just press on the concealed buttons at rear upper corner of each side of the camera. The back of the camera will open and drops down. At each end of the interior of the camera you can see a recess for holding the film spools. Loading is also simple. To load the film you just need to pull up the axis pins, insert the loaded film and draw the film to the takeup spool. Remember to have the black side of the film facing the front and wind on using the key until the vertical arrow appears on the film spool. Close the camera and wind on until number 1 becomes visible in the red window on the rear of the camera.

Avoiding Film Fogging

I never load film in direct sunlight but you don’t need to work in complete darkness – subdued light is sufficient.

You might consider taping up the the red frame counter window on the back of the camera, whilst it is not in use. This helps prevent unwanted light getting into the camera and provides similar functionality to later frame counter windows that had covers to prevent light leaks and were only opened whilst the photographer was advancing the film.

Early film had low sensitivity to red light so a combination of the backing paper on the film, plus the red window, prevented film fogging. If you use Orthochromatic film (which is still available) this precaution is unnecessary as it is less sensitive to red light.

Framing and Focusing

Framing relies on the tiny (1.5 cm x 1.5 cm) ‘Brilliant’ finder mounted above the lens. This creates a tiny representation of approximately what the camera is pointing at. Peering down into this minute square of glass you will see a laterally reversed image.

Focus is basic ‘scale focusing’ and is set via a notched scale on baseboard. This has three pre-set distances that engage with a small catch, that is slightly fiddly to operate, though you probably won’t use it very much. I mainly use the most distant of these (100 feet).

Setting an Exposure

Given how forgiving black and white film is in terms of exposure latitude, I didn’t found it difficult to get an acceptable exposure. In any event the controls available to set an exposure are minimal. Set the to shutter to I (Instant) and the aperture to 1 or 2 and trip the shutter.

Choosing the right film

Kodak produced a large number of different roll film formats with a variety of different negative sizes. 120 (or No. 2 film as it was originally called, as per the name of this camera) is the only one still being manufactured. This is used extensively by medium format photographers, and readily available. The Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie model produces 8 exposures measuring 6 x 9 cm, which are the largest that can be obtained with a 120 film camera.

Film Speed

Modern 120 film is very different to what was available in 1911, so is difficult to compare sensitivity accurately as these old films had different emulsions. Early twentieth century photographers had several measures of sensitivity available to them (such as H&D) but ISO was not one of them.

The ISO film speed system, or ISO speed, was standardised in 1987 by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO)unified the various film speed rating systems that existed before, such as ASA (American Standards Association) and DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung, the German standard).

I’ve seen accounts of an equivalent ISO range of 5-25 for Orthochromatic films, which were less sensitive to red light, and ISO 10-50 for Panchromatic Films. Both of these estimates are for the second decade of the twentieth century. The closest currently available Rollei Ortho 25 (which I used), but I found 100 worked fine, though the Rollei Ortho produced the best results.

Pros and Cons of the Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie

Pros

Easy to load and unload
Simple to use
Light and portable

Cons

Only one ‘instant’ shutter speed
Slow shutter makes a tripod essential
Fiddly scale focusing control

The First Camera Lens

Posted on February 19, 2024February 26, 2024 by Nigel Williams

The first camera lens was produced by French optician and instrument maker Charles Chevalier‘s optical firm. Chevalier produced lenses for photographic pioneers Nicéphore Niépce and Louis Daguerre, who both used his lenses for their ground-breaking work in photography.

I researched this story because two of the earliest cameras in my small collection, the Kodak No 2 Folding Autographic Brownie and the Kodak No 2 Folding Pocket Brownie Model B, both used the same design as the very first lens and I wanted to understand its origin.

To tell the story of that first camera lens we need go back to earlier in the nineteenth century. Please note that this is the story of the first lens designed for use with a camera, not the first lens, which was created much earlier. Experiments with lenses go back to the 10th century Arabian scientist Abu Ali Hasan!

Foundations – The Meniscus Lens

Lenses used in the camera’s ancestor, the Camera Obscura, were simple biconvex lenses. This is a glass element that curves outwards on each side, like those in magnifying glasses. In 1812, the eminent English Scientist William Hyde Wollaston found that a meniscus shaped lens was a significant improvement to lens performance.

A meniscus is a curve in the surface of a molecular substance (such as water) when it touches another material. This shape provided a much flatter field and eliminated much of the distortion compared to the simple biconvex lenses.

The First Effective Camera Lens – The Achromatic Meniscus

In 1829, Chevalier created an achromatic version of the meniscus lens – a two-element lens made from crown glass and flint glass which have compensating optical properties. An achromatic lens addresses the problem of achromatic aberration.

Early Photography timeline first camera lens — The Susse Frére Daguerreotype of 1839

An achromatic aberration is one of many possible optical aberrations in lenses. These are performance deviations from a perfect, mathematical model. They are not caused by manufacturing flaws but are inherent in lens design and are due to the properties of light such as diffraction and refraction. Other examples include spherical aberration, astigmatic aberrations and field curvature.

Chevalier’s lens had addressed one of the biggest challenges of early lens design which is reducing achromatic aberration – getting red and blue wavelengths of light to focus on the same plane.

This what an achromatic lens does, and it is necessary because the colours of light with shorter wavelengths, like blue, travel more slowly through most transparent materials than colours with longer wavelengths like red – resulting in different focal lengths – resulting in focusing problems.

George Eastman of Kodak fame said of Chevalier’s lens of 1839 “as he was accustomed to achromatizing all of his lenses, Chevalier naturally thought of achromatizing the Wollaston lens too.” This was unsurprising as Chevalier came from an optical dynasty whose founder (Charles’ grandfather) had invented the achromatic microscope.

Chevalier’s lens also reduced field curvature and produced a much flatter image plane. Field Curvature causes a flat object to appear sharp only in a certain part(s) of the frame, instead of being uniformly sharp across the frame.

An Unfortunate Side Effect

Chevalier’s design however, had an unfortunate side effect – spherical aberration. This means the outer parts of a lens do not bring light rays into the same focus as the central part.

Chevalier had effectively reduced one problem that caused blurring whilst accentuating another! However, while both spherical aberration and field curvature lead to image blur, there are visual differences.

Those differences lie in the distribution of sharpness across the image. Spherical aberration tends to cause a general reduction in sharpness, especially towards the edges, while field curvature results in different parts of the image being in focus at different distances.

Stopping it

There is relatively simple workaround to spherical aberration, which is to put a narrow aperture stop in front of the lens. Whilst significantly reducing the aberration, the stop lets in less light it, making it ‘slower’. F14 was the fastest of the two apertures offered!

The Landscape Lens

A slow lens produced exposure lengths that were rather long for portraits, but Chevalier’s lens was much better suited to landscapes and became known as the “French landscape lens” or “landscape lens”. It sold with almost every early Daguerreotype camera.

The Portrait Lens

Chevalier worked on a faster lens design but it was the Petzval lens that provided the first portrait lens. It was also the first mathematically calculated precision objective in the history of photography. Previously optics had been ground and polished based on experience. The lens was developed by the Hungarian mathematics professor Joseph Petzval in 1840, who had the assistance of a team of artillery gunners and 3 corporals at his disposal. This was one of the few professions in which mathematical calculations were made. The lens was extremely fast, offering an f3.6 aperture and was produced by the Voigtländer company.

Kodak Autographic first camera lens — Kodak No 2 Folding Autographic Brownie

The Legacy of the First Camera Lens Design

The Landscape lens was selected by George Eastman as the optics for the Brownie camera due to its simplicity, and price/performance. A well-corrected design at the Brownie’s f/16 or f/22 or so, was quite sufficient for sharp-looking images for the contact prints of the time.

Accordingly, many of Kodak’s early low cost cameras typically came with either simple meniscus lenses, dual meniscus lenses (the ‘periscopic’ type) or achromatic meniscus lenses.

Some offered a choice a better lenses from third parties, such as Bausch and Lomb’s Rapid Rectilinear. The Kodak No 2 Folding Autographic Brownie shown here offered this as an option. Here are some of the Kodak cameras fitted with these lens types:

The Kodak (periscopic meniscus)
No 1 and No 2 Kodak (periscopic meniscus)
The Brownie (meniscus)
No 1 Brownie (meniscus)
No 2, 2A, 2B, No 2 C Brownie (meniscus)
No 3 Brownie – Meniscus achromatic

Source: Kodak Camera, The First Hundred Years by Brian Coe

Despite an antique design, its low cost and ease of manufacturing kept the meniscus lens going in the the Kodak stable for many years. A late examples is the Kodak Brownie Hawkeye Flash, an all plastic box camera produced between 1950 and 1961, with an f/15 single element meniscus lens. Another is the Brownie Fiesta of 1962-1966 with an f/11 meniscus lens.

The Nikon FE SLR

Posted on February 12, 2024April 4, 2024 by Nigel Williams

The Nikon FE flew under my Nikon radar for many years. I regularly shoot with the FM3a, F3 and F6, and I’ve had a FM2/n in my collection for some years, but somehow I remained completely unaware of the FE. I am not sure why! When a very clean FM came up at a camera fair hosted by ImageX I examined it and saw from the serial number that it was wasn’t an FM at all – It was a Nikon FE. What exactly that meant was a mystery to me, but a few rolls of film and some reading later, I have got to grips with it.

The Nikon FE and FM – Major Differences

The Nikon FE is a semi-professional SLR model, manufactured from 1978 to 1983. The exterior is very similar to the Nikon FM introduced in 1977 but the internals are electronic. Neither camera features a model number on the front so they are easy to confuse.

Whilst they look alike, the FE and FM are quite different in two important respects and a few details. The Nikon FE has an electronic shutter and offers aperture-priority semi-automatic exposure mode. The centre weighted light meter makes use of needle matching in the viewfinder. The FM is all-mechanical (except for the light meter) and uses a “centre-the-LED” system.

In other words, the Nikon FE is essentially a Nikon FM with an added electronic shutter and aperture-priority mode. This is reflected in Nikon’s Product Timeline which describes the FE as “a sister model of the Nikon FM (1977) with Aperture-Priority Auto [A] mode.”

I am familiar with both metering systems from the FM3a (needle matching) and FM2/n (LEDs). My preference is for prefer needle matching over the LEDs (except in low light) and I usually shoot in full manual. The system is so easy and intuitive I don’t need auto mode. It really is a just personal preference, however. Plenty of photographers find the LEDs simpler and less distracting, and they are certainly easier to read in low light.

FE vs FM – The Details

There are a few other differences between the two models:

Viewfinder Screen The FE has an interchangeable viewfinder screen, though the choice of replacements is limited to two (Types B and E, K comes as standard).
Battery Check Indicator The FE has a dedicated battery indicator LED on the back of the camera. The FM’s light meter LEDs stay on.
Mechanical Shutter Speeds The FE has two mechanical shutter speeds, 1/90 and B. The FM’s speeds are all mechanical.
Auto Exposure Lock The FE has an AE lock lever. The FM does not offer this feature.
Slowest Manual Speed The FE’s slowest manual speed is 8 seconds, compared to the FM’s 1 second.
Exposure Compensation The FE, offering an automatic setting, offers exposure compensation, although the combined ISO/Exposure compensation is quite fiddly and there’s no indication in the finder that it is active. The FM, being manual, does not offer compensation – all adjustment is manual.
Weight Nikon specifies 590g for the FE and 540g for the FM, making the FE slightly heavier.
Serial Numbers FE serial numbers begin with 3000001 (prefixed by FE), FM serial numbers begin with 2100001 or 2100020 (prefixed by FM).

The Semi Professional Series

The similarities between the two models are unsurprising as the FE followed the FM in a series of small, semi-professional SLRs: the FM, FM2, FE, FE2, FA, FM3A. All these models shared the same rugged, copper-aluminium alloy (duralumin) internal chassis and general design ethos. An at-a-glance comparison of the FE and FM cameras is shown in the table below:

	FM	FE	FM2	FE-2	FM-2n	FM3A
Shutter	Mechanical	Electronic	Mechanical	Electronic	Mechanical	Both
Automation	None	Aperture	None	Aperture	None	Aperture
Max. Shutter Speed (Sec)	1,000		4,000
Flash Sync (Sec)	1/125		1/250
Lens Compatibility Since	1958		1977
Introduced	1977	1978	1982	1983	1984	2001
Discontinued	1982	1983	1984	1987	2001	2006

FE and FM camera series (excluding Cosina manufactured FE10 and FM10)

Why the Nikon FE was Important

The Nikon FE was important to Nikon for two reasons. Firstly, the electronic Nikon F3 professional camera was already in the works and pro acceptance of electronic shutters was essential. These new shutters and the battery dependence they created were a major cause for concern for conservative pros. The Nikon FE had a popular reception and the positive press coverage it generated helped to overcome the negative sentiment towards electronic shutters that was current at the time.

Secondly, Nikon needed a competitive offering in the amateur/enthusiast market. At that time the market was shifting away from heavy mechanical camera bodies to more compact bodies with microprocessor electronic automation. Nikon a needed a camera to compete in that fast growing market segment. The Nikon FE’s electronic shutter allowed it to include automatic aperture priority and enabled Nikon to introduce it as a replacement for the older Nikkormat EL and Nikon EL series.

Oxford, shot with the Nikon FE (Ilford XP2 400)

Shooting with the Nikon FE

Batteries are ready available. You can use a pair of button alkaline LR44s or a single lithium Duracell 1/3N. I chose the later option.

Loading film is straightforward. Once you have slid the safety lock towards the rear of the camera you can lift the film rewind knob. Raising the rewind knob completely pops the back of the camera back open. Load the film ensuring the perforations along the edges of the film mesh with the sprockets. When the film is engaged with the spool, press the camera back until it until it snaps into place.

The ISO film speed setting control is on the same ring as the exposure compensation control, on the right of the top plate. You depress the button to the right of the dial to set ISO and lift the ring to set the film speed. It works fine once you are used to it.

Looking through the viewfinder, the aperture you have selected is displayed in a small window to the top of the frame. This is the Nikon Aperture Direct Readout system. To the left there is a shutter scale that displays both the selected shutter speed and a light meter readout via a pair of needles. The longer, thinner black needle is connected to the light meter. In auto-mode this needle indicates which shutter speed will be used, whilst the thicker, shorter green needle is set it A.

In manual mode the green needle is set by the shutter speed dial and needs to be matched to the light meter reading shown by the other needle. You can adjust either the aperture or shutter speed to obtain a match. It’s a great system and in good lighting, I prefer it to the LED system of the F3 and FM2n. With needle matching I almost never use aperture priority as full manual seems so intutive.

The Next Generation

Nikon updated their compact SLR range with the release of the Nikon FM2 in 1982. The new model featured a much faster titanium shutter (1/4000th of a second vs the FM’s and FE’s 1/1000th), an enhanced light meter and an increased flash sync speed.

In 1983, Nikon introduced the Nikon FE2 with an improved shutter (same maximum speed but reduced shutter travel time) and improved damping. The following year Nikon updated to the FM2 as the FM2n, which took the improved shutter from the FE2. Later FM2ns adopted an aluminium shutter, presumably to reduce production costs.

Nikon FE Hampton Gay Manor — The Ruined Manor at Hampton Gay in 2024. Shot with the Nikon FE on Kodak TMAX 100

The FE Vs FE2

The FE2’s biggest advantage over the FE is a 4x faster shutter, but the FE does have a few advantages of its own.

Power Switch The FE’s power switch is very simple – just pull out the film wind handle. It’s a little more cumbersome on the FE2, the film advance lever has to be pulled open (to unlock the shutter release), followed by a half push of the shutter release. It then automatically shuts off to save power.
Battery Test Light The FE has a dedicated battery test light, which the FE2 lacks
Battery Life This FE uses less battery power than the FE2 because its faster shutter needs stronger shutter springs and the batteries have to power the electromagnets to cope.
Non-AI Lenses The FE can use Nikon lenses going back to 1959, while the FE2 can’t use non-AI lenses.
Pre Frame 1 Metering The FE2 light meter doesn’t engage until the counter on the film advance gets to 1. Before 1, the shutter always fires at its single manually operated shutter speed – 1/250th of a second. The FE does not have this feature, which is designed to prevent long exposures with the lens cap on, allowing the user to take a shot or two before frame 1.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Intuitive needle matching light meter – especially useful in dynamic lighting conditions
Aperture-priority semi-automatic exposure mode in a small, lightweight package
Modern, automation equipped mount for non-AI lenses
Dedicated battery test light makes it easy to see battery status
Removable focusing screen provides some options
Inexpensive to buy

Cons

1/1000 second maximum shutter speed can be a limitation in bright conditions (this can be overcome with filters of course)

Conclusion

I really enjoy shooting with the Nikon FE. It occurs to me that it is an ideal camera to get back to film with – suitable for beginners to experienced photographers. It isn’t going to replace the awesome FM3A in my affections, but it is a piece of Nikon history that is rewarding to shoot with, and, given its replacement value, one I am happy to take anywhere.

Thoughts and Further Reading

If have experiences to share with the Nikon FE, please leave me a comment below. I’d be delighted to hear from you. And if you are interested in classic or vintage cameras, there are articles on this site on:

The Nikon F – Nikon’s first SLR
The Nikon F3 Pro Camera
The Nikon FM3A – Nikon’s last manual SLR
The Nikon F6 – Nikon last film camera
The Konica I – Konica’s first rangefinder
The Kodak Folding No 2 Autographic Brownie
Fox Talbot and Early Photography
Wet Plate Photography
From Chemistry to Computation (Photography timeline)
Pictorialism
Timeline of Early Cameras

If you’ve any experience with the Nikon FE, please leave me a note in the comments – I’d love to hear about it.

The Photojournalist of Apocalypse Now

Posted on June 13, 2023August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

This article started as research into classic film cameras in movies, which led me to movies featuring photographers, and to my favourite movie Apocalypse Now, featuring Dennis Hopper as a manic photojournalist. The search for the origin of Dennis Hopper’s crazed character then took me on a voyage of discovery that proved to be nearly as winding as the Mekong River…

The greatest movies featuring photographers — Dennis Hopper, festooned with Nikon Fs, as the manic Photojournalist in Apocalypse Now, shot by still photographer Chas Gerretsen

The Photographer of Apocalypse Now

In Apocalypse Now Dennis Hopper plays an unnamed disciple of the deranged Colonel Kurtz (Marlon Brando), who leads a renegade army of American and Montagnard troops from a remote abandoned Cambodian temple.

Hopper’s photojournalist appears at the end of Captain Willard’s (Martin Sheen) journey up the fictional Nung River to terminate Kurt’s command due to his ‘unsound methods’.

Hooper greets Willard as the ne plus ultra of combat photography; bearded and unkempt, wearing full camouflage with a red headband and sunglasses and covered in Nikon photography gear, some of it visibly battered.

Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now

Hopper’s improvisational skills and unconventional acting style shine through in his depiction of the Photojournalist. His character serves as a representation of the war’s impact on the human psyche, showcasing the blurred lines between sanity and madness in the midst of chaos. Hopper’s performance brings a sense of unpredictability and instability to the film, mirroring the disorienting nature of the war itself. Francis Ford Coppola has talked admiringly of Hopper’s dedication to his character, saying, “Dennis Hopper was out there being crazy, as usual. He was mad, but I loved him. I loved working with him.”

The Literary Inspiration for The Photojournalist

The Photojournalist appears in only three scenes, but despite these brief appearances, Hopper’s role is central to the sprawling story.

The Photojournalist is based on The Harlequin in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, a Russian sailor who was Kurtz’s only European companion for several months before the steamboat arrives, and who acted as his listener and advocate.

The Role of the Photojournalist

The Harlequin and The Photojournalist are both insiders obsessed with Kurtz’s genius who attempt to convert outsiders to his way of thinking. Here is the Photojournalist’s unsuccessful attempt to justify the severed heads on poles outside Kurtz’s headquarters:

“The heads. You’re looking at the heads. Sometimes he goes too far. But… he’s the first one to admit it.“

Both cut absurd figures: The Harlequin with his colourful patches and cheerful demeanour in such a hellish environment; the Photojournalist a parody of the crazed hippy combat photojournalist in a headband. Both have a tendency to babble.

This is the Way the World Ends

Although the Photojournalist speaks many of the The Harlequin’s lines they do not play identical roles. The Photojournalist is also illustrative of the heavy price war photographers can pay, particularly the blurred lines between observer and participant and the internal conflicts set off by the accompanying moral ambiguity. The unimaginable trauma of Kurtz’s bloody compound and all that came before it must also weigh very heavily:

“This is the way the fucking world ends! Look at this fucking shit we’re in, man!“

An Ounce of Cocaine

Coppola builds the photojournalist’s crazed dialogue around lines from the Heart of Darkness and poems by Rudyard Kipling and T. S. Eliot. These are combined with Hopper’s hippy jive talk, which may have been delivered ad lib, fuelled by Hopper’s prodigious drug intake on set.

Hopper was reputed to difficult to work with on set because he was almost always high. George Hickenlooper’s documentary about the production Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse supports this: “Dennis recounted the story to me that Francis came to him and said, ‘What can I do to help you play this role?’ Dennis said, ‘About an ounce of cocaine.’

A Pair of Ragged Claws

This is in stark contrast to Coppola’s extensive use of poetry in the Photojournalists dialogue, which comes from Kurtz reading poetry to the The Harlequin in Heart of Darkness. The exceptionally strange last line of the speech below is from T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Captain Willard : Could we, uh… talk to Colonel Kurtz?

Photojournalist : Hey, man, you don’t talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m… no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…

The photojournalist’s evident admiration of Colonel Kurtz is because he had enlarged his mind, which is also what The Harlequin admired so greatly about Kurtz in Heart of Darkness.

We Were All Crazy

The role was suggested to Coppola by the set stills photographer Chas Gerretsen, the still photographer for film. Describing war photographers he told Coppola that “we were all crazy” – and so the role was born. Chas had served in Vietnam and routinely carried Nikon F’s, some of which he sold to the production company for use in the film.

When Dennis Hopper arrived on set Chas was asked to advise Francis Ford Coppola: “on how to dress a combat photographer” and the role of Dennis Hopper as Captain Colby was changed to the photojournalist. Chas sold three of his old Nikon F cameras with lenses to the production company and they were used by Dennis Hopper in the film. The Nikon F cameras are on display in the Coppola Winery Movie Museum.

FORGET IT

All that was left to do was to replace the role of Captain Colby, Willard’s predecessor, in which Hopper had originally been cast. Colby appears only very briefly and does not speak, surrounded by Montagnard natives and stroking a rifle. His appearance is set up in Willard’s briefing:

“There has been a new development regarding your mission which we must now communicate to you. Months ago a man was ordered on a mission which was identical to yours. We have reason to believe that he is now operating with Kurtz. Saigon was carrying him MIA for his family’s sake. They
assumed he was dead. Then they intercepted a letter he tried to send his wife :

      SELL THE HOUSE
      SELL THE CAR
      SELL THE KIDS
      FIND SOMEONE ELSE
      FORGET IT
      I’M NEVER COMING BACK
      FORGET IT

Captain Richard Colby – he was with Kurtz.“

Bad, Dope-Smoking Cats

The Cultural References section of Sean Flynn’s entry in Wikipedia references him as the basis for the Photojournalist in Apocalypse Now. Though it is not substantiated it is entirely possible. Flynn, along with Englishman Tim Page, are portrayed as the lunatic journalists and “bad, dope-smoking cats” of Michael Herr’s classic book on the Vietnam War Dispatches.

Herr went “chopper-hopping round the war zone” with Page and Flynn, taking huge risks according to one reviewer of Dispatches. He later collaborated on the narrative of Apocalypse Now.

In Dispatches Herr described Page as the most extravagant of the “wigged-out crazies running around Vietnam”, largely due to his drug intake. Page’s Wikipedia page also describes him as part of the inspiration for the character of the Photojournalist, who specialised in wigged-out craziness:

“One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can’t travel in space, you can’t go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions – what are you going to land on – one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That’s dialectic physics.“

I thought dialectic physics was pure invention and part of the madness. It is not, and is helpfully described as “a living method of cognising nature and of searching for new truths in modern science, and in physics in particular” in M. E. Omelyanovsky’s Dialectics In Modern Physics.

In Like (Sean) Flynn

Whether he acted as an inspiration for the role or not Sean Flynn, the only child of hell-raising screen legend Errol, has one of the most fascinating, but also one of the saddest stories of the war.

Initially following in his fathers footsteps as an actor (his first film was Son of Captain Blood, sequel to his father’s classic Captain Blood), he abandoned the craft to start a new life in Vietnam as a combat photographer.

He exploits are truly intrepid. He shot his way out of an ambush with the Green Berets with an M16; incurred injuries from a grenade fragment in battle; made a parachute jump with an Airborne Division, and identified a mine whilst photographing troops, saving an Australian unit from potential destruction. Flynn used a Leica M2 in Vietnam, and it came to light, complete with a strap that fashioned from a parachute cord and a hand grenade pin, just a few years ago.

The Disappearance of Sean Flynn and Dana Stone

In 1970 Flynn was captured by Viet Cong guerrillas at a checkpoint along with fellow photojournalist Dana Stone. The pair had elected to travel by motorbike rather than the limos the majority of photojournalists were travelling in. Neither he or Stone were seen again. Despite the efforts of his mother to find him, Flynn was declared dead in absentia in 1984 and the fate of two remains unknown, notwithstanding the continued efforts of friends and the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), the organisation responsible for recovering the remains of fallen soldiers.

Sean Finn’s story is told in a film inspired by his life entitled The Road to Freedom which was filmed on location in Cambodia in 2011. It also the subject of an eponymous track on the album Combat Rock by The Clash.

A CIA Kurtz?

Whilst the role of Colonel Kurtz and his ‘unsound methods’ was clearly inspired by ‘Heart of Darkness’, there is another potential influence which is less well known. This is revealed in the UK documentary ‘The Search for Kurtz’ which describes how CIA Paramilitary Operations Officer Tony Poe and his leadership of Operation Momentum, which was launched in 1962 to turn the Laotian Hmong people into anti-communist guerrillas.

The Wrath of Klaus Kinski

Another significant influence for the Vietnam river epic is Aguirre, Wrath of God by Werner Herzog, starring a barely sane Klaus Kinski in the role of his life. The story follows the self styled ‘Wrath of God, Prince of Freedom, King of Tierra Firme’ Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of conquistadores down the Amazon River in search of El Dorado, city of Gold.

It is an astonishing and spectacular film, described by Robert Egbert as is “one of the great haunting visions of the cinema”. Curiously, I did not make the connection with Apocalypse Now until researching this article. Like Apocalypse Now, which was troubled by a heart attack, an overweight star, a mental breakdown and storms that destroyed the sets, the filming of Aguirre is the stuff of legend. Herzog allegedly pulled a gun on Kinski to force him to continue to act in the remote fever-ridden jungle district where the film was shot.

Has a character in a movie, especially an unnamed one, ever had such a rich set of sources?

The Photojournalist’s Cameras

The Photojournalist’s cameras are Nikon Fs with a variety of lenses; possibly a fast 50mm, a 105mm and a 200mm. This isn’t a a surprising photographer’s rig as the Nikon F, along with the Leica M2, was the leading film camera of the Vietnam war and carrying multiple cameras was common. Richard Crowe a former Combat Cameraman who served between 1966–1972 described the practice on the Q&A website Quora:

“If we are talking about photojournalists, they usually carried two to three 35mm cameras each with a different focal length lens. Nikon and Leica cameras were the favorites and the photojournalists usually owned their own equipment. The guys that I worked with often carried both a Leica with a UWA lens and two Nikons with normal and short telephoto lenses. The Canon SLR cameras of the day would often not stand up to the rough usage and dirt and grime in Vietnam. The photojournalists began to paint the silver portions of the camera bodies black so the camera would not be a point of aim for a sniper. Later on, camera companies began to supply cameras with black bodies and called them “Photojournalist Models”. BTW: no photojournalist that I knew or met ever carried a zoom lens on his camera. The early zoom lenses for SLR cameras were pretty crappy in image quality.”

Notable Vietnam War Nikon F users included Eddie Adams, Larry Burrows, Tim Page, Henri Huet, Dana Stone, Philip Jones Griffiths and Don McCullin, whose F famously stopped a bullet from an AK47.

The Legacy of the Nikon F

The Nikon F was not the first SLR, that distinction belongs to the Exakta, which is the subject of another blog about photographers – Rear Window. Prior to its introduction, however, no SLR could challenge the mighty German rangefinder in the 35mm camera market; SLRs were often compared unfavourably to rangefinders as heavy, slow and less than reliable, with dim viewfinders.

The F swept away that dominance and many professional photographers abandoned Leica for Nikon. Leica lost its market dominance and never recovered it, though it has prospered in its niche of late.

Photographer of Apocalypse Now Nikon F — The long shadow of the Nikon F

The Nikon F brought many advancements to market simultaneously:

A system camera with interchangeable viewfinders and focusing screens
An automatic diaphragm and an instant-return mirror, which made it the quickest SLR by far.
An impressive lens line up
A large reflex mirror that kept the viewfinder bright, and reduced vignetting
A 100% viewfinder, an SLR first
A focal plane shutter with titanium-foil blinds—also a first

These advancements made the technical advantages of the SLR over the rangefinder compelling. The need to match lenses to frame lines and for external viewfinders to use wide angle lenses disappeared. Gone too were the framing and parallax compensation issues and the limitation on zoom and lenses longer than 135mm.

Over time the F became legendary for indestructible levels of reliability and durability. It still casts a long shadow.

The Legacy of Apocalypse Now

Apocalypse Now is an iconic movie, savage and darkly comic, and an expedition through insanity from start to finish. It is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made. I have watched it many times and it has retained its power for me.

Robert Egbert said of it: “Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam film, one of the greatest of all films, because it pushes beyond the others, into the dark places of the soul. It is not about war so much as about how war reveals truths we would be happy never to discover.“

The Greatest Movies about Photographers: Rear Window

Posted on June 11, 2023August 31, 2025 by Nigel Williams

This article was inspired by classic film cameras in movies – specifically , Leicas and Nikons. From cameras in movies, it’s a short step to movies about photographers. My favourite movie with a photographer as the lead character is Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, and I was intrigued by the camera and telephoto lens Jimmy Stewart used in the role – hence this article.

Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window contains probably the most iconic photographer/film camera combinations in movie history. The film is based on a short story, “It Had to Be Murder” and stars Jimmy Stewart as LB ‘Jeff’ Jeffries, a New York magazine photographer. Recuperating from a broken leg, Jeffries is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment in Greenwich Village.

Jeff’s rear window looks out onto a courtyard and his neighbour’s apartments, which he observes during his convalescence in a stifling Manhattan summer. The include a lonely middle-aged woman, a new wed couple, a dancer, a husband and his sick wife, an alcoholic pianist and a couple who often sleep out in the balcony in the hot weather. Jeff’s observations include some suspicious sounds and behaviour and he becomes convinced one of his neighbours, Lars Thorwald, has committed a murder.

Inspirations for a Murderer

Mischievously, Hitchcock modelled the murderer on a former meddling producer he did not care for, David O. Selznick. Grace Kelly plays the archetypical Hitchcock blonde heroine in Lisa Carol Fremont, a stylish and resourceful socialite who has to engage in much of the action as Jeff is wheelchair bound. Although he did not write the the screenplay, Hitchcock also supplied colour for the murder story from two cases he head read about in the newspapers: the infamous Dr. Crippen and the less well remembered Patrick Mohan, both of whom dismembered their victims.

The Role of the Photographer

Rear Window is another of my favourite films, and the role of the photographer is pure Hitchcock. David Campany describes it well in the essay Re-viewing Rear Window:

“For Hitchcock’s purposes, a photographer is above all someone who looks. It is their socially accepted voyeurism that is significant, not their images. Voyeurism requires a safe distance, a vantage point for the observer beyond the reach of the observed (much like a movie audience, watching but not accountable). In Rear Window, the photographer is cut off not just by the lens of his camera, or by the glass window of his apartment, or indeed by the abyss of the courtyard across which he stares. It is his professionalized looking, with its fantasy of objectivity, that cuts him off. It demands his separation from the world. Despite witnessing what he believes is a murderer covering his traces, he feels no urge to get it on film. Rather, he uses his camera’s long lens as a telescope to watch, swapping it for binoculars when things get really intense.”

That Obscure Object of Desire

Jeff’s camera was an Exakta Varex VX 35mm film SLR made by the improbably named Ihagee of Dresden, which was in East Germany at the time. This manufacturer is best known for the Kine Exakta (1936-1948), the first 35mm single-lens reflex (SLR) camera in regular production.

The Exakta Varex VX was introduced in 1951 and was based on the Kine Exakta. The Exakta Varex VX was a system camera that could be used with either a waist level finder or with a pentaprism and a variety of focusing screens. Other specialised equipment available for the camera system included microscope adaptors, extension bellows, stereo attachments and medical attachments.

Exakta as Witness

In addition to a staring role in Rear Window Josef Koudelka used an Exacta Varex to photograph the invasion of Prague in 1968. He had returned to Czechoslovakia from Romania recording his photo-essay Gypsies (also with an Exacta Varex) two days before the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.

These photographs, of crowds staring down the barrels of tank guns, defiant youths waving resistance flags in smouldering streets and anti-Soviet graffiti that sprang up every day and was whitewashed every night, came to define one of the pivotal moments of 20th-century history. However Josef Koudelka would have to wait another 16 years for an exhibition at London’s Hayward Gallery before being credited as the photographer. Until then, the pictures had been attributed to PP (Prague Photographer) to protect Koudelka and his family from reprisals. Josef Koudelka: the lonely, rebel photographer

Rear Window

In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window the Exakta Varex VX was paired with a huge 400mm telephoto lens; the catchily named Kilfitt fern-kilar f/5.6 model. The f/5.6 400mm lens weighed 1.76kg and almost certainly required a tripod to obtain sharp shots.

Collectively the camera/lens combination is known as the ‘Rear Window stalking camera’ and is much desired by collectors.

Although scarcely known today beyond its association with the Hitchcock classic, Kilfitt was an innovative German lens manufacturer who introduced the first production varifocal (zoom) lens for still 35mm photography – The Zoomar of 1959, which arrived the same year as the Nikon’s game changing F. Kilfitt also produced the first macro lens to provide continuous close focusing in 1955. If you are interested in photography milestones such as these, take a look at the timeline on this site.

My Own 400mm Rear Window Lens

Greatest movies featuring photographers - Rear Window — The Nikon 400mm f3.5 prime mounted on an F6

I have a 400mm lens prime also. Not wanting to spend several thousand on a lens I would use only occasionally I purchased an old school manual focus Nikon Ai-S 400m f3.5 IF-ED from a Japanese eBay seller.

A Beast of a Lens

It’s an all-metal 2.8kg beast of a lens, a whole 1kg heavier than the Rear Window 400mm, and built like the proverbial tank. Mine came with a protective clear 122mm filter, which made it even better value. It is an amazing piece of kit but not the most practical. There’s no VR and it requires a tripod and a gimbal head, which makes the combined shooting weight pretty substantial.

The first version of the lens was introduced in 1976 and was followed in 1977 by an Ai version. Mine is the Ai-S lens version introduced in 1982 and which can be identified by the minimum aperture number which is engraved in orange. The expression ‘they don’t make them like that anymore’ was never more true than with this lens which is an incredibly solidly engineered piece of work.

I used it originally for shots of the moon with the Z7 and the FTZ adapter using focus peaking, but I have recently acquired the new 100-400 mm zoom for that kind of shot. It’s better optically of course, and far lighter, but has nothing like the presence. I’ve kept the old monster for use with my older Nikon cameras – the F series and FM film classics. Sometimes, only film will do.

Other Movies Featuring Photographers

Whilst my favourite movie with a photographer as lead is Rear Window, but there are many others featuring photographers. My favourite is Apocalypse Now – the subject of another article on this site, but here’s a list of some of the most notable of the others.

Blow-Up (1966)
Double Exposure: The Story of Margaret Bourke-White (1989)
Proof (1991)
The Killing Fields (1991)
High Art (1998)
Pecker (1998)
Harrison’s Flowers (2000)
Gentlemen’s Relish (2001)
City of God (2002)
Closer (2004)
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)
Everlasting Moments (2008)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013)
Kodachrome (2017)
Photograph (2019)

A Road Trip in The Faroe Islands – Part II

Posted on June 4, 2023January 25, 2024 by Nigel Williams

Getting To The Faroe Islands

The date for our departure on our long anticipated road trip in the Faroe Islands finally arrived on the 25th May 2023. Our first was flight from Stanstead, UK to Aalborg, Denmark, an old city on the Limfjord where Viking ships once sailed. As it was a late afternoon flight with a decent layover we had time to head into the city for quick dinner with our Danish friends who would be accompanying us in Aalborg.

The final flight, on Atlantic Airways, arrived at Vágar Airport (Vága Floghavn in Faroese, IATA: FAE). This is the sole airport serving the Faroes on the island of Vágar. The landing was flawless, despite a nasty cross wind. The airport was built by the British Army during World War II and site was chosen largely because it was hard for German warships to observe from the sea! This is not the only legacy of the British in the Faroe Islands, as the locals apparently continue to enjoy British staples such as fish and chips and Dairy Milk chocolate.

It was late when reached the Hotel Brandan in Tórshavn so we retired after a quick night cap.

For those interested in photography, in addition to the shots on this page, you can find my black and white gallery here. Also on this site, Part I of this blog provides a bit more background to The Faroe Islands and describes why it is well worth visiting.

Where to Stay in The Faroe Islands?

We had a short debate about where to stay in The Faroe Islands, particularly as to whether we should stay in a remote location or in the city. Although we found some lovely cabins out in the wilds, eventually we decided that it would be best to base ourselves in the capital city Tórshavn. We found this decision suited us very well.

We travelled to some fairly remote locations during the day and Tórshavn felt like a metropolis in comparison. The Hotel Brandan was comfortable, hotel amenities were very welcome, the staff were friendly and the excellent breakfast set up us nicely each day.

Road Trip Day 1. Rain, Vestmanna and The National Gallery

We awoke full of excitement on our first full day, and after breakfast headed for the village of Vestmanna (West Men), on the northwest coast of Streymoy, the main island. It is a short drive, just half an hour or so from our hotel. We took the scenic mountain road Oyggjarvegur and stopped near Kaldbaksbotnur, a village of just two farms, near Kaldbaksfjørður and took in the spectacular views of the fjord.

Amazing light in Kaldbaksfjørður, seen from Kaldbaksbotnur

Vestmanna is a medium sized Faroese village best known for boat tours to the Vestmanna bird cliffs. The boat was sailing that day, but as we had already booked two other boat trips and it was raining we elected to visit the Saga Museum by the harbour and grab a coffee. Piracy was a common hazard in Vestmanna for centuries and features quite heavily in the various stories told by the wax figures and accompanying audio at the Museum.

The Epic Voyage of St. Brendan The Navigator

The first of the waxwork figures we encountered is of an Abbot. This figure, and accompanying audio, tells the story of St. Brendan The Navigator, an Irish Monk. He is important in the story of The Faroe Islands because of the epic journey he is said to have made across the North Atlantic in the sixth century, which was recorded in a ninth century text. During the voyage, Brendan visited an island which he described as The Paradise of Birds and a larger island described as The Island of Sheep. It’s not hard to see how this could have been The Faroe Islands, an archipelago whose name means Island of Sheep.

The National Gallery, Listasavn Føroya

We returned to Tórshavn, a name that rather pleasingly translates as Thor’s harbour. For the mythologically inclined, Thor’s most nautical myth is an account of his fishing trip to catch Jörmungandr (Jormungand) the Midgard Serpent.

On the return journey we took the other (non-scenic, but still scenic!) road from Vestmanna. We had a pleasant walk around Tórshavn harbour before heading for Listasavn Føroya, the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands, which is a great rainy day location to visit.

The National Gallery houses a large collection of nearly 3,000 works of Faroese art of which only around 10% are displayed in the museum’s permanent exhibition. These are divided into themes, and the museum is well worth visiting. There was a lot of great work on show, but I particularly enjoyed the work of Sámal Joensen-Mikines, Edward Fuglø (particularly ‘Colony’) and Rannva Kunoy. There are trees around the museum which is quite a novelty on the Faroes, which is treeless across most of the islands.

In the evening we dined at Áarstova, a lamb and seafood restaurant in Tórshavn. It is named after the house two famous local poets, Hans Andrias Djurhuus and Janus Djurhuus, were born in. The food, setting and service were all excellent.

Day2 . Wind, Klaksvík and Gjógv

The second day we headed to Tórshavn to Klaksvík via Route 10 and the Eysturoy tunnel. This incredible feat of engineering, which took several years to compete, shortens the drive from just over an hour to a little over 30 minutes. All the sub sea tunnels charge a toll, which was applied by our hire car company. It was exciting to see the world’s first undersea roundabout (aka the jellyfish roundabout), after which we drove up the East coast of Skálafjørður, the longest fjord in the Faroe Islands, passing half a dozen or so small villages.

Encountering a Skrid

The view Gøtuvík near a turf-roofed farmhouse

There is a very small road about halfway across one of the narrowest parts of Eysturoy which provides wonderful views of the bay of Gøtuvík. We stopped and took a few shots there. It was so windy we could hardly stand up straight to take our photographs. Reading a local weather report later, that was hardly surprising as we were experiencing a skrid – a gale force (8) wind. Beyond that, at force 9, is a stormur a strong gale, and a hvassur stormur, which blows at storm force 10.

Syðrugøta – and a Saga

We rounded the end of Gøtuvík bay, passing Syðrugøta, where The Faroe Islands’ most famous Viking age Chieftain Tróndur í Gøtu (c. 945 – 1035) is said to have lived. He is a central character in the Færeyinga saga, the Faroe Islands’ saga which tells of the arrival of Christianity, and his opposition to it.

For those interested in the strange world of the Norse I can highly recommend a book that provides a thoroughly entertaining deep dive into it: The Children of Ash and Elm. This is written by a scholarly archaeologist who happens to posses a great sense of humour.

Shortly after we passed Syðrugøta it started to rain quite heavily and the wind picked up, but this didn’t deter the women playing football on a windswept pitch in one of the small towns we passed through. We were in awe of their resilience.

On to the Northern Islands

After crossing Leirvíksfjørður, the fjord that separates the islands of Eysturoy and Borðoy, via the 6km long Norðoyartunnilin (The Northern Isles Tunnel) we drove into Klaksvík, the capital of the four Northern Islands; Borðoy, Kunoy, Kalsoy, and Viðoy. Borðoy was the only one of the four we visited, but we got great views of Kalsoy later that day from the village of Gjógv.

Klaksvík – The Harbour amongst the Mountains

Klaksvík is the main fishing port for the islands and the second largest city. Despite this, before the sub sea tunnel Norðoyartunnilin opened it must have been quite isolated. It is in an impressive location, sitting between two fjords and surrounded by high mountains that rise from the shoreline, which made for some great pictures.

A Faroese knitwear shop, Tógvhandilin, beckoned. Klaksvík is one of three main towns with shops, the others being Tórshavn (the clear leader) and Runavík. There is a knitwear festival in the islands each year. Each of us bought something – hats, mittens and a sweater. Faroese knitwear is very well made and amazingly warm.

My hat was certainly a welcome upgrade when we were out at sea later on the trip. Before we left we had coffee and something to eat at Fríða Kaffihús, a nearby café. This recommendation came from the knitwear shop and proved to be a winner.

Spectacular Gjógv

Our next destination was Gjógv, a small, colourful fishing village located on the northeast tip of the island of Eysturoy, overlooking the island of Kalsoy. It is about 30 miles from Klaksvík and is located at the end of a deep valley, with no other villages in sight.

We parked and walked down towards the village, which sits on either side of a river. The majority of Gjógv’s houses are modern but colourful and make for a lovely spectacle as you walk down the hill towards the sea. It was a lovely start, but it gets even better.

Walking down to the shore we found breath taking views over the volcanic shore to the Island of Kalsoy. One of our party observed that the coast resembled one she had seen in South Africa, and having seen something similar myself, I agreed. The village gets its name from a 200-meter-long gorge, which was used for centuries as a natural harbour and is also quite something to behold.

Some Welcome Waffles

After taking in the views for some time we enjoyed the local speciality of Faroese waffles (vaflur) with rhubarb jam at Gjáarkaffi, a tiny coffee house. It turns out that rhubarb is one of the few vegetables that grows in the tough climate of the Faroe Islands. My memories of British rhubarb and custard are not especially fond ones, but the slightly sharp jam was a superb accompaniment to the waffles.

One of the old photos in Restaurant Barbara

A Different Kind of Surf and Turf

We drove back to Torshavn, well pleased with the day, and completed it with dinner at Barbara. This is a fish restaurant, which serves a multi course tasting menu described as tapas. It is set in a very old turf-roofed house which has an interior full of character. I particularly liked the old black and white photos of life in the Faroe Islands in the early twentieth century. We had high expectations of the restaurant and it did not disappoint, though like all the best restaurants in town, the bill was quite steep.

Day 3. History: Kirkjubøur and Sandur

Next up on our road trip was Kirkjubøur. This is the country’s most important historical site and the southernmost village on Streymoy. Here, in close proximity, are the ruins of the Cathedral, the oldest church still in use, and an ancient log house which has been continuously inhabited since the sixteenth century by one of the leading families of the Faroe Islands. Most of the houses in the village are dressed in classic pitch-black with turf roofs and there are views of the islands of Hestur, Koltur and Sandoy.

Kirkjubøur was the seat of the Faroese bishop from the 12th century until the Reformation, and the church there was the most important in the islands. The medieval village was larger than it is today with around 50 houses. Most of these were washed away by a storm in the 16th century.

What remains is still fascinating.

Kirkjubøargarður/Roykstovan

The farm house Kirkjubøargarður is one of the oldest constantly inhabited wooden houses of the world and the oldest part, the Roykstovan, (the smoky room) dates to the 11th century. This part of the building is open to the public. The Patursson Family, who have played a number of important cultural and political roles in the history of the Faroes, has occupied the farm since 1550 and is still resident.

Saint Olav’s Church – Ólavskirkjan

Saint Olav’s Church or Ólavskirkjan dates from about 1250 (though I’ve seen older dates). What is agreed is is that it is the Faroe Islands oldest church still in use.

Saint Olav is the patron saint of the Faroe Islands (and of Norway). He is celebrated each year at Ólavsøka (Saint Olav’s Wake), a two-day celebration held on 28th and 29th of July. Many Faroese gather in the capital Tórshavn, some in traditional Faroese dress, greeting those they meet with “Góða (Good) Ólavsøka!”.

A set of carved pew ends from the church, known as the Kirkjubøur chairs, are now in the National Museum. We didn’t get to that museum on the trip, but there are some great images of them on a set of postage stamps issued by Postverk Føroya in the 1980s.

The museum also holds a runestone, the Kirkjubøur stone, which was found in the church in 1832. The glass art in the front gate was made by painter, sculptor, glass artist and explorer Tróndur Patursson.

The Epic Brendan Voyage – Part II

In 1977 this intrepid member of the Patursson family accompanied British explorer and historian Tim Severin across the North Atlantic on the Brendan, a replica of a replica of St. Brendan’s currach in an attempt to prove this feat was possible. It was! Setting out from Tralee, Ireland, this remarkable, two-masted boat of ancient design, wrapped with ox hides and sealed with animal grease, successfully made the 4,500 mile crossing, arriving in Newfoundland Canada. The voyage took over 13 months and the route took in the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands and Iceland.

St. Magnus Cathedral

The ruins of San Magnus Cathedral (Film, Nikon F3)

Close to both St Olav’s church and Kirkjubøargarður farm house is Magnus Cathedral, a ruined cathedral, built around 1300, which is commonly said to have been abandoned before it was a finished, though recent research suggests it did indeed get a roof. The ruins are the largest medieval building in the Faroe Islands and stand as a reminder of a time when the small village it looms over was the religious centre of the islands.

On an overcast day it has a pleasingly mysterious atmosphere, though curiously only my film shots were able to capture it. These were taken on a slightly battered Nikon F3, which was the camera that got me back into film photography.

As a black and photographer, I am fan of atmospheric ruins, particularly if they have a story to tell, and I have been photographing a local ruined manor in Oxfordshire for many years.

The Crossing to Sandy Sandoy

By way of extreme contrast to the epic Brendan Crossing, our first sailing in the Faroes was the short ferry crossing from Gamlarætt to Skopun on Sandoy. This is the only island in the archipelago with sand dunes. The ferry rolled considerably in the swell but the journey took less than 30 minutes. This service will soon be replaced by a sub sea tunnel which is under construction. Our point of arrival, Skopun, is a niðursetubygd, a unique Faroese term for a settlement or village of modern origin (19^th century) which has no outlying land belonging to it.

The Old Church in Sandur

From Skopun we drove down to the town of Sandur, walked around the old church which is the 6th on the site, and took in the view. The first of these churches was an 11th century stave church. Also dating from the 11th century is a hoard of silver coins that was found in the graveyard. The sandy beaches may have welcomed settlers well before the Viking age as evidence of settlement in the 4th-6th century was found on the island in 2007.

Returning to the harbour at Skopun we took some pictures of some old abandoned boats just beyond the harbour, before boarding the ferry and returning to Tórshavn via Gamlarætt.

A Literary Lunch

We had a late lunch in the Paname Café in Torshavn after a wander in the excellent bookshop that is in the same building. The fare in the café was first rate. The bookshop, H.N. Jacobsens Bókahandil, was established in 1865 and is the oldest in the islands. The building that houses the café and bookshop has the classic Faroese grass roof and red exterior and is quite a landmark in Tórshavn. It’s a great place to hang out for a while.

Another wander in the old town was followed by a short rest at the hotel and before we knew it was it time for dinner, which we took in the hotel. The bar was crowded with Icelanders who seemed to be having a most excellent time.

Day 4. Sea Stacks and a Waterfall into the Sea

Our last day of our road trip on The Faroe Islands took us on Route 50 back to Vágar, the home of the airport in the western part of the Faroe Islands. We crossed via the sub sea tunnel and drove through Sandavágur with its landmark bright red-roofed church. Soon we reached Sorvágur, a little town most visitors frequent only to sail to the famed bird island of Mykines.

Later that day we would heading out to the sea stacks by boat. After a short wander around the harbour and town we headed on to Gásadalur and its famed waterfall that empties into the sea.

A Miss and A Myth

We passed Lake Leitisvatn, also also known as Sørvágsvatn, and more commonly the Floating Lake because of the optical illusion it presents when seen from Trælanípa cliffs. This view requires a one hour hike. Though we planned to see this, to our regret we didn’t make it.

We did however, see the silver statue of a Nykur (also known as a Nixie or water spirit) at the lake. We took this to be a prancing horse, but despite its equine form this is no pony, but a sinister mythical beast and the subject of Faroese legend.

The Nykur has the rather unfortunate habit of luring the unwary to mount it or touch it, after which its sticky skin keeps them attached and they are dragged down and drowned in the lake. The word Nykur may well be related to Old English nicor (water monster) used in the epic poem Beowulf.

Gásadalur and Múlafossur

Gásadalur is home to the spectacular waterfall Múlafossur. There are only about 30 waterfalls that empty directly into the sea in the world and I had never seen one before. It is quite something, and made all the more special by the seabirds that fly in front of it.

A farm dog followed us as we walked towards the waterfall and wanted to play. We threw a stone for him which he ran after and jealously guarded for a while, before realising it. He stayed with us for some time.

Nearby the waterfall in Gásadalur is a café and guesthouse in a working farm, Gásadalsgarðurin, which sells local art and serves locally sourced food. Here I tried another local delicacy – fermented meat. The farm breeds bull calves organically and their fermented meat is used in a beef soup. The soup has been recognised at Embla, the Nordic Food Awards.

Drangarnir

We walked around the harbour and then to the boat, where we met our skipper, an avuncular and highly capable Faroese named Elias.

We had booked the boat to sail to Drangarnir, the Faroe Islands’ most famous rock formations. There are two sea stacks, Stóri Drangur (large sea stack), a spectacular sea arch, and its companion Lítli Drangur (small sea stack).

Beyond the stack stacks lie Mykines. We had booked a trip to the island earlier in our stay but never reached it due to bad weather, which is not uncommon.

Elias talked of his life in The Faroe Islands and the childhood he spent there. It was great to hear directly from a Faroese. His description of an active life, bound by community and much closer to nature made a great case for life on the islands. We also learned that our food in Gásadalsgarðurin had been cooked by his mother and served by this sister!

Bøur Beach and Village

We sailed past the picturesque village of Bøur, which must have one of the best views in the islands. It overlooks Drangarnir, as well as the uninhabited islands of Gásholmur and Tindholmur. There is a tiny beach of black volcanic sand nearby, which is likely be one of the quietest beaches in the world.

We finished the day at Katrina Christiansen – a fish restaurant with a history. The building is early eighteenth century and the informative website describes how it started as a barbershop, before becoming a general store and home to William Heinesen a well known Faroese poet, writer, composer and painter. The menu offers a choice of tasting menu, and both fare and service were excellent, with the cod cheeks and Faroese beef and mashed potatoes being the standouts.

Return and Reflections

A typical view on a road trip in The Faroe Islands

Our return to the UK was via Copenhagen as the connection at Aalborg was just too tight for comfort. I will confess to feeling a little lost when I returned to Oxfordshire and kept my slightly battered and much annotated map of The Faroe Islands in my pocket for a few days. The post holiday blues have passed now and I am extremely happy and grateful to have been able to make the trip.

A road trip in the Faroe Islands is a much more practical proposition than I had thought and the islands are quite unlike anywhere else.

I saw some of the most stunning landscapes in the world – rugged, sculptured, dramatically lit, and painted shades of green I have never seen before. They are also largely untouched and possess a distinctive and fascinating cultural identity.

Beyond The Faroe Islands: Other Road Trips on this Site

If you’ve enjoyed reading about our road trip in The Faroe Islands, you might enjoy some of the others I have made.