For the last year or so, I have been lucky enough to own a Nikon FM3a SLR 35mm film camera and I thought I’d share my thoughts and opinions of living with the camera.
My Nikon FM3a is a black model, as I purchased this hoping it would hold it's resale value, I opted for the more expensive black option
The Nikon FM3a is a very traditionally built but thoroughly modern SLR camera. The camera’s industrial design is clearly Nikon throughout and the minimalist style is reminiscent of the 70′s and 80′s camera’s that you might imagine a photojournalist touting around a foreign war zones. In fact the reason that I bought the FM3a is that I was fed up carrying my bulky D300 around towns when I was meant to be enjoying a weekend away or a city break. The small and light Nikon FM3a did not disappoint me. My new FM3a allows me to casually walk the streets without getting fed-up with my camera and without drawing too much attention to myself.
It is a fantastic carry everywhere SLR. It is nearly as portable as a point and shoot digi-cam but I feel safe in the knowledge that I am not sacrificing image quality by reducing the quality of my camera system.
The FM3a adopts Nikon’s brand leading F-mount lens system. The camera will accept all F-Mount lenses that include a manual focussing ring. One should note however that the newer Gelded Nikon lenses; ones that contain a ‘G’ at the end of the model number; cannot have their aperture controlled; and the lens will only be useable at the maximum aperture. this basically means that all pre-2003 lenses are A-OK for use with the FM3a, which is handy because that means any lenses you may choose to buy will be second hand and should be a good deal!
Automation has been incorporated just perfectly in this mechanical camera. The film speed is automatically read via the DX coding that is present on all film canisters. The camera also includes a TTL centre weighted exposure meter, which allows one to manually select the aperture and shutter speed to suit. The camera also allows for Aperture Priority exposure mode – so the camera will automatically select the shutter speed to correctly expose for the lens aperture selected. Aperture Priority is an ideal level of automation to allow one to select a preferred depth of field / shutter speed for artistic puposes while not becoming bogged down in setting dials.
The image shows the match needles on the left hand side of the frame and the metering circle in the centre of the image
Manual exposure is achieved utilising the ‘match needle’ metering tool that is presented vertically along the left-hand edge of the finder window (see above). The match-needle tool displays a needle that represents the camera’s recommended shutter speed based on the electronic meter and the selected aperture. A second needle shows the user-selected shutter speed, the vertical distance between the two needles; if any; represents the exposure compensation applied.
Should the battery die, the camera may be operated in entirely manual mode, a function that is unique as far as I know and which Nikon call a Hybrid Shutter – hybrid electro-mechanical, just like a modern car!. Although I could never take a photograph without automatic exposure, it can be done with the Nikon FM3a! In fact, should your camera battery die, you could use a handheld light meter or even an iPhone app such as ‘Light Meter’ to perform your exposure calculation for you, while you keep on snapping battery-free with the FM3a.
One challenge that I discovered when I first attempted to use the FM3a is that the Matrix Metering performed by my D300 is so good that I could not properly expose the film while using the FM3a! I thought that my FM3a was faulty and was not calculating film exposure properly – in fact I was at fault on two counts 1.) Not understanding how the centre weighted metering works – 2.) Not remembering to press the exposure lock button!
By quickly learning the basics of the zone system via online cheat sheets, I was able to use the FM3a’s exposure compensation dial to achieve perfect exposure of more tricky lighting more reliably. Please see below a very good explanation of the compensations to be applied to meter readings that I have borrowed from Ken Rockwell:
These compensations are based on your subject pretty much filling the centre of the exposure meter circle….
| Exposure Zone | Description |
|---|---|
| -3 stops (Zone II) | Your slide film goes pretty black here. Don’t do this unless you want something pretty much completely black. Yes, you can see some detail on Velvia even at -4 stops (Zone I), but good luck trying to print it. |
| -2 Stops (Zone III) | Normal shadows in landscapes are set here. You will use this a lot. This is about as much underexposure you can use and still have detail. For instance, make a spot reading of the shadow and set your camera to underexpose that shadow spot by two stops. If you are lucky everything else will fall into the proper exposure. You don’t really need luck: use your spot meter to make sure that at the exposure you set that everything else falls where it ought to per this chart. |
| -1 Stop (Zone IV) | Very few things are set here. This is a dark middle tone, like a red painted barn. |
| Normal exposure (Zone V) | This is where you set middle tones or a gray card. Sometimes the north sky is set to normal (+-0). Oddly, in many scenes there is no middle tone, which is why spot meters usually cannot be used without knowing the zone system. Sometimes green grass falls here. |
| +1 Stop (Zone VI) | Medium light parts of an image. Skin and granite rocks go here. For most landscape photos you’ll set your light rocks here, and the shadows at -2 stops. Bright yellow is set at +2/3 stops. |
| +2 Stops (Zone VII) | White things like snow and sheets of white Fome-cor are set here. |
| +2.7 Stops (Zone VIII) | This is where slide film goes clear |
It has taken me rolls and rolls of film to remember to press the exposure lock button!
To use the above table, let’s say I want to take a photograph of my girlfriend – who is very pale skinned. I know that I want her skin to be exposed perfectly even if it means sacrificing the background of the image so I dial a ‘+1’ stop compensation into the FM3a’s exposure compensation dial. I fill the meter circle with the subject (my girlfriend, remember!), press and hold the exposure lock button and re-frame the photo how I want it, before pressing the shutter button.
It has taken me rolls and rolls of film to remember that half-pressing the shutter button doesn’t lock the exposure on the FM3a! I have learned that my FM3a does not poorly expose film, I DO! I have become overly reliant on the excellent matrix metering system.
Unless you are in fully manual mode flash sync speed max’s out at an excellent 1/250th of a second and the FM3a packs another neat trick up it’s sleave – a flash fill button. The button is located on the left hand side of the camera’s viewfinder, and reduces flash output by 1-stop [when using Nikon speedlight flashes] to allow for subtle flash-fill of sunlit subjects.
Taking my FM3a out for the weekend leaves me with an age-old problem – how am I going to get my photos onto my computer for editing / posting online! Regular readers will already know the answer to this question, I capture the film, and invert negatives whenever I use film.
The Nikon FM3a is a great camera for any experienced photographer. If you can get familiar with the rough workings of the zone system to tune the centre weighted metering then you will achieve great results as I have. The camera takes button cell batteries and will take great photos for as long as 35mm film is available. For some example photographs taken with my FM3a, please see Colour Negatives and Black and White photo galleries.
What ever happened with the 35 prime and 85 replacements? We don’t need more cameras we need good lenses.
Dear John,
(Pardon me while I chortle for a moment at the thought of starting a letter by writing ‘Dear John’.) Hello from grey and wet Melbourne, in Australia: the rain is falling, the fire is warming; and in the empty minutes before I try to make my dinner I have found your post about the Nikon FM3a, and now I feel the need to say a few words. I have owned this camera for seven years; I have also owned an FM2 (a Dragon Series model) for nine years and a near-mint-condition second-hand FA for about four months. I believe that the 3a is quite possibly the best 35mm camera ever made for anyone who is truly serious about film photography (certainly, the best SLR camera), and about the art and craft of making photographs that are intended to last for hundreds of years. I do sometimes feel an urge towards the purchase of a Leica MP; quite apart from the cost, however, my reason for not doing so is the fact that a circular polariser cannot be sensibly used on a rangefinder camera. Australia is blessed with a lot of hard light, so a polarising filter is a necessity. Leaving that little point aside, however, the underlying reality is that the 3a is a genuinely brilliant camera that will only become more valuable and more highly-regarded as time goes by. In the right hands – that old obvious phrase – and with the best eye (and heart, and head) the 3a can produce an image as great and timeless as any other from the long history of photography – and my personal and professional leaning is towards documentary photography, which in my opinion is exactly what a serious camera is for. So, I do hope that you will use yours to make good pictures for a long time to come. (I hope the same for myself.)
Cast your eye over my creaky Flickr site to see some of my images (not all of which were made with the 3a, as for a long time my main body was a Minolta 9000), and find and read ‘The Ongoing Moment’ by Geoff Dyer if you have not already done so.
For the moment, dear John,
With my regards,
Christopher