TTL OTF metering is indeed RIDICULOUS. I'm always amazed by the ingenuity and problem-solving skills of the people who invented and perfected these systems; I highly recommend Smarter Every Day 283 for another piece of film photography history showing this amazing ingenuity. Thanks mitxela for yet another masterpiece!
My favourite F3 accessory is the HP viewfinder. As a spectacles wearer it's the only 35mm SLR where I've ever been able to see all four corners of the frame at the same time.
your videos inspired me to become an electrical engineer and now im at college for it! thank you for creating the videos you do, i always watch the whole video and it keeps my attention the whole way, keep up the amazing work!
When I was 10 years old, a photographer explained most of these buttons to me (it was brand new then; he must have trusted me a lot). I learnt almost everything I know about photography from him. Thanks for explaining the rest of the buttons. He told me that they weren't needed to understand; I now know finally that he was right 🙂
I lusted after the F3 in the 80s, it's a fantastic bit of kit. I use an OM4 with spot metering that I love, it can also do the clever flash metering thing! Thank you for the videos.
Nice! Just got my F3hp and I love it. After 20yrs of the DSLR, will be an adventure going back to high-speed B and W. Newer DLSRs and the mirrorless camera kill it in low light situations. Film will be a challenge long forgotten.
It's fun to see just how flexible and wobbly mechanical assemblies are in slowmo. I have some 8000fps footage of a modern leaf shutter operating on my channel, it's even more wild.
This is one of the best F3 videos out there. The slow mo at the end is ---wow, added bonus. I just need the author to buy an FM3A and do a similar video :)
One thing that really struck me is just how much more controlled the mirror return is on the modern dSLR. One the old F3 it bounces pretty harshly before settling but on the dSDR it kinda drops, stops then lowers cleanly into final position.
In the case of the DX format (cropped frame) D7100 the mirror is much smaller and lighter and there's more plastic, where it makes sense to use it. However, if you think about it, from an image quality point of view it really doesn't matter. When the mirror is returning to its rest position the photograph has already been taken.
That was so interesting and enjoyable, thank you for posting! In the slow motion footage (e.g. @ 29:47) is the shutter on the F3 slightly diagonal, or is that maybe from how the slow-mo camera scans or something else?
It's a rolling shutter effect of the slow mo camera. I've confirmed this by shooting the same thing but with the F3 upside down, and the diagonal is the other way (or the same, relative to the slow mo camera)
Many years since I used my SLR... I found it a good hone via E. Bay. It's so nice to have this nostalgic "revision"... especially as yours comes to bits so well... the best "tear-downs" are the non destructive variety. Long time no see but quality over quantity is always a good thing. :)
Awesome video! I've never been a fan of the F3---I prefer the F2 and the F4. The F2 is my favorite manual camera, and the F4 the best auto camera, and the F3, being inbetween, is neither. But the F3 certainly has a loyal following, and well deserved. I didn't know it had OTF flash metering!
I teach classes in electric/ electronic engineering school. Yesterday I mentioned you and some of your projects during my class and a few hours later you posted a new video! Awesome!
That olympus rd is one hell of a great camera! Take good care of it and make sure to cock and fire the shutter once in a while to prevent it from clogging.
I Just learned a lot of things I didn't know about my F3 thanks to your video! I didn't used mine that much because I don't have the lens I want (I like 35mm lenses) so I'm getting one soon. This great camera doesn't deserve to be stored without using it and making those beatiful mechanical sounds. I have the motor drive for this and everytime I shut it I enjoy the classic shutter sound it makes. Thanks for the inspiration on getting back to take some pictures!
It was very interesting to learn about old mechanical cameras. Crazy mechanical precision and ingenuity through every part of the camera. It makes me appreciate photography and its journey through history even more. Great video as always
OK. A SECOND MIRROR DIRECTING LIGHT FOR METERING? OMG. Thank you for this information about my F3. Perhaps if I had the manual I would have know this but... This is a very helpful video as I get my F3 going again.
I could listen to you talk about paint drying. I have the patience of a spoiled 2 year old, but watched (and happily listened to) this entire video. Please carry on making videos and if you ever tire of making camera videos, please consider making videos of other subjects, especially ones which can tend to be tedious and a good substitute for sleep meds - your voice, clear explanation of the subject manner in a simple, but not trivialized way, could help many who struggle with getting thru/learning tough subjects. Thank you.
I have a Sony A7 II (Full frame DSLR) and I've been collecting vintage lenses to use with it. I primarily know photography from the new digital side, yet I'm using lenses before digital camera were even a thing. This video was an extremely helpful and thorough walkthrough of how cameras work before they became digital. On my vintage lenses I'd often see the F stop numbers written twice on the lens, and that never made sense to me. The part at 17:38 below my mind and I feel like I brain itch has been scratched. Thank you for your well explained and densely informative videos!
The mechanics of an SLR camera is genius. I still have my Nikon FM I bought this 40yrs ago new. It was on offer on deal because the FM2 had been released It's said that the spring mechanism for the higher shutter speed of 1/4000sec on the FM2 wares quicker than the lowly 1/1000sec on the FM However I don't even go to such speeds on my DSLR and Mirrorless cameras 😂 Anyhow I enjoyed this video Thanks 📷👍
8:30 dang it I was hoping you would explain how split prisms work because I don't understand it either. You can get split prisms for DLSRs too, but apparently it messes with the metering in digital cameras, so I'm curios how that works. Do dslrs somehow meter off the ground glass?
I looked it up after saying that. There is a reasonably understandable explanation by Douglas A. Kerr here: dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Split_Prism.pdf That does at least explain why the split prism goes dark when you preview the depth of field.
As a certified photo nerd i was watching it with my dslr in hand inspecting it with you. Learned a few things as well as had lots of fun lol. And i did lift the mirror in my home, your warnings mean nothing to my bravery with expensive equipment
If you get an F4, you'd get effective a Motorised F3 with an early Nikon AF system. Ignoring the super rare F6, the F5 is pinnacle of Nikon's metal bodied cameras that still have interchangeable viewfinders.
I genuinely believe that as technology progresses, we are losing something. I don't know if you could call it a "soul", or maybe it's just the sense of wonder an object can inspire. Steam locomotives have always been fascinating and they continue to be fascinating to this day. But not many people will be amazed by seeing a modern Electric Multiple Unit (EMU). Same with these cameras. A modern DSLR (never mind a modern mirrorless) blows this Nikon out of the water. There's just no competition and it wins on every single metric you can measure. But it's just not the same, is it? The Nikon has some sort of appeal to it that can't be quantified which means that you prefer it over a new camera even if it makes worse photos. Maybe it's the complexity. Maybe a mechanical system is simply more appealing to us than electronics. Maybe doing things that require more work and effort produce results which we consider "more real", if that makes any sense. But whatever it is, it's a shame we're losing it, and add that fascination is slowly dying out, less and less people want to become engineers and design these systems.
I think it's more of a materialist point of view. An Electric Motor is as intresting as a Steam engine, but one if fairly visual and understandable, and the other is pretty abstraction and you can't really visualise what's going on inside. The same goes for the nikon, what's intresting is that you can pretty much see and touche every mechanism of the camera, wherease today, everything is done digitaly, even the shutter is done in Software. It's just not the same at all. We are dealing whit an entire new field, which is mostly virtual. And this is harder to grasp for the human mind. Fact is, it's so hard that even digital shutter camera still have a setting to produce a sound whenever à picture has been taken... Which is a fake sound obviously. We are physical being, understably we have a préférence for physical and tangible things.
21:39 That is not a selenium meter, that is a CdS cell. Selenium meters are large, they would cover the entire front of the lens. They had no battery, the voltage they generated told the amount of light. Selenium meters were used in the 50s and 60s but by the 70s they were obsolete.
Lucky bastard. I've been trying to find one for a reasonable price for a few years. BTW you're wrong about the pentaprism, it's the mirror's job to flip the image vertically, the pentaprism flips it horizontally.
Have you found a good replacement for the batteries for the Olympus? I‘m thinking about those that contain mercury, they aren’t available anymore in most countries. Thank you!
It sucks that some modern cameras have other, as amazing tricks, but the build quality tends to be much lower. As you've said, I wish that some products were still at least partially metal
I watched the slowmo and when it said "F3, 1/500th" I was extremely confused. How could it be aperture F3 when there wasn't even a lens on?! Then it dawned on me. I better go to bed now...
ehhhh the F3 is big and bulky. This was 6 or 7 years after the Olympus OM1... which was tiny. Not sure why Nikon didn't try and shrink a bit. The FE2 is the better camera. Faster shutter speed. Less clunky. Also: what's with people leaving that stupid "passed" sticker on their gear? That was for imports/exports. Take that shit off. It ruins the beauty of the camera.
Наука
![Eminem - The Death of Slim Shady [Album Trailer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/X0HIrS6kUYI/mqdefault.jpg)
And by the magic of bying two! Wait... No, wrong channel... Or is it?
No one spoil the joke!
It's just like magic!
Well it's not really like magic.
I was literally just watching technology connections before this video
I thought the very same
TTL OTF metering is indeed RIDICULOUS. I'm always amazed by the ingenuity and problem-solving skills of the people who invented and perfected these systems; I highly recommend Smarter Every Day 283 for another piece of film photography history showing this amazing ingenuity. Thanks mitxela for yet another masterpiece!
My favourite F3 accessory is the HP viewfinder. As a spectacles wearer it's the only 35mm SLR where I've ever been able to see all four corners of the frame at the same time.
your videos inspired me to become an electrical engineer and now im at college for it! thank you for creating the videos you do, i always watch the whole video and it keeps my attention the whole way, keep up the amazing work!
Not often on RUclips does one get a video that explains a product so well.
I have 2 FG’s and now I want an F3.
Awesome video. Thank you.
When I was 10 years old, a photographer explained most of these buttons to me (it was brand new then; he must have trusted me a lot). I learnt almost everything I know about photography from him. Thanks for explaining the rest of the buttons. He told me that they weren't needed to understand; I now know finally that he was right 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to explain the basics of camera use. The visuals really help people to understand what is going on. 🙂👍
I lusted after the F3 in the 80s, it's a fantastic bit of kit. I use an OM4 with spot metering that I love, it can also do the clever flash metering thing! Thank you for the videos.
Nice! Just got my F3hp and I love it. After 20yrs of the DSLR, will be an adventure going back to high-speed B and W. Newer DLSRs and the mirrorless camera kill it in low light situations. Film will be a challenge long forgotten.
It's fun to see just how flexible and wobbly mechanical assemblies are in slowmo. I have some 8000fps footage of a modern leaf shutter operating on my channel, it's even more wild.
Oh this is brilliant. There's so much more elegance and design work than I realised.
The most informative and easy to understand videos with regard to manual camera operation I've ever seen. Thanks for posting.
This is one of the best F3 videos out there. The slow mo at the end is ---wow, added bonus. I just need the author to buy an FM3A and do a similar video :)
Incredible video! Thank you. I still have my fully functioning Nikon FM purchased new 1981. And have bought my 2nd well used brassy F3.
One thing that really struck me is just how much more controlled the mirror return is on the modern dSLR. One the old F3 it bounces pretty harshly before settling but on the dSDR it kinda drops, stops then lowers cleanly into final position.
In the case of the DX format (cropped frame) D7100 the mirror is much smaller and lighter and there's more plastic, where it makes sense to use it. However, if you think about it, from an image quality point of view it really doesn't matter. When the mirror is returning to its rest position the photograph has already been taken.
That was so interesting and enjoyable, thank you for posting! In the slow motion footage (e.g. @ 29:47) is the shutter on the F3 slightly diagonal, or is that maybe from how the slow-mo camera scans or something else?
It's a rolling shutter effect of the slow mo camera. I've confirmed this by shooting the same thing but with the F3 upside down, and the diagonal is the other way (or the same, relative to the slow mo camera)
This is a shockingly informative video... I learned so many things about optics & cameras in general, all in one view..
LETS GOO NEW MITXELA VIDEO
Many years since I used my SLR... I found it a good hone via E. Bay. It's so nice to have this nostalgic "revision"... especially as yours comes to bits so well... the best "tear-downs" are the non destructive variety. Long time no see but quality over quantity is always a good thing. :)
Awesome video! I've never been a fan of the F3---I prefer the F2 and the F4. The F2 is my favorite manual camera, and the F4 the best auto camera, and the F3, being inbetween, is neither. But the F3 certainly has a loyal following, and well deserved. I didn't know it had OTF flash metering!
All of this was meticulously and painstakingly designed and manufactured without computer.
I teach classes in electric/ electronic engineering school. Yesterday I mentioned you and some of your projects during my class and a few hours later you posted a new video! Awesome!
That olympus rd is one hell of a great camera! Take good care of it and make sure to cock and fire the shutter once in a while to prevent it from clogging.
It’s like Christmas every time you upload
I Just learned a lot of things I didn't know about my F3 thanks to your video! I didn't used mine that much because I don't have the lens I want (I like 35mm lenses) so I'm getting one soon. This great camera doesn't deserve to be stored without using it and making those beatiful mechanical sounds. I have the motor drive for this and everytime I shut it I enjoy the classic shutter sound it makes. Thanks for the inspiration on getting back to take some pictures!
What an amazingly satisfying and informative video!
It was very interesting to learn about old mechanical cameras. Crazy mechanical precision and ingenuity through every part of the camera. It makes me appreciate photography and its journey through history even more.
Great video as always
Fantastic! What a beautiful deep dive.
Thanks a Lot for this great content. It could be used in all photography schools 🙏📷👏👋
OK. A SECOND MIRROR DIRECTING LIGHT FOR METERING? OMG. Thank you for this information about my F3. Perhaps if I had the manual I would have know this but... This is a very helpful video as I get my F3 going again.
wonderfully done!
I could listen to you talk about paint drying. I have the patience of a spoiled 2 year old, but watched (and happily listened to) this entire video. Please carry on making videos and if you ever tire of making camera videos, please consider making videos of other subjects, especially ones which can tend to be tedious and a good substitute for sleep meds - your voice, clear explanation of the subject manner in a simple, but not trivialized way, could help many who struggle with getting thru/learning tough subjects. Thank you.
Woohoo! A new video!!!!!
I have a Sony A7 II (Full frame DSLR) and I've been collecting vintage lenses to use with it. I primarily know photography from the new digital side, yet I'm using lenses before digital camera were even a thing. This video was an extremely helpful and thorough walkthrough of how cameras work before they became digital. On my vintage lenses I'd often see the F stop numbers written twice on the lens, and that never made sense to me. The part at 17:38 below my mind and I feel like I brain itch has been scratched. Thank you for your well explained and densely informative videos!
The mechanics of an SLR camera is genius. I still have my Nikon FM
I bought this 40yrs ago new. It was on offer on deal because the FM2 had been released
It's said that the spring mechanism for the higher shutter speed of 1/4000sec on the FM2 wares quicker than the lowly 1/1000sec on the FM
However I don't even go to such speeds on my DSLR and Mirrorless cameras 😂
Anyhow I enjoyed this video
Thanks 📷👍
Great deep dive!
This is giving me ASMR vibes :D
Glorious!
I love it so much
8:30 dang it I was hoping you would explain how split prisms work because I don't understand it either. You can get split prisms for DLSRs too, but apparently it messes with the metering in digital cameras, so I'm curios how that works. Do dslrs somehow meter off the ground glass?
I looked it up after saying that. There is a reasonably understandable explanation by Douglas A. Kerr here: dougkerr.net/Pumpkin/articles/Split_Prism.pdf That does at least explain why the split prism goes dark when you preview the depth of field.
Thank you
Best unintentional asmr ever
i have an F4, nice camera !
As a certified photo nerd i was watching it with my dslr in hand inspecting it with you. Learned a few things as well as had lots of fun lol. And i did lift the mirror in my home, your warnings mean nothing to my bravery with expensive equipment
Very, very good video.
RS. Canada
Your voice is awesome
If you get an F4, you'd get effective a Motorised F3 with an early Nikon AF system. Ignoring the super rare F6, the F5 is pinnacle of Nikon's metal bodied cameras that still have interchangeable viewfinders.
Learned a lot! You should explain how colour film works. Would love to learn about it in the same detail.
I find it very interesting how DSLR's use the same mechanics as SLR's... basically just changing from film to a sensor.
HES BACK
Huh, that answers the question how the TTL metering works, never noticed the half silvering and the second mirror.
I genuinely believe that as technology progresses, we are losing something. I don't know if you could call it a "soul", or maybe it's just the sense of wonder an object can inspire. Steam locomotives have always been fascinating and they continue to be fascinating to this day. But not many people will be amazed by seeing a modern Electric Multiple Unit (EMU). Same with these cameras. A modern DSLR (never mind a modern mirrorless) blows this Nikon out of the water. There's just no competition and it wins on every single metric you can measure. But it's just not the same, is it? The Nikon has some sort of appeal to it that can't be quantified which means that you prefer it over a new camera even if it makes worse photos.
Maybe it's the complexity. Maybe a mechanical system is simply more appealing to us than electronics. Maybe doing things that require more work and effort produce results which we consider "more real", if that makes any sense. But whatever it is, it's a shame we're losing it, and add that fascination is slowly dying out, less and less people want to become engineers and design these systems.
I think it's more of a materialist point of view. An Electric Motor is as intresting as a Steam engine, but one if fairly visual and understandable, and the other is pretty abstraction and you can't really visualise what's going on inside. The same goes for the nikon, what's intresting is that you can pretty much see and touche every mechanism of the camera, wherease today, everything is done digitaly, even the shutter is done in Software. It's just not the same at all. We are dealing whit an entire new field, which is mostly virtual. And this is harder to grasp for the human mind. Fact is, it's so hard that even digital shutter camera still have a setting to produce a sound whenever à picture has been taken... Which is a fake sound obviously. We are physical being, understably we have a préférence for physical and tangible things.
21:39 That is not a selenium meter, that is a CdS cell. Selenium meters are large, they would cover the entire front of the lens. They had no battery, the voltage they generated told the amount of light. Selenium meters were used in the 50s and 60s but by the 70s they were obsolete.
speaking of cameras, did you ever release schematics and software for that receipt printer polaroid anywhere? i'd love to make one
Lucky bastard. I've been trying to find one for a reasonable price for a few years.
BTW you're wrong about the pentaprism, it's the mirror's job to flip the image vertically, the pentaprism flips it horizontally.
Have you found a good replacement for the batteries for the Olympus?
I‘m thinking about those that contain mercury, they aren’t available anymore in most countries.
Thank you!
I think some of the focus screens were meant for technical photography,
Güzel makina bendede aynısı var fiyatları ne kadar acaba
22:23 Wait do you keep holding the button or release before taking the photo?
i took 24 minutes to realize what channel i was in..
It sucks that some modern cameras have other, as amazing tricks, but the build quality tends to be much lower. As you've said, I wish that some products were still at least partially metal
Should've sent an F3 on voyager.
Its been a time
I watched the slowmo and when it said "F3, 1/500th" I was extremely confused. How could it be aperture F3 when there wasn't even a lens on?! Then it dawned on me. I better go to bed now...
⭐️🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷🇹🇷💯👍Nice machine, I have the same one, I wonder how much it costs, I will sell it, thank you.
Why don't you have a profile picture? This it a big channel
yo
Build the Smallest computer maybe
8:35 I don't consider the grid pattern focusing screens a gimmick. Have one in both my Olympus and Nikon.
ehhhh the F3 is big and bulky. This was 6 or 7 years after the Olympus OM1... which was tiny. Not sure why Nikon didn't try and shrink a bit. The FE2 is the better camera. Faster shutter speed. Less clunky. Also: what's with people leaving that stupid "passed" sticker on their gear? That was for imports/exports. Take that shit off. It ruins the beauty of the camera.