Nikon F4 Review - Blending the Eras

In today’s episode, Jules and I review the Nikon F4, a 35mm single-lens reflex camera introduced in 1988. The F4 was Nikon’s first professional camera featuring a practical autofocus system. The F4 accepts almost all of Nikon’s manual focus or autofocus lenses from 1959 to the present day. Like its predecessor F3, it was designed by Giorgetto Giugiaro. But while the F3, already introduced in 1980, was built until 2001, the F4 was already discontinued in 1997 shortly after the new flagship model F5 hit the market in 1996. In terms of its size, handling and control layout, the F4 could be described as a “transition camera” retaining some features of a traditional manual focus and manual film advance camera but already introducing features which became wide-spread during the auto-focus and automatic film advance era. The F4’s electronics, LCD display in the viewfinder, programmed auto-exposure, and matrix metering were quite future-oriented while the camera still retained dedicated dials for shutter and aperture speed, metering and focusing modes as well as exposure compensation. We took the camera out to an aircraft museum around Munich - almost exactly four years after our first trip there for the Olympus OM-1 review. We also took a little photowalk in the English Garden and shot a few macros of a watch dial. In total, we exposed two rolls of Delta 400 and one Kodak E100. Gear used: Nikon F4 with MB-20 Nikon F4 with MB-21 Nikon 28mm f/2.8 AF-D Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D Nikon 24-120mm f/4 AF-S Nikon 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 AF-S Nikon PB-6 Films used: Ilford Delta 400 Kodak E100 If you enjoy our videos and like to follow us on Instagram, find us here: https://www.instagram.com/analog_insights/