On Mon, 22 Sep 2014 00:32:43 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

I deviced to take apart an orignal Nikon F 35mm camera today, to see
what's inside.

About 5000 parts is the answer, for a completely mechanical 35mm camera.

There were easily hundreds of screws, mostly of differnt types and clearly
no concept of standardized parts.

I took the rest apart with a hammer and pliers. The magnesium? body was
pretty brittle so the hammer worked great.

The thing was clearly overly complex for what it does, cleary not designed
to be easily serviced, and clearly built to use as many different
components and specialized tools as needed.

Does anybody know if these were designed to simply create lots of busy
work for people? I think the basic design was from the late 1950s this
this particular one being made in the early 1970s.

I've seem some German rifles that were made this way too, with as many
parts as possible crammed in, none of which were even truly needed.

What's the deal with this? When did this rediculous fad finally go away?

Old VCRs used to be overly built the same way with too many mechanical
parts.

Has anybody come across any other products, new or old that just appear to
be some sort of socialist work program, and not about making a machine
that works, at a reasonable price and that can be easily serviced?

I don't know the answer to your question, but there are a few things
you could consider. First, the Model F was designed to outperform the
competitors in Germany as well as in Japan: Contax and Exa, primarily.
Things like the quilted titanium-foil shutter were the best in the
world, and Nikon lenses had, at that time, contrast superior to Zeiss
and sharpness superior to Leitz.

Second, many of the parts were taken from the Nikon rangefinder models
of the late '50s, which were largely Contax copies. They were fairly
complex. Then Nikon built the SLR on top of that design.

Another thing is that they conceived the F as a system camera from the
start. For my F I have a 250-frame motor back; look-down viewfinder;
interchangeable finder screens; and so on. To accomodate all of those
options required more complexity.

In the end, it proved to be about the toughest and most reliable SLR
going. I worked in NYC for what was then the world's fourth-largest
publisher; we all used Fs, and we all had them serviced at the shop in
midtown that serviced all of the Life and Time magazine photogs.
Service was quick, cheap, and expert. A few blocks away was the Nikon
service center in Rockefeller Center. They were not as quick, and
possibly not quite as good.

My F is still in occassional use, on my copy stand. It is on its third
shutter and has had ungodly amounts of film run through it (I wasn't
paying for film or processing. g) It still works perfectly.

However, for work now I use a Sony NEX-7. I love it but I don't rely
on it, because I have no idea what goes on inside and if it craps out,
I'm screwed. I have always carried a backup camera. Sometimes now it's
my F or F2.

--
Ed Huntress