Nikon F3HP: Still the King!. Review on Nikon F3HP

Mr. “hower” has already done a great job with his F3HP review. So, excuse me if I don’t get into technical matters in detail.

I bought my Nikon F3HP along with a bunch of accessories in 1983 when the product was spanking new on the market. An Olympus, a Canon and a Leica have come and gone, but the F3HP stayed. I am a hobbyist and it would be fair to say that my F3HP has probably not gone through the rigors of what might have been in the hands of a professional. But after more than a decade, with performance that seems just ‘out-of-the-box’, it is bound bring out the Ansel Adam or Ragu Rai in you.

Built like a Sherman Tank, it could be a bit unwieldy and weighty for some. And those who wish to take the ‘scenic route’ via auto-focus-and-point-n-shoot, please stay clear. However, if your interest lies in wildlife, sports, nature, rural and city scapes, or commercial photography, and if you have the time to sit-and-compose, get the F3HP, that is, if you can lay your hands on one! With a whole horde of lenses and thousands of useful accessories made for it, it could still be a versatile and reliable tool in the hands of any pro or budding wanna-be. Manual SLR may be the classification, but with the availability of aperture priority auto-exposure (you select the lens aperture, and exposure meter will select the shutter speed in step less fractions) make it a breeze for even first-time graduates to the SLR world.

The focal plane shutter on this camera is probably one of the best ever made in the world, quiet and fluid. In twenty odd years, my camera has been to the service guys twice, mainly for checkups on shutter speed accuracy. Both times it was returned to me with no adjustments required! The material and build quality of the die-cast body can probably take more abuse that anything else on the market. A friend of mine once dropped his F3 with the lens mounted, down a flight of concrete staircase. It came to rest some fifteen steps or so below. Heart stopping stuff all right, but what happened? Nothing, I repeat, nothing happened! He got away with a couple of scratches and a tiny dent on the bottom-plate, and the camera went on working. All he had to do was change the base plate and that again for cosmetic reasons.

The bright viewfinder is another big plus. Eyeglass wearers (like me), will love the HP (High eye Point) version. Another good thing, if you’ve drained your batteries on some remote location, you still use the camera on ‘manual’ mode, that is, if you know your f-stops and apertures. My camera has gone from the sub-zeros of the Rockies to plus 45s of the Arabian deserts, freshwater to saltwater fishing trips, yet it has never failed.

Any cons, you ask? Sure, a few idiosyncrasies exist, but the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Even with a standard size lens at the front, the ‘get-a-hold-of’ is not as ergonomic as one would wish, even for a horizontal frame. Vertical frames are trickier than that. The weight and shape of the grip makes it somewhat awkward unwieldy. Remember, the ‘grip-bulge’ for the right hand did not evolve until the auto-everything and digital gear came many years later. So, we could say that the F3 was the forerunner on the ‘grip-bulge’ thing. Nikon just did not bother to give it a bigger ‘oomph’. Mount a telephoto or a zoom lens, and we are now looking at tripod territory.

Add that motor-drive that they call MD4, now the camera is fit for use only low or zero gravity zones, like the moon. Incidentally, a specialized version of the F3 did eventually go to the moon! In fact, those who do use the MD4 motor-drive, have confided that they do find that balance is somewhat better even though the whole contraption weighs a ton.

The tiny red button that lights up the exposure values within the viewfinder during night is something you need to go to college and graduate on ‘macro-thingies’. It is almost impossible to locate and press with your eye on the viewfinder. Another thing that one could nit-pick is the slow flash synchronization speed (1/80th of a second).

Getting to flash photography, the hot-shoe location can bother some. It is located right on top of the film speed dial. With the dedicated Nikon Speedlight SB16A (which, by the way, is the only flash unit that the F3HP will accept) mounted on the camera, it is simply not possible to change the film speed. The flash unit has to come off if you want to dial in a new ASA setting. The SB16A flash unit, which has angle-able and rotatable main zoom head and an auxiliary fill-in flash, the red-eye problems are somewhat reduced. At times I use a small Osram remote slave as a side fill-in if flash is a must.

The biggest con of all, I reckon, would be that the fact that Nikon discontinued making them. At least a F3HP-too should have followed. Anyone from Nikon reading this, please take note. Nevertheless, B&H Photo of US (https://bhphotovideo.com) is still have a few brand new F3HPs in stock, and they will ship to India, if you bear the shipping costs. Thanks to migration of film user to digital domain, near mint units at bargain prices are always available at auctions like e-bay and KEH.

My gear contains, a Nikkor 24mm f/1.2 lens, a Zoom-Nikkor 35-80, a Nikkor 180 f/2 ED lens, a Nikkor 2x tele-converter, a Bogen tripod and host of accessories like cable release, Cokin filter system etc. I have gone through about 100 rolls of films (which is on the lower side for all those years), but I can show around 90 rolls high quality printable negatives or transparencies in return. That should say something about the build-quality of the camera and it’s optics.