Amateur Photographer - UK 2019-07-12)

F I L M S TA RS

UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE, ALL PICTURES © JOHN WADE

Testbench FILM STARS

N i k o n’s

fabulous

FA

John Wade takes us through

the technological marvel that

wooed the world in the 1980s

N i ko n FA

LAUNCHED 1983

PRICE AT LAUNCH £390 with 50mm f/1.8 AI-S lens

GUIDE PRICE NOW £250 with 50mm f/1.8 AI-S lens

I

n its time, the Nikon FA was a

technological marvel. A vertically moving

focal-plane shutter with titanium

curtains gave a top speed of 1/4000sec.

It was Nikon’s fi rst single lens refl ex (SLR) to

offer shutter priority, aperture priority, manual

and program modes. Most important of all, it

was the world’s fi rst camera with automatic

multi-pattern (AMP) metering. Today, such

metering is taken for granted. Your digital

camera probably uses it without you even being

aware of it. But in 1983, it was revolutionary.

The FA is compact but pleasingly chunky,

measuring 14.3x9.2x9.5cm with a standard

lens in place and weighing just 800g.

Compared to modern digital cameras with

Nikon FA, the world’s

first camera with

automatic multi-

pattern metering

Left: On the body

and the lens, the

slightly modified

mount used by

Nikon AI-S lenses

Right: Inside

the camera,

showing the

vertically moving

titanium shutter