NIKON F4 REVIEW
All the features you’d ever need are there, the lens compatibility is amazing, and it’s built like a tank and feels like one in the hands. It’s not bad for 1988.
-Construction-
The camera is really, really solid. It’s built on a magnesium-alloy chassis and covered in super-hard plastic and rubber. I’ve heard this about a few cameras, but most often about the F4: “If you drop any old camera on the sidewalk, it’ll damage the camera. If you drop an F4 on the sidewalk, it’ll damage the sidewalk.” It is brutally well-built, but this also means it’s very bulky and heavy. It can be difficult to hold it with just one hand. However, the right-hand grip is comfortably designed and ergonomically pretty good. With the F4S or F4E (which are the versions with the different battery grips; I have the F4S) you get a vertical release and grip as well. The whole thing is very well-designed.
The top plate has the rewind knob and ASA dial to the left of the prism (similar to the F3), and to the right of the prism are the shutter speed dial, the exposure compensation dial (around which is set the PASM mode switch), the window for the frame counter, and the frame advance mode dial which surrounds the shutter release. This last one can be set to Lock (which is basically an off/on switch for the camera), Single, Continuous High (5.7 FPS with the battery grip of the F4S), Continuous Low (which I believe is 2.5 or 3 FPS), Continuous “Silent” (1 FPS with a slower mirror action and a “purring”, stuttering advance noise), or a 10-second self-timer.
On the right of the prism is the R1 switch, and on the back below the rewind knob is the R2 switch. These are to initiate the motorised rewind; you press the unlock button beside the R2 switch and turn it downwards, then you press the unlock button on top of the R1 switch and keep it turned out for motorised rewind. If you want to manually rewind the film, all you do is just turn the R2 switch and use the rewind knob. To open the back, you lift the rewind knob up while “unlocking it” with the lever just by it.
As you can see, a TON of the functions have locks and double-locks. This can occasionally make use inconvenient, but it’s reassuring to know that it’s hard to accidentally change anything.
The battery grips are all interchangeable. The normal grip (which makes it the F4) takes 4 AA batteries, the F4S grip takes 6 AA batteries, and the F4E grip takes 8 AA batteries. This is vastly more convenient than having to go out and buy LR44/S76 batteries which may or may not be fresh. There is a battery check light on the back of the F4S (and likely on the F4E; I don’t think there’s one on the normal F4).
-Finder-
The standard prism finder is removable, and its “eyepoint” is relatively high, though the magnification is somewhat less than with the F3 and many other less sophisticated manual-focus cameras. This is mostly because more LCDs have to fit in the finder; the bottom LCD displays the shutter speed, aperture (in P or S modes), and the exposure scale (+/- 2 stops in ⅓ stop increments). With this last bit, overexposure is on the left and underexposure is on the right, which takes a bit of getting used to if you’re accustomed to the opposite (Canon EOS users, take note). On top is the second LCD (my camera doesn’t optically display this properly in the viewfinder because the mirror/prism thing is broken or jarred), containing the frames left on the roll and the exposure compensation (both of which can be seen anyway if you look at the top plate), the Aperture Direct Readout window, and the focus confirmation indicator lights. Both LCDs can be backlit in pale green, via a switch under the shutter speed dial, which is quite useful in low light; I tend to use it a lot because it also makes the LCD easier to see in general.
There’s diopter adjustment on the finder, a weird little exposure compensation dial which you have to take off the finder to adjust (this is to compensate for certain focusing screens), and the metering selector switch. There are a few other finders, but only the standard finder provides matrix metering.
The standard B screen has no focus aids. Instead, it has a 12mm circle (delineating the center bias of the center weighted metering), a 5mm circle (delineating the spot metering area), and a little pair of brackets in the center (the one AF area).
-Metering-
There are three metering modes: matrix, center-weighted, and spot. Switching between them is accomplished by a switch on the prism finder.
The F4 was Nikon’s first professional camera with matrix metering (the N6006 and the FA had it, but they weren’t marketed as pro cameras), which is basically their name for multi-segment evaluative metering that accounts for difficult (usually high-contrast) situations. The frame is divided up into five segments, and the meter readings from each are evaluated by the microcomputer in the finder. It’s pretty damn accurate most of the time, but it only works with AI, AI-S, and AF(-D, -I, -S) lenses. AI-converted lenses will revert to center-weighted, which is still accurate most of the time. And anyway, there’s an AE-Lock button beside the lens mount, which is definitely helpful in tough situations. Spot metering is also handy to have, though I rarely ever use it. Whereas the matrix and center-weighted meters are located in the finder, the spot metering module is in the body of the camera, so it basically works with all lenses.
-Shutter-
It goes from 1/8000th of a second to 4 seconds in full-stop increments plus Bulb, Time, and X-sync on the shutter-speed dial, with a 1/250th of a second flash sync (which is still standard for modern-day cameras). I've never used a flash on my F4, so I wouldn't know exactly how it works. In program and aperture-priority modes, however, it goes from 1/8000th of a second to 30 seconds, and it’s stepless, but half-stop values are displayed in the finder. The timing is very accurate, and it's all electronically controlled, with no backup mechanical shutter speed like the F3 or FE have. The 1/8000th of a second shutter speed is still lightning-fast for today’s cameras, and allows shooting with fast film or wide apertures in broad daylight.
There are five modes: manual, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, program, and program-high (which prioritises high shutter speeds). Only manual and aperture-priority work with un-chipped lenses (AI and AI-S lenses, that is), whereas all modes work with chipped lenses (AF and AI-P lens).
-Lens mount and mirror-
The lens mount is the standard Nikon F-mount, but with screw-drive autofocus capability. There are seven little electronic contact plate-things along the top inside, which receive information from lenses with chips inside, and also supports AF with internal-motor lenses (AF-I and AF-S). That’s a brilliant example of thinking ahead, since AF-I lenses were only introduced in 1992 and AF-S in 1996. But wait, there’s more! It can reportedly autofocus with the two F3AF lenses, which only the F3AF (obviously), the N2020, and the N6006 can also do.
There’s the tiny lug for matrix metering on the mount. You can use Pre-AI lenses by pushing the tiny button on the edge of the mount, then flipping up the indexing tab next to it. However, Pre-AI lenses in will only meter in this mode if you push the stop-down button, which is within the MLU lever on the side of the lens above the AF-Lock and AE-Lock buttons.
Which brings me to another useful capability that you really don’t find on cameras anymore: full-time MLU capability. The F, F2, F3, F5, and a couple of mechanical Nikkormats had MLU, but none of the other pro cameras of the F4’s time had it. The stop-down button is quite useful, and I use it a fair bit.
-Autofocus-
Now I come to the single “bad” part about this camera. The thing is, the F4 was released in September 1988, and AF technology was still pretty primitive at that point. Like all other AF cameras released around that time (the Minolta Maxxum 7000, the Canon EOS-1, etc.), it has only one autofocus point, and it’s a horizontal sensor located in the center of the frame. Because it’s a horizontal sensor, it really only can detect vertical lines, and then only really if the contrast is somewhat high. If you try to focus on a low-contrast subject, it will hunt. It’s very usable in bright light and medium light, but in low light, it really sucks and you have to find a high-contrast vertical or close-to-vertical line to get it to lock on.
The three modes are fairly standard: Continuous, Single, and Manual, and they’re controlled by a switch on the right side of the lens mount (as you face it). There’s an AF-Lock button on the left side of the lens mount, beneath the MLU lever/stop-down button but above the AE-Lock button. The AF-Lock button can be turned into a coupled “AF-AE-Lock” button by turning the switch right next to it.
Basically, you really have to get to know how the F4 autofocuses before you stick an AF lens on it and expect it to be amazing.
-Other things-
Basically, if you’re already a user of Nikon manual-focus cameras, you’ll adjust fairly quickly to the F4. A lot of functions are in the exact same place. The exposure compensation dial being on the right side, though, can be a bit confusing. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of contiguity between cameras like the F3, FA, and FE2, and the F4. I think something that Nikon fumbled on with later cameras like the N90, F5, and F100, as well as all of their DSLRs (except for the Df), is the command-dial method of controlling exposure and other settings. Having a camera such as this, which has a bazillion different functions while still retaining the tactile controls of earlier cameras, is really a treat.
-Pictures-