Just landed a very-near mint Nikon FA Silver. Just as beautiful as all pre AF Nikon and with a wonderful sounding shutter. However, there are some things to ponder:
1. The FA doesn't have an exposure lock button/lever. I use this basic function all the time while shooting with my FE2 in A mode. The matrix metering in the FA was claimed (by Nikon) to make AE lock obsolete when the camera was released back in the eighties. However, since even contemporary pro segment Nikon DSLR sometimes fail to suggest correct exposure, I wouldn't trust this pioneer version matrix algorithm over my own experience, for instance in backlight conditions. Has anyone worked out a convenient method to provide something like AE lock, part from switching to manual mode?
2. In program mode, there seems to be no way to display what aperture the camera is choosing. Perhaps spoiled by the info flow in modern cameras, I feel a bit blindfolded and a bit out of control (of the camera settings, not mentally). For instance, when I compose an image in A or M mode with f2.0 and focus on an item far away but keep something in the foreground, I know from experience that the foreground is going to be blurry without having to press the DOP lever. But in P mode on the FA the aperture could be anything between the lens' two end positions, causing completely different looks. I suppose that photographers in the eighties would've reacted the same way to this missing information, or what?
Greatfull for your input!
Thanks
Ulf, Sweden
1. The FA doesn't have an exposure lock button/lever. I use this basic function all the time while shooting with my FE2 in A mode. The matrix metering in the FA was claimed (by Nikon) to make AE lock obsolete when the camera was released back in the eighties. However, since even contemporary pro segment Nikon DSLR sometimes fail to suggest correct exposure, I wouldn't trust this pioneer version matrix algorithm over my own experience, for instance in backlight conditions. Has anyone worked out a convenient method to provide something like AE lock, part from switching to manual mode?
2. In program mode, there seems to be no way to display what aperture the camera is choosing. Perhaps spoiled by the info flow in modern cameras, I feel a bit blindfolded and a bit out of control (of the camera settings, not mentally). For instance, when I compose an image in A or M mode with f2.0 and focus on an item far away but keep something in the foreground, I know from experience that the foreground is going to be blurry without having to press the DOP lever. But in P mode on the FA the aperture could be anything between the lens' two end positions, causing completely different looks. I suppose that photographers in the eighties would've reacted the same way to this missing information, or what?
Greatfull for your input!
Thanks
Ulf, Sweden
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