Nikon FE2 Review and Sample Photos

Nikon FE2 Review and Sample Photos

Nikon FE2 | Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 | CineStill 800T

The FE2 is a legend. How does one even talk about a legend? In stories around fires? With songs? Talking about a legend, about a camera like the FE2, presents no easy task, even for someone who has written reviews for dozens of cameras. The FE2 transcends words and is an experiential thing. A proper FE2 review would tell you that it is something special, like a 70s charger with a 6.1 liter hemi, that it feels good in the hands like a leather steering wheel under driving gloves, that the interface strikes a near-perfect balance between the control selection and placement like a precision-milled gated shifter plate. The FE2 is a precision machine made for the most demanding users.

In a way, this will be a proper FE2 review. The FE2 is something special, enjoyable, and fantastic. But I also simply am indifferent to it. There are cameras that I look at or think about and I say “I really enjoy using that camera. I cannot wait to use it again.” I’ve had an FE2 for almost three years and used it a couple of dozen times. There’s nothing wrong with it, yet after that first time, I never really got excited about going back to it.

Nikon FE2 | Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 | Fuji Superia 200

For those of you who love this camera, I can’t find any fault in it. It’s either the best or the second-best Nikon manual focus camera. It lacks a few of the professional bells and whistles found in the F3, but it has a faster shutter speed and simpler interface. It lacks the purely mechanical shutter of the FM2, but it has a match-needle meter readout that’s immune to the dead LEDs that the FM2 sometimes experiences. In everything photographic, there exist tradeoffs. A given shutter speed may require an aperture that’s too narrow or too deep, a film may have suitable speed but lack sufficiently fine grain. Photography is a hobby or profession of compromises, and the FE2 makes very few and the compromises it makes are largely unimportant. What that means is that the FE2 is a fantastic mix of elegant interface design and capabilities that will leave few, or no, users wanting for more.

And I don’t want more from this camera. I have no good reason why this camera doesn’t excite me, except that maybe, just maybe, this camera is too perfect, too well designed. It has exactly everything I want and expect in a camera and nothing that I don’t need. And the setup, interface, and use of the FE2 check all the boxes on what I want in an ideal camera. The FE2 is my ideal camera; no other camera ever made is a more perfect match for how I would describe the perfect camera. And when I look at it I feel absolutely nothing.

Nikon FE2 | Nikkor 55mm f/1.2 | Kodak Ektar 100

The FE2 evolved from the earlier FE, one of Nikon’s best-known advanced-user cameras. In its progression from the FE, the FE2 shed the unreliable electronics and metering issues that have become increasingly common in FE bodies. The FE2 is largely devoid of electronic issues. The FE2 has very few of its own issues, bar one, and it’s big. FE2 bodies tend to destroy shutter leaves with enough use. No FE2 that I’ve seen has ever had a problem except with the shutter. And on that point, 75% of the FE2 bodies I’ve handled have needed to have their shutters replaced. With time and use, the leaves jump their guides, jam, and damage the shutter mechanism or get creased or have their edged dented in the process. But look, who among us could do better to design a shutter that moves tissue-thin titanium leafs about one inch in 3.3 milliseconds. What I say next won’t sound that impressive, but that travel speed means that to cover a full inch in in 3.3 milliseconds the leafs have to travel at least 17.2 miles per hour, assuming a steady speed for the whole frame travel. While that speed sounds slow, getting a thin sheet of metal to move that fast tens of thousands of times without buckling or creasing is pretty darn impressive from an engineering perspective.

There’s nothing at all wrong with the FE2. There’s enough right about it to fill a book. I don’t know a single Nikon fan who doesn’t truly love their FE2. It’s a fabulous first camera. It’s a fabulous last camera. It’s a fabulous only camera. It’s a fabulous camera.

Nikon FE2 | Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 | Ultrafine Red Dragon

Detailed How-to videos:

Link to Video 1:
https://youtu.be/pbp1lD0D4Z8

Link to Video 2:
https://youtu.be/bdihtbxL9LY

Nikon FM2 Review

Nikon FM2 Review and Sample Photos

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor-PG 55mm f/1.2, Rollei Vario Chrome

Imagine with me. Mountain wind, moving up through pine forests in a valley thousands of feet below, channeled by a rocky “V”, smelling strongly of that clean smell that only pine trees make. The wind carries the cold of coming winter, the bite of tonight’s coming flurries, and the sting of dried pine needles carried up from the valley by the millions. A dog shakes his head and his chain collar sounds like tap shoes dancing to frantic and uncoordinated music. And there are friends, brothers, there, too, the wind too loud for you to speak.

Images are stories. Photographs tell us about a scene, a place, a thing or an emotion, and most of all they tell us about the photographer and what the photographer values most.

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/2, CineStill 800T

I picked up a road warrior FM2, beat and brassed from tables, drops, and doors. And without hesitation, without issue, it worked for dozens of rolls of film over two years in exceptional cold, heat, humidity, snow, morning dew or frost, dust, at two miles elevation and below sea level, sometimes much of that in the same day. Without question, comment, or hesitation it worked reliably and every time it needed to. It sat in luggage and camera bags, was slid under my car seat, bombed with dog drool, knocked against solid granite, and suffered all manner of insults and neglect that would leave most cameras in pieces.

The FM2 is one of those cameras that people go to when they know their gear will take abuse, but still need to work on demand. And yeah, that’s one of the things this camera does – take hits like a masochistic MMA fighter and keep going in for more.

But beyond this camera’ ruggedness, it has a simple, classic interface, the kind that makes it easy to hold it up to your eye, look at a scene, find in it a story and the things you value, and record it to share with others. This camera put the photographer and the subject as close as laces and shoes because it does not interfere, does not get in the middle. The simple, efficient design results in a user experience where the camera itself melts away, becomes nothing more than a red plus, zero, or minus and a quick blackout in the creative process.

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor-PG 55mm f/1.2, Rollei Color Negative 200

So let me give you five words to describe the FM2. Obsequious. Simple. Unobtrusive. Intuitive. Reliable. That’s a strong list. Nowhere in a description on the FM2 would words like intimidating, difficult, fragile, obnoxious, or complex reside. The FM2 is a photographer’s camera. And what I mean by that is everything I’ve said already – it’s reliable and does not interfere.

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor-PG 55mm f/1.2, Rollei Color Negative 200

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines Genius, in part, saying that it is “great and rare natural ability or skill.” And I would argue that’s a part of it. I like to think of genius as the ability to successfully and with good outcomes connect disparate concepts or thoughts in a creative manner, especially in a previously unconsidered way that is natural and logical once the connection exists. Can a camera be a genius? No, of course not. They’re metal and plastic, batteries and glass. There’s no brain and no thought. Can a camera’s design be genius? Can a camera’s design have a great and rare natural ability to connect a photographer and subject in a way that had previously been unconsidered but that becomes natural and logical once experienced? Yes. Decidedly yes. So does that mean that the FM2’s design is genius?

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor-PG 55mm f/1.2, Rollei Vario Chrome

Imagine with me. A family gathering, warmly lit in the glow of old, tungsten-filament bulbs. Roast turkey hot from the oven, warm and dark brown under tin foil. A kitchen full of sideline cooks, nodding at the steamy, herbed smell of the turkey, chopped bread and celery inside it, giblet gravy slowly bubbling on a back burner, a champagne cork popping in another room. And there, camera, film, a moment, light and color, smell and steam, champagne, reflex and action. So you tell me. Is the FM2’s design genius? I think we would answer that question the same way.

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/2, CineStill 800T

Nikon FM2, Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/2, Kodak Ektar 100