Nikon Issues Small Recall for a 16-Year-Old Film Camera (opens in new tab)

I loved (not really) how sometimes on Caltrain, if the trains were delayed, you could get on a delayed train after you had planned to travel, and get home sooner than if the trains had been running on time.

(I'll let you think on that puzzle.)

> this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.

Why don't they just build out BART between Millbrae and Santa Clara? Once the Silicon Valley Extension is finished, BART will be almost a loop around the Bay except for that gap.

At Tokyo Narita airport, it is (well, was) running at capacity and if a flight is delayed, another flight may be rescheduled to an earlier time.

Think of how much worse tight connections are when your connection leaves earlier than it was supposed to!

The article explains that this recall is in response to a 2019 European rule change.

When I worked in midtown Manhattan, NYC I could show up basically whenever as a salaried engineer, but the administrative staff of our office were paid hourly and scheduled to show up at a certain time. They also all lived further out with more transfers so more chances of delay on the subway. The answer from their boss was "plan that into your commute" even though the variance could be 40 minutes for a real delay. Perverse!

Does someone actually care enough to check the slip? The few times I've been late due to things like this (flat bike tire, crazy traffic, train delay, whatever) my boss was just like ...ok try not to let it happen again and possibly documented it somewhere. I have been salaried for the most part, maybe if you're hourly you might get docked the time. When I have had someone under me and they're late once in a while I don't really care. (USA)

The F6 is the most advanced and capable film DSLR ever built. If you want/need to shoot film and you shoot subjects that are commonly done with modern digital SLRs and considered out of reach of a film camera, the F6 is the best game in town. The fastest and lowest-light-capable autofocus, the best matrix metering, digital recording of exposure data (just like EXIF but for film!), etc. It is a modern pro camera that happens to shoot film.

Most people don’t need it but it’s certainly unique. If you do need it, there is no substitute.

Nikon actually has a history of doing that as well. The Nikonos series underwater cameras were really the only thing in their class, with unique water-contact optics that avoided rainbow diffraction from the port by putting the optics right against the water. They also made unique 180-degree orthographic lenses for atmospheric surveying - measure cloud cover/etc by photographing the sky every day and get the full horizon to horizon in one frame. etc etc. They really are a fascinating company.

Check out the 1001 Nights of Nikkor, a fascinating series of stories about all that stuff.

https://imaging.nikon.com/history/story/

There's also more demand for largely manual cameras.

The F6 was the flagship 35mm SLR camera once production of new film cameras stopped at Nikon, and as such it's filled with all the features you'd expect of a flagship camera. It'll take a battery grip, it shoots at 8FPS with it, it'll take a separate data recorder to record exposure info, etc. etc.

Except that a lot of people using film today don't want that. The manual old-time simplicity and thoughtfulness is part of the selling point for a lot of those who still use film, and if they wanted to shoot at 8FPS or higher, DSLRs and mirrorless cameras are far better choices on any technical merit. I'd be surprised if the F6 ends up selling out easily.

> There’s so many used and seemingly indestructible film cameras floating around. I guess there’s some market for a factory-warranty film SLR, but I’m not sure what said market is. If I was going to shoot film, I’d find a Nikon F5, which would also double as a medieval flail for self-defense.

I heard a couple of years back that Japanese police bought F6s for evidence photography.

There is also a market of camera users who just want the "best", newest thing, with the most features. Look at the difference in prices between the Nikon FE or FM and FM3A, when they are barely different for a photographer with even modest skills

/edit or the Nikon F6 and F100

There are pros out there who want the support, but shoot film. 3000 USD for a pro is not cheap, but it's in line with other business tools.

Optical cement. Traditionally, Canadian Balsam would have been used, but there are newer adhesives that are apparently easier. I bet UV cured is a lot more practical in a production setting. See this article about using balsam to repair a doublet:

http://forum.mflenses.com/re-cementing-doublet-elements-with...

Most likely one or another optical cement, for joining lenses into a lens group, for example: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/661086-using-norland-uv-c...

Nikon and Canon's pro SLR ranges are product ecosystems with massive switching costs. They maintain all sorts of products and services that don't make economic sense in isolation, but are necessary to maintain a comprehensive product ecosystem. A professional or serious amateur might own tens of thousands of dollars worth of camera bodies, lenses and accessories; for a small but meaningful proportion of those customers, the continued availability of the F6 will be the key factor in their choice of camera system.

It's quite mechanically and electronically simple, though, by modern standards.