kundansen's Full Review: Nikon FM10 35mm Film Camera
Do you like stick shift autos, do-it-yourself kits, and want to get a hands-on on taking good pictures? This camera may just be for you.
Warning - if you are looking for an SLR to graduate from your all-automatic point and shoot, or think of the camera as an automatic device that takes 'good snaps', this camera is almost definitely not for you.
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The Good
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I have used a pentax k1000 for the better part of my life, and this just makes me feel I am back into the Pentax. Here's what you get with this piece of equipment:
1. Lightweight, durable, all-manual construction. The only part requiring power is the built in light meter. This means that chances of landing up in the situation of a live camera with a dead battery are remote - and even in such cases, if you can guess the aperture, you are fine without the cell. You'll never get stuck with a film in mid-rewind position, anyway, since the rewind mechanism is totally manual. The body is pretty small, so you won't have to tug along extra bags to hold camera equipment.
2. Compatible with most Nikon lenses. For those of you looking for the exact lens mount specifications, look into the spec sheet for the camera. I have used this with my 50mm f1.8 and 24mm f2.8 with excellent results. Of course, the quality of the pictures depends on the quality of the lens, but my point in mentioning the lenses was that it feels good using these general purpose lenses on this camera - nice grip, nice balance, and lightweight, so you don't have the pain in the wrist at the end of the day.
3. ** Has depth of field ** This is really good. For the price you are paying - I checked B&H Photo, they have the FM10 with 35-70mm f3.5-4.8 lens for $225 - this is a great feature. Most of the lower range automatic SLRs do not have this - my N70 lacks this. For those of you who are expert photographers who have lens properties at the tip of your fingers, the depth of field may not be important, but for the likes of me who are just learning the ropes, I find it really helpful.
4. Manual focus with split screen. As far as my knowledge goes, the split screen is among the easiest to focus screens available. Someone please correct me if I am wrong. The automatic cameras rarely have this screen - I read a review somewhere that said that just because it's an automatic, it can't have the split screen, since this makes it difficult for the camera to take distance and focusing decisions correctly from the lens. Anyway, with this split screen focusing, all you have to do is focus on a straight line on the subject - a strand of hair, the rim of the glasses, a tree branch - if the focus is exact, the line will be unbroken - anything less, and you'll see a visible break in the line. This is so much better than the matte screen my N70 has - the matte gives plenty of room for error, specially in less-than-adequate lighting conditions.
5. Multiple exposures - Again, a feature that the lower end SLRs do not have. This has a button in the lower plate that you press as you wind the frame - this causes the camera to 'charge up', ready to shoot, without actually advancing the film, giving you brilliant scope for double (or more) exposures. Takes some getting used to - you have to keep the button pressed firmly, otherwise you'll end up advancing the film partially, and be neither here nor there kind of a situation - a half double exposure - that will spoil both the frames.
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The Bad
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Oh well - there are scores of bad points, if you are comparing with the state of the art in professional SLR cameras - most of which come because of the fact that this is not an automatic camera. I mean - do you really expect this $225 piece to compete with a $2000 F5? Well, you can't, and it's really that simple. Then again, if you are not a professional photographer, and would like to learn photography, an automatic might not be the best choice, for the following reasons:
a) If you have the auto-focus, you'll hardly ever focus yourself. This is not that bad in most cases - I find people to grow progressively irritated if they have to see you focus for a minute before taking a party shot - but then when you want to take great pictures in more relaxed moments, you should go for the manual focus. For one, you get more involved with the picture. Plus, you can easily go for enhanced techniques like the hyperfocal distance, which the auto-focus cameras do not generally provide (the newer cameras of Nikon are coming with this mode, but they are much more expensive).
b) In an automatic camera, the art of taking a picture is reduced to so simple a process, that you just want to take the shot and get moving - this, more often than not, leads to poor composition. Some people recommend shifting to medium format for this - the medium format development and printing process is more expensive, and it somewhat forces you to think twice and make better judgements before calling a shot.
As you can see, for the price it's worth, this camera is really good - it'll teach you to take better pictures without wasting too much of your money. As always, the lens (and filter, etc. - the whole optics chain) is what finally decides on how sharp the picture can get (how sharp it actually is - is often dependent on how much you goofed up) - so instead of pouring the money into a better body with automatic features, get hold of a few better lenses.
For starters, I recommend the following lenses, in this order:
1. 50mm f1.8 - the most popular lens of all times, is amazingly sharp, has a very good aperture range, and costs just about $100.
2. 24mm f2.8 - a lens that I am rather pleased with in the wide angle category. Low distortion, great sharpness, much less expensive than comparable sharpness zoom lenses.
If you have these two lenses, rarely will you feel the need for a zoom in this range - between 24mm and 50mm, you can pretty much select a different composition by moving back and forth. You'll need a long zoom for the long shots - I like the 70-300 zoom, though it's not a fast lens like these ones - but that will have it's toll on the balance of the camera, since this body is much lighter than the lens itself.
Note reuse of lenses - both of these lenses will shift smoothly to automatic Nikons like the N60, N65, N70, etc. - I have tried them on these, but they should work on pretty much any Nikon body. So once you want to move on, keep your lenses, and change the body. The 24mm lens costs more than the FM10 body, so you don't want to throw it away too soon.
Go ahead, try this out, preferably from a store having a return policy - if you find this camera is not for you, return this and maybe go for the Nikon N65.
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