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Home >> Photography >> Film Equipment Nikon EM Introduction or:
This one is too hard, This one is too soft but This one is just
right If you’ve read my other reports on all of the above camera systems that I used briefly then you will understand a bit about what I was looking for and why. To rehash it again, I was in search of a cheap kit to use in certain types of situations or shoots, from inclement weather to the mean streets of Vancouver. I also desired a fully mechanical camera body as well for very long time exposures and this reason alone prompted me to look at the various manual offerings. I began the journey with some items already on hand, a couple of Canon EX lenses that were given to me by my wife Su when we were still dating. I finally decided to seek out the body that would work with these lenses and found it quickly enough at Broadway Camera. The EX Auto had enough going against it that I decided not to go with it and returned the body back to the store and in turn traded in the lenses I had towards another Nikkor lens, a manual focus one to boot. After the Canon EX I looked again at a source close to home and borrowed my brother-in-law’s Yashica FX-3. The poor man’s Contax? Well that would be highly insulting to the Germans to dare mention the FX-3 in conversation with Contax and Zeiss but of course we all know that Kyocera manufactures the Contax brand cameras and their companion 35mm and 645 medium format Zeiss lenses. Thus any 35mm Zeiss lens can fit any Yashica camera body as ridiculous as that would sound but it was a feature that I salivated over. That the Yashica FX-3 is so entry level cheap that it was right up my low cost alley but the Zeiss lenses are so not cheap that it would have been foolish to have attempted to buy into another brand and kit. Even used, Zeiss glass commands good prices but not too many choices are available on the used market aside from the ubiquitous 50mm f1.7 Planar. Also, after a bit of time with a fully manual camera and the need to constantly adjust exposure values in situations that I would not rather do so, I was beginning to appreciate the virtues of semiautomatic and battery operation. This led me to the Canon AE-1. I had a previous look at an AE-1 (can’t remember if it was an original or Program model) that was my boss’s. He wasn’t interested in using it anymore and it was very clean with little use and it was selling for cheap. I checked it out and made some inquiries about prices on FD lenses and accessories. The cost of outfitting that AE-1 was too prohibitive for me to purchase even at my boss’s low price. He only had a 50mm lens and I would have wanted a wide lens or two and a long lens or two to fill out the coverage. Much more then I would have wanted to spend. Rumours of Canon users dumping the old FD stuff seemed far too optimistic and more of wishful thinking in my experience. Plus whatever good pieces that do become available are still priced a bit too high for my tastes. Then I found out one of my friends had an old Canon AE-1 in his closet that was in a similar state of non-use and pristine condition. This kit though was far more fleshed out and was more or less complete and more interesting for me to look at. With an eye to possible purchase, I borrowed the kit for a few weeks and tested out the equipment. Two zoom lenses covering 28-200mm along with the original 50mm f1.8 lens and two flashes as well as a case for all of it made for a handsome kit. The lenses though are not of pedigreed background and though adequate for low-level prints, may not stand the scrutiny of enlargement, at least of the high quality type. Kiron is not a well-known brand in North America and the Vivitar lens could be made by anyone (possibly by Kiron too). I would have like to have found a few more wider and longer lenses either zoom or prime but again, there does not seem to be much available on the used market save for all the cheap 50mm f1.8s. Anyone with interesting lenses had long sold them or smartly, kept them and continues to enjoy using now. During all of these trial periods I lost my need for a purely mechanical body especially when I belatedly remembered that my Bronica lenses have Timer levers on them to allow for long time exposures without draining the batteries in the SQ-Ai body. Since I’ve been turning to the Bronica for more and more serious shots I saw less need to add an expensive Nikon FM2n body and began to research the Nikon offerings that might fill my requirements. The one body that I kept thinking about over and over again was the EM, the smallest, lightest and possibly cheapest SLR Nikon has ever made (not sure what the FG-20 would sell for used). After reading up on the EM in Moose Peterson’s Nikon System Handbook and on the Pictorial History of Nikon bodies website I began to see the EM as the body that came closest to what I wanted. Cheap, compatible with all my existing Nikon equipment, cheap, relatively rugged aperture priority automation, cheap, mechanical bulb so that I could still do very long time exposures without draining batteries and did I mention that EM bodies are cheap. EM’s seem to have fallen out of favour among the Nikon cognoscenti and sell for around $150 Can or about $100 US. I bought mine for this price and was thrilled that I could buy a body for less then my last film purchase. Before buying the EM I did have to discipline myself to make sure I didn’t buy more then I really needed because I was thinking in a greedy consumer sort of way after reading up on the EM. I thought that if I decide that a fully mechanical body isn’t needed and that I’m prepared to buy a semi-auto, battery powered body then why shouldn’t I seek out a FE. And if I’m prepared to buy an FE then why not a little more and get an FE2 and if I’m prepared to spend that much for an FE2 then why don’t I spend a wee bit more and get an F3 instead. And so and so one until I was getting ready to buy a bloody F5 instead of the EM. I lost track of what I needed an EM for and slapped myself back to reality. Another bonus of the EM is that it’s so cheap that even my wife Su wouldn’t squawk too much about it. So I bought the EM and was happy at having a very compact and reasonably featured SLR that I could use with all of my existing lenses. Technical I contemplated buying one of these variants since the cost was pretty low compared to what a new FM2n sells for these days. I didn’t because quite frankly I’m a snob and I couldn’t stomach not having a real Nikon made product (however much that is actually debatable these days too). I don’t go for third party makes unless they have little relevance to the image quality such as my Kenko extension tubes or they have such a high regard because they have proven themselves over the ages such as the Vivitar 283 flash. Other third party products I have bought have been teleconvertors and quite frankly this where the adage "you get what you pay for" rang so true for me when I bought the Kenko MC7 2x TC and the Tamron MC4 1.4x TC. These two products have disappointed me and quite honestly I just don’t use them unless I have little regard for the image being shot. Incidentally has anyone noticed how identical the Tamron and Kenko TCs look? Looking over my 2x and 1.4x TCs, I see identical cosmetic styling and even the same type of naming of the products. The MC and either 4 or 7, which simply alludes to the number of glass elements being used for the optical formula. The new Pro 300 TCs from Kenko and Pro TCs from Tamron, which use low dispersion glass to work with super telephotos look exactly the same from the photos I’ve seen on the respective companies’ websites. Kenko mentions the use of glass from Hoya to create these new TCs. I now shudder to think that all the new Zenzazon lenses that Tamron has created for the Bronica bodies are actually made with Hoya glass. I have various Hoya filters and have not been greatly impressed with the quality of them. I’m probably being very paranoid about third party products though. Anyway, major digression on the topic at hand, which is the Nikon EM body. The EM is very compact and light due to severe use of plastic by Nikon in its construction. The EM represented a mass-market approach by Nikon to reach the low-end consumer with an easy to use SLR that would not command as high a price as the other stalwarts of the Nikon stable such as the FE or FM bodies. It borrows a few basic operational features from the FE while adding a few new ones of its own that were later copied for other bodies in the E series of equipment. These include a back light exposure compensation button that increases the exposure by two stops. A dedicated flash (SB-E) would control the shutter speed of the camera and automatically set to the sync speed of 1/90 of a second. Another difference is the way the user starts the meter. This is done via the modern day method of simply depressing the shutter release button lightly and not via the film-winding crank as with older Nikon bodies. I find this to be much more convenient and natural. The main feature borrowed from the FE is the aperture priority operation and in fact it is the only exposure control for the EM body. No shutter dial exists for the EM and when the battery fails so to does the EM as the E in the EM is for Electronic. There is a backup mechanical shutter speed that is the mark of all electronic, manually focusing camera bodies from Nikon. On the EM the backup speed is 1/90 of a second and it is marked on the power switch with an M90. As for the Bulb mode, there appears to be a discrepancy as to whether or not it is mechanical or electronic. Moose Peterson in his Nikon System Handbook states that Bulb mode is electronic and would thus drain the batteries. Leonard Foo on his Pictorial History of Nikon Cameras states that Bulb mode is mechanical and requires no battery power. My own use of the EM confirms that Bulb mode is indeed mechanical and satisfies one of my desires to have a manual 35mm camera capable of doing long time exposures without battery power. Looking at the top deck of the EM body, we have the ubiquitous rewinding crank combined with the ISO dial on the left side of the body. The prism has a hotshoe that is semi-dedicated for the SB-E flash. The right side is very spare with the film-winding crank taking center spot. The power on switch is integrated with the crank and from top to bottom we have B for bulb mode, M90 for the backup shutter speed, and Auto for normal operation. The control dial is located on the right side of the winding crank and is easily controlled by the right index finger or thumb. On the left side of the winding crank beside the prism are a battery check button and a small LED light that will shine when the battery power is sufficient for operation. The last item on the top deck is the additive type film counter beside the power-on dial. The front of the camera has only two controls, one for the lens release located where all lens release buttons have always been located on Nikon bodies, on the lower right hand side of the body as you look at it from the front. The other control is the self-timer release. This ten-second control allows you to obtain a pseudo mirror lockup as the mirror flips up when the timer is in use. Otherwise a standard threaded cable release can be used when screwed into the shutter release button for long time exposures or for when minimum vibration is desired. A camera this inexpensive and basic will not have a feature such as depth of field preview but one can obtain a usable preview from most Nikon bodies without such a feature by partially unlocking the lens from the body and rotating to dismount the lens. This action serves to close the lens down to the designated aperture but it is not recommended unless great care is exercised as the chance of mishap can occur and damage to the lens or body can result. The back of the EM body has no feature except the film tab slot to allow the user to know what film is loaded in the camera. The bottom of the camera has a few items to note besides the regular tripod socket mount. A motor drive, the MD-E Winder, was available for the EM body and couplings on the bottom of the lens allow for a prosaic speed of two frames per second. Another motor drive for the FG, the MD-14, can also be used on the EM and will provide a better grip but like the MD-E winder, the motor drive lacks a shutter release button so the body’s release must still be used. Other features or non-features of the EM body are the plastic aperture ring and the inability to mount non-AI lenses. One of the big myths about Nikon’s F mount is the ability to mount any lens of any vintage to any Nikon body of any vintage. Not true and the sometimes confusing AI, non-AI, AIS designations of the lenses only serves to convolute the myth further. Even the F5 is not able to safely mount non-AI lenses and the current AIS designation is useless for any of the modern era bodies as the AIS feature was only good for two or three bodies from the early to mid 1980s when the transition from manual/mechanical to electronic/autofocus was underway. Stepless shutter speed control is available and a needle-readout is available on the left side of the viewfinder. Speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 of a second can be had but speeds slower then 1/30 are marked in red and a low-level beep can be heard from the camera when shutter speeds are in the red range. A flash controlled LED can also be seen in the viewfinder area. This LED will flash when the incorrect aperture is used. Speaking of flash, there is no PC sync socket but I didn’t expect to see one on an entry-level camera of this vintage, ten years before this camera came out yes but 1979, no. There is also no multiple exposure capability save for the manual one in which you wind the film forward while depressing the rewind button on the bottom of the camera to disengage the film advance.
Fit and Finish and Feel The main body wrap is a faux-leather, textured-plastic covering that provides a bit of extra grip on the small body. I don’t think I have large hands and at only 5’5" tall, I should hope not but I miss the extra grip that the MB10 provides on my F90x body. Without an added grip I find my pinkie finger often dangling in the air when gripping my base F90x or F70 bodies. I’m hoping to pick up a MD-E winder or MD-14 in the future to provide that extra bit of grip for my hand. As it is now, I find my left hand doing all the real holding and the right hand more as the steadier whereas with the F90x/MB10 combo both hands shared an equal amount of holding and steadying. Ruggedness is not an important issue for a used $150 body. It’s so cheap that if it gets dropped and damaged or even if it just stops working the cost to repair it will be more then what the body is worth. In this regard the EM serves my needs very well for a cheap everyday camera that can be banged around in my non-photo bags. Or worst comes to worst it could even fill in for my other bodies should something untoward happen to them.
Use and Handling The shutter release is not too bad as far as noise is concerned and certainly superior to my F90x and about the same as the Canon AE-1 Program. The 60% Center Weighted meter is accurate as referenced to my Sekonic 508 handheld meter and then comparing it to the F90x as well using a Kodak Grey Card as the reflected surface. All my Nikon bodies exhibited a slight underexposure when referenced to the Sekonic meter but it was less then a 1/3 stop difference. Shutter speeds are electronically controlled so they should be accurate too. The EM is not quite the perfect body for some of the things I had in mind for stealthy street shooting in areas where the locals are not likely to be appreciative of having their photos taken. The manual focusing and manual winding makes it a bit more difficult to shoot images without it looking like I’m taking pictures. These minor quibbles however, can be easily addressed. Autofocus is not a major issue as a wide-angle lens would be used in most occasions and the depth of field would allow for sharp images. An eventual purchase of a motor drive would allow for winding the film without making it look like an obvious picture taking moment. But although a fairly silent camera as for as SLRs go it will still make noise and Nikon motor attachments are not known for their silent operation. As time goes by I’m sure I’ll be able to deal sufficiently with these issues. Incidentally, the one body that seems to address all of my street shooting needs appears to be the Contax G2 but given that lens hoods for the G lenses probably costs as much as the EM body it’s not a choice to go with until I win that Lotto 6/49 jackpot. Conclusion The idea of compactness has made me rethink some of the lenses that I would like to own. The 24-50mm and 70-300mm zooms seem like ideal lenses to have with a light camera such as the EM or F70 to make for a compact travel kit that would fit into a larger waist pouch. The need for speed and ultra-high quality lenses for my 35mm kit is not as important as it once use to be since I bought into a medium format system. Previously I was only thinking in terms of 35mm and trying to make my kit as large and as versatile as I could afford but with ready access to a larger negative it is not as imperative as before. The Nikon EM represents the first step towards this new line of thinking. For the beginner the EM is a decent little body to buy and learn some basics with. But a true and enthusiastic beginner should actually buy a fully mechanical body to learn the basics of exposure and have an EM as a mild step up or backup. It’s hard to see how a real hardcore and serious 35mm shooter would want the EM and truth is if I didn’t take to the mean streets during my lunch breaks, I wouldn’t have bothered with the EM either. But for my requirements it seemed the best available, not too hard, not too soft but just right. MD-E Motor Drive
January 1, 2000The Search for a Better Mousetrap This shop on Broadway Ave. just outside of downtown Vancouver is not large by any means and though it does sell some new equipment, most of it seems to be of the point and shoot variety along with lower end camera bags and tripods. But it does have a large amount of used 35mm gear and I suspect that is what it really caters too. Go into most other stores and you’ll find little of interest in the used shelves because most of it is trade-in material that revolve around entry level bodies and the ubiquitous 50mm f1.8, f1.7 or f2 lens. Used goods come and go and unless you’re really vigilant about keeping track at the various stores then its likely that you’ll miss out on the occasional good lens coming in. Before entering the store I checked out the offerings in the window and was rewarded right away as I saw an EM with the MD-E attached sitting on one of the shelves. I went in and checked out the lenses first and another bonus, three 28mm E lenses sitting on another shelf along with a 35mm E lens as well as a number of other Nikon lenses. These were in addition to all the other makes available. I went over the 28mm lenses first and noticed that they were all priced the same and were in more or less the same condition. I also looked at the 35mm E lens too but I decided not to go overboard with the EM kit by buying that one too (yet that is). I wanted the 28mm lens but equally important was the MD-E winder. I went over the MD-E and was satisfied that it was in good working condition and purchased it with the 28mm E lens. Altogether I had a decent little SLR rig of EM body, MD-E winder and 28mm f2.8 E lens for less then $500. $500 can be considered a bit pricey considering that I could have bought my friend’s Canon AE-1 Program kit with three lenses and two flashes for less but it does seem to confirm the generally higher resale value of Nikon equipment on the used market. Canon AE-1’s though not a dime a dozen are still plentiful and cheap and sell for less then their Nikon counterpart the FE. The AE-1 Program though better then the original AE-1 is still not as highly regarded as the Nikon FE2 and prices reflect that glaringly as the FE2 body alone will bring in $500 whereas a very good complete kit can be had based upon the AE-1 Program for the same price. Technical and Handling The MD-E advances the film along at a blistering pace of 2 frames per second, not a whole heck of a lot but certainly respectable for entry-level cameras even today. It’s powered by six AAA batteries, which I don’t care for as I would much rather prefer that it used 4 AA batteries instead. I think the marginal amount of size and weight required for AA batteries would have been negligible in actual use. The other aspects of the MD-E winder are very, very basic. A locking wheel to mate the winder with the body is located at the lens mount axis. The battery compartment hatch door is located on the left side of the winder (left side meaning where the photographer’s left hand would cradle the lens) and a power-on switch is on the hatch cover. On the rear right side of the MD-E is a small red lamp to indicate power on. The underside of the winder has the tripod-mounting socket and the rewind release button. No provisions for motorized rewind or film loading are available as such actions are still manual. One feature that I thought I wanted but realized that I didn’t need was for the MD-E to power the meter of the EM body. Like the FA and MD15 combo or the F3 and MD4, I wanted the motor to take over the power requirements of the body to save on having to have two different batteries to purchase and worry about. But in actual use I came to prefer having both the body and winder powered separately. This change of opinion came about when the batteries that came with the MD-E failed mid-way through a roll of film. I was chagrinned that the batteries failed on my first roll of film through the EM/MD-E combo since the sales guy mentioned that he would save me a few more bucks by tossing in the batteries for free. Yah, great, batteries that have been in the winder since God knows how long. No matter though since the battery in the EM body was still kicking and that allowed me to keep on shooting without interruption. If the winder had actually powered the EM body then I would have been left with a manual 1/90 and guessing at what aperture to set to match the shutter speed. In essence the MD-E acted like an ergonomic grip only when the power failed and for more stealthy operation one can simply power off the winder and use the manual film advance. The MD-E like most other Nikon accessory motor drives is loud and will attract attention when not desired. One little operational matter irked me a bit and made me lament the lack of a mechanical lockup of the shutter release button. When you’ve finished taking shots of a scene and you’ve powered the winder off and turned the power on the EM to Bulb mode to shut down the meter, the camera is still primed and ready to go for the next shot. Any inadvertent pressing down of the shutter release will make an exposure and generally speaking it will be a pitched black one. I have about a half-dozen such slides as I came to know the ways of semi-manual bodies and motor drives. I’ve worked around this potential problem by powering off the winder when I’m near the end of my run of shots for a scene. Releasing the shutter normally for my last shot of a scene prevents an accidental firing of the camera and more black slides. I’ve encountered more black slides when working in the manual 1/90 or Bulb mode on the EM body with a cable release and then forgetting about the setting I was on or forgetting to set the lockup on my cable release for a timed exposure. Some older photographers complain about the workings of do-everything AF bodies of present and here I am grousing about the workings of twenty-year old equipment and their quirks. Perspective For the beginning photographer, I can’t really think of any. Given the choice if I was a new photographer I would choose a new offering from Canon, Minolta or Pentax first but since I had a couple of years of photography behind me I bought into the EM kit for a couple of different reasons. I wanted cheap enough that I wouldn’t cry too much over the loss of the kit whereas the loss of a new entry-level AF kit would be tougher to take then an old manual focus one. I wanted access to cheaper manual focus lenses which Nikon answers very well better then even Pentax K mount (my opinion based upon what I see available used). I already had access to the older manual focus lenses with my AF Nikon bodies but having an EM just gave me more incentive and excuses to indulge myself. Lastly, having an older manual focus system might help me to think a bit more about what I’m doing photographically instead of letting an all auto camera do it for me. And oh, before I forget let’s not forget that the 28mm and 50mm lenses mentioned above are far faster and optically better then the cheap piece of excrement known as the entry-level zoom lens. If I hadn’t bought the EM kit I might have gone with a good point and shoot like a Yashica T4S or Olympus Stylus Epic, especially the Stylus Epic for its faster 35mm f2.8 lens. But I decided to go with the versatility of the EM and its low cost but still optically good E series lenses. With a 28mm lens on the EM and the nature of many of my shots, I could just go by infinity focusing due to the short focus throw of the lens and have an overblown point and shoot. But I suspect that the point and shoot would not be as much fun. The niftiness of the EM kit I have has led me to rethink a bit of my 35mm equipment needs as stated in other essays and now I wonder what it would be like to use even more stealthy rangefinder bodies. I sure as hell can’t afford Leica M6 or even Contax G2 equipment but maybe I might be able to afford the cheaper East Asian knockoffs of Leica M equipment. All indications are that in the coming months a dam is going to burst with such offerings as Leica’s patent on the M mount expired some time ago. Cosina already fired a volley with its resurrection of the Voigtlander name and use of Leica screw mount to introduce some very exciting lenses such as the 15mm super wide-angle at very good prices. Konica has a more modern offering in the Hexar RF that happens to use the Leica M mount, which just opens the flood gates to so many different opportunities for the street photographer. It is a renaissance for quiet and compact manual focus systems of which the EM represents but one choice among a potential many. A Long Shutter Time Tip
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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I’ve been on a neurotic Goldilocks type of journey the last few
months seeking out the right type of manual focus camera for my
needs. Some misses and some near hits until I finally settled upon
one that was just right. From the Canon EX Auto to the Yashica FX-3
2000 to the Canon AE-1 Program and now finally the Nikon EM. I should
have known that I would return to Mother Nikon to find what I would
ultimately need.
The Nikon EM body was first introduced in 1979 and continued into
the mid 1980s a few years before Nikon did away with all consumer
level, manual focus but electronically controlled bodies. When Nikon
finally retired the FE2 body I can imagine a cry of anguish going
around the world at the lost of such a classic body. Without the FE2
(which many hope will eventually return to the fold in one form or
another) Nikon only offered the pro-level F3 and the consumer level
but highly regarded FM2n as the only real Nikon made manual focus
bodies. The Korean company Cosina makes the Nikon pretenders’ FM10
and FE10 bodies for Nikon. Even the lenses offered with the Fx10 bodies
are Cosina made products with a faux Nikon badge on it.
Up against another budget SLR, the Yashica FX-3»
Comparing
it to it's next generation autofocus brother the F90x 
As much as I like the Nikon EM body, one of its advantages turned
out to be a bit of a disadvantage with me, namely its diminutive size.
My hands are not big but I found the EM to be a bit awkward for my
normal handholding compared to my F90x outfitted with the MB10 grip.
It mostly had to do with my little pinkie finger dangling in the air.
Although I would compromise the smallish package of the standalone
EM I decided to purchase the matching MD-E winder for it if and when
I would come across it. Looking around at my usual haunts for used
equipment got me nothing so I headed off to another shop that I don’t
normally do business with but I knew would have a number of used equipment.