In the beginning... the Nikon FG

This is where it all started: my trusty old Nikon FG. A Christmas gift from my parents in 1983, the FG was my first "real" camera; I'd previously been limited to snapshots with a 1960's vintage Polaroid "Swinger", a Kodak 124 Instamatic or the infamous Kodak EK4 instant camera that I got for Christmas in 1976. The FG was my first SLR and was the camera with which I learned to take a proper photograph.

It wasn't, however, the camera I originally wanted. That singular honor is bestowed upon the Canon AE-1. It's been so long that I don't remember why, other than that's the camera all of my photo-geek friends were raving about at the time. As Canon sold 5 million of them, I was clearly not alone in my thinking that the AE-1 was The One. Unlike 5 million others, however, I couldn't afford The One. Neither could my parents, apparently -- after dropping hints for months before Christmas 1977 that this was the only gift that would make me a better, happier child, I was sure an AE-1 was waiting for me inside that biggish box under the tree. Wrong-o: it was a pair of boots. I felt like Charlie Brown on Halloween ("I got a rock..."). I doubt I was able to hide my disappointment, but later in life, after years of self loathing followed by more years of therapy over the incident (no, not really...) I came to understand that my dad simply wasn't earning enough dough in the late 70's to buy his bratty kid a pro-level SLR camera.

So I gave up on my dream of being a photographer for a few years. Until 1983. My family came into a bit of change after selling some property, so when my mom asked me what I wanted for Christmas it didn't take me long to come up with an answer. So off we went, down to the new camera store that had just opened in Closter to pick up my AE-1. That's where my memory is fuzzy, because I left the store not with a Canon but a Nikon FG, with it's 50mm f1.8 kit lens plus a couple of third-party lenses -- a Sigma 70-210 f4.5 zoom, and a Starblitz 28mm f2.8 wide angle prime. Why I switched from Canon to Nikon, I have no idea. But the FG was marketed as Nikon's answer to the AE-1 Program model (the 2nd-generation AE-1 with full auto exposure), so I didn't lose anything by going to the "N" brand. I eventually added an MD-14 motor drive and an SB-15 flash, and this was my rig for over 15 years.

The FG went with me to school in Boston in 1984; it went with me to Eaton's Neck NY where I spent so much of my time in the 80's; it went to concerts, and it went to F1, CART and vintage races. It always performed flawlessly. With this setup I was able to capture two of my now-dead heroes:



Miraculously, I still have most (if not all) of the original negatives for everything I shot in 35mm format safely filed away; someday I'll break down and buy a quality film scanner and get them all digitized.

After the Canadian Grand Prix in 1999, I decided it was time to upgrade to an SLR with autofocus. I decided to follow my original dream of owning a Canon and, being budget-limited once again, settled on their entry-level SLR, the Rebel 2000. This came with a 35-80mm f4-5.6 kit zoom; I added a Tamron 100-300 f/4.5-6.3 zoom and a battery grip (the latter because I became spoiled by the MD-14, making a compact SLR into something I could get a real handle on). About a year after that I added the EF 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 Image Stabilized zoom which remains a workhorse in my stable of glass to this day and is a big reason I stuck with Canon when I graduated to a digital SLR.

The Rebel 2000 did a fairly nice job on nature and landscape shots, but at the 2000 and 2001 Canadian Grands Prix I was less impressed with it; I found it struggling to auto-focus quickly enough to be much use for motorsports work -- probably more because of the Tamron lens than the Canon body -- so I ended up leaving it on manual focus while at the races.

By 2004 I switched to a digital SLR, the Canon 300D, which I chose over Nikon simply because I already had a few hundred dollars investment in the 28-135mm IS lens. Also, the 300D was the first sub-$1,000 DSLR; there was no Nikon to be had at the time that was anywhere near my budget. So the switch from Nikon to Canon was complete. And now, with a few thousand dollars worth of glass in my bag, I'm even further locked in with Canon, at a time when the photographic world's pendulum is swinging back Nikon's way. The Rebel 2000 was auctioned off on eBay, leaving the FG as the sole 35mm camera in my collection.

When I first got the FG I was not a camera geek. I had no real idea where the FG stood in the Nikon product line; I never heard of the F3 or what made it better than the FG; I had no knowledge of, or insatiable lust for, expensive Nikkor lenses. I was just happy to have a "real" camera after years of playing with toys! That it was considered an "entry-level" model was of no concern to me. I didn't really become a true gearhead until recently, after I bought the 300D and started following the advances in digital SLRs and learned more about high-end lenses. Now, 25 years down the road, I'm starting to appreciate the FG a little more for it's technical merits -- for example, I had no idea until today that the FG was the first Nikon to have fully automatic exposure control.

The thought of selling the FG has crossed my mind a few times over the years, but a quick perusal of eBay Completed Listings shows them to be worth $50-$75. Frankly, the memories it evokes is worth substantially more to me than a tank of gas, so the FG sits on my desk now as a nostalgia inducer. Still, I can't help but think about buying a few rolls of Velvia and following Ken Rockwell's lead: Shoot film, send it off to be developed and digitized, and enjoy an effective 175 megapixels of resolution at a much greater dynamic range than even the most expensive digital SLRs can muster. His arguments are compelling.

posted by Paul @ 4:33 PM