Inherited a collection of F3s!
Last week, I brought my Nikon Zfc with me to an event, and a mutual friend got to talking to me about photography. I mentioned that I had joined up with my local photography club and that I had ordered an FM2n so I could get some of that film experience again.
Well, a couple of days ago he called up and said he’d inherited a Nikon F3 when a school he worked at was cleaning out storage and asked if I wanted it. I of course said yes, and last night he surprised me with not one but THREE F3s!
Looking over them, the cameras themselves seem to mostly be in good shape, but two of the lenses aren’t really usable atm. Sadly, the focus is totally jammed on the Micro-Nikkor 55 2.8 (presumably dried out/dirty grease), while the Quantaray AF 28-70mm 3.5-4.5 zoom doesn’t seem great for a manual focus camera like the F3 because of how it’s designed.
Anyway, I’ve slightly Frankensteined the best gear on the body that seems to functioning the best (and also has the lowest serial number!), so once I get some new batteries for that, I’ll take it out for a test run!
As for the other two, I’m going to see if folks in the local photography group are interested in playing around with film. There used to be a darkroom in the community center we meet in, and it would be amazing if we could get it opened back up…