About 10 years ago I was introduced to a camera that would forever change my photography. It was an unassuming little Nikon FG, and it wasn’t even mine. A friend lent it to me for a trip to the Middle East after I managed to drop my Pentax Spotmatic down the side of a mountain. The FG didn’t have the snob-appeal of the F3 or the technical supremacy of the FM2 … but it did have one of the cleanest and most delightfully simple interfaces of any Nikon film camera. I took to the little camera instantly, and bought one for myself shortly thereafter.

The FG took me through most of my “formative” photographic years. I must have put at least five hundred rolls through my body before I traded it for one of those brilliant (but dreadfully soft) Nikkor 55mm 1:1.2 lenses.

I stuck with Nikon over the years; several F and F2 bodies remained in my stables until two years ago, and I also enjoyed a Nikkormat, a Nikonos and a few other oddities before getting out of the film business (almost) entirely.

Recall my recent post about dropping my favorite Russian SLR. A sad day indeed.

Last week, I broke down and bought an FG on eBay - with an eye towards returning to my photographic “roots” to recapture some of that sparkly magic. The body I found has the identical lens I started with. And what a rush it was to feel this little body for the first time in so many years.

The jewel-like film advance. The honest-to-goodness focusing screen that has virtually disappeared from present-day digital SLR’s. And it’s even a black body, with just a hint of exposed brass around the edges.

There’s going to be some happy photo days ahead …

1 comment
Posted in Blog
Written on Mon, 14 January 2008 at 2:02 pm
Tags: Nikon, photography
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