Richard Haw's Classic Nikon Repair and Review

Hello, everybody! Do you know that song “Am I That Easy to Forget” by Jim Reeves? It’s a song about a man who’s love has found another man. The whole song just keeps on going on a melancholic tangent and is a favorite of many heartbroken gentlemen. Everyone could relate to it because we have all been there when our beloved has switch their attention to someone new. It’s not only applicable for people, I can imagine that cameras have feelings, too. I will show you something that people have forgotten in a heartbeat once the next big thing showed up, and like Jim Reeves, it may be also singing the blues if it could just express its feelings. Do you think cameras are feelings, too?

Introduction:

The Nikon Z fc is a divisive camera, it’s either you like it or you don’t. I’ve made my feelings clear with my old report of the Nikon Z fc so you know where I stand. This article will serve as a mini review of some kind because I shot with it for some time now and I have used it with the Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR all this time (mostly). I won’t be talking about sharpness, image quality, nor any technical specifications at all. I just want to give you a condensed article of what I think of it.

The Nikkor Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR is the kit lens for every APS-C camera in the Z series. It’s short, it’s probably the shortest APS-C kit lens that Nikon ever made. Never buy these lenses alone, it’s cheaper to buy this together with the camera. This is the black version because my camera is black, the silver version is paired with the silver Nikon Z fc. The black one looks much better, the silver one shouldn’t have existed in the first place because it’s ugly.

When this came out it was only available in “tacky silver”, along with an assortment of different skins. It’s a handsome camera but the silver color won’t age well because it will show the ugly plastic underneath. I hated that, but what can we do? I’ve covered it in my Nikon Z fc report if you’re interested to know more about its development and what was available at the time of release. If that wasn’t bad enough, a kit lens that was bundle with it came in the cheap looking silver, too! I’ve waited for a long time for the black one to be available so I got a used one as soon as I’ve found a great deal. It looks much more sophisticated, I don’t feel that I’m holding a cheap camera at all.

The camera works really well with manual focus lenses from third party brands. A 7Artisan 35mm f/1.4 II is a very cheap lens for people who just wanted to play with it but if you’re serious just get something made by Voigtländer. They are more expensive but the quality is so much better, it has electronic contacts so it’s possible for the lens to communicate with the camera and like this cheap communist Chinese crap.

This camera is all about fun and being “yourself”, you can think of it as a form of self-expression. I have an article detailing the steps that I did for making my camera look customized by giving it a fake worn look. It is like what we used to do to our canvas sneakers when we were kids some decades ago.

Before I forget it, let me mention that I was initially apprehensive about this being an APS-C camera since my experience with DSLRs taught me that an APS-C camera would mean a smaller view despite having an enlarged pentaprism, it can be huge but it won’t match what you would get from a 35mm DSLR. That was my impression but this camera showed me that an APS-C mirrorless camera won’t have that issue. This is because you see everything with a tiny monitor inside of the viewfinder. While this presents problems of its own the issue of magnification and things of that sort is not a big deal anymore.

The kit lens is it the best but it is one of the better ones available for APS-C Nikons. It is the only lens for the Z-mount that falls in this category so we don’t have much of a choice. Performance at the center isn’t so bad but the extreme corners could be much better.

It’s not very accurate but I sometimes use this setup as a makeshift light meter and then I expose the film accordingly depending on which stock I’m using. Some look better underexposed while others will benefit from a little bit more light.

Metering is excellent in most cases even if it’s a challenging shot like this. This is what it should look like, if you need your subjects to be visible you should use a flash or a bounce card as well.

I can understand why Nikon loves using this sensor, it renders colors beautifully.

I don’t think this lens has good enough resolving power even when stopped-down, this is just from my initial impression so I will have to make a conclusive test to confirm this.

This is a very good kit, it does everything that you will ever need for general photography. It can go very far so long as you don’t ask too much of it. One can make a career out of this very setup and earn money that can easily cover for its initial cost. You’ll only need more lenses for special assignments but one must buy a flash because this camera doesn’t have it unlike the Nikon Z50II.

I really do not have much to say about this camera and lens because both have been covered extensively by a lot of other reviewers. All I can say is I’ve really enjoyed shooting with it, it’s just a shame that I don’t get any kind of stabilization from the camera itself. This is a late comer in the mirrorless show so it should have the best of what Nikon could have included at that time. Several years later, it’s 2025 so we have the Nikon Z50II which offers a lot of advanced features but it still doesn’t have any form of stabilization built into the body. Other than the incompetence and ridiculousness of the situation, this camera offers lots of other things in terms of emotions and other similar bullshit. I must admit that I’ve only bought it because of “emotions”, I would not have done it otherwise even though it felt fun shooting around with it.

Thanks for reading this short article. I don’t have much to say about it but I hope that you’ve enjoyed my little critiques and observations of this little camera. Please don’t forget to leave me a tip, it’s tiny but it’s enough to help me get by. Without your help this site would not have survived for this long. Thanks to all of my supporters and see you guys again in the next article.

Help Support this Blog:

Maintaining this site requires resources and a lot of time. If you think that it has helped you or you want to show your support by helping with the site’s upkeep, you can make a small donation to my paypal.com at richardHaw888@gmail.com. Money is never my main motivation for this blog and I believe that I have enough to run this but you can help me make this site (and the companion facebook page) grow.

Helping support this site will ensure that it will be kept going as long as I have the time and energy for this. I’d appreciate it if you just leave out your name or details like your country’s name or other info so that the donations will totally be anonymous. This is a labor of love and I intend to keep it that way for as long as I can. Ric.