Hacker News Reader

Comment by carbolite103 | Hacker News Reader

As far as 35mm systems it's pretty much just Leica and Nikon at the moment, though I would imagine that Nikon is close to discontinuing their F6 flagship soon. Thankfully many 35mm cameras from the 70s and 80s are engineering masterpieces that will likely keep functioning well into the second half of this century. I just hope that companies will continue making film stocks for them.

View on HN

Nikon even has - or at least had, until recently - two film cameras in their line-up.

The ‘because we can’ high-end F6 and the entry-level, manual just about everything FM10. (Though I think the current FM10 may be made by others under licence.)

I think Voigtländer may still make a 35mm rangefinder, too.

Cosina was the company licensed to make the Nikon FM10 and produced rangefinders under the Voigtländer name. All of those products were discontinued last year, sadly.

As far as I know, the F6 is the last one still in production.

That’s not unexpected, but still a bit sad.

Incidentally, Cosina also made the rangefinder I’d dub the Leica M7.5 - the Zeiss Ikon-branded ZM. Wonderful camera.

As far as rangefinders go, the ZM IMHO is the one to beat, in close competition with the Contax G2. (Autofocus! In a rangefinder!)

Leica has just discontinued its last "regular" film camera, the M7, a few days ago:

https://www.reddotforum.com/content/2018/05/leica-m7-film-ca...

All that remains are the purely mechanical Leica MP and M-A film cameras, plus many digital cameras of course.

The MP is a “regular” film camera. It’s the final Mx in the film line, my understanding being that the ‘P’ stands for ‘Perfection’.

If the ISO dial on the back were metal and not plastic, it may well be perfect. I’ve heard of people switching out the dial from older M4/5/6s.

Source: I have one.

Well, the "M" in the regular Leica M-Series means "Messsucher". The M in "MP" means "mechanical" (as in "mechanical perfection"). So based on that one could argue that the MP isn't part of the regular series :-)

Nikon stopped building the F6 a number of years ago. They're just selling through old stock at this point.

I doubt they are going be able to sell them ever. New F6s are $2500! That's Veblen good prices, but anyone who just wants to get the most expensive thing is going to get a Leica.

- F6 used are about $800, generally in very good condition because anyone using the camera for work would have used an F5.

- F100 which is 90% the same as the F6 in both appearance and function is $200 used.

- F5, Nikon's last "professional" film SLR is $200 used

- F80, a piece of plastic molded to look like an F100 (but nearly identical functionally) can be had for <$50. I got mine in a ¥1 start auction. Final price: ¥1

from here things start to less predictable thanks to people who want a sweet manual camera and collectors. Manual cameras run anything from $100~$500+ depending on their condition. The best deals right now are Nikon FE and FM (not FE2,FM2) and Nikkormats.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com