Nikon FM3A 35mm SLR Film Camera – Body Only

The Nikon FM3A is an advanced semi-professional-level, interchangeable-lens, focal-plane shutter, 35mm film, single-lens reflex camera. It was manufactured by Nikon exclusively in Japan, on small-volume assembly lines by especially trained assembly technicians, from 2001 to 2006.

Manual operation

The meter of the camera is switched on when the film advance lever is moved away from the body and the shutter lightly depressed. It cuts itself off in about 15 seconds. In manual mode exposure is set by matching the thin smoothly swinging needle in the left of the viewfinder with the wide translucent blue bar that indicates the selected shutter speed. In this ingenious finder, it is easy to see the number of stops by which the camera is over or under the correct exposure. The only metering pattern available is the old standard Nikon 60/40 pattern. As with many Nikon SLR cameras, the selected F-stop can be read right off the lens in use through the Aperture Direct Readout (ADR) at the top of the viewfinder. Like the FM2n and its predecessors the FM3A allows manual operation with a fully mechanical shutter. If the batteries die in an FM3A, the photographer still has full use of every shutter speed marked on the dial.

AE operation

Like the FE and FE2 the FM3A is also capable of aperture-preferred auto exposure control. The photographer selects “A” on the shutter speed dial, switches on the meter in the normal way, and selects the F-stop on the lens, and the camera body selects the shutter speed steplessly. Shutter speeds are indicated by the thin needle that swings up and down the scale on the left of the viewfinder. Again, the aperture is visible thorough the ADR. This mode also uses the 60/40 center-weighted metering.

The highest shutter speed in the AE range is 1/4000, but slow speeds extend well below the 1 second marked in the viewfinder, as long as the camera is in AE mode. (In manual mode, speeds slower than 1 second require use of ‘B’. This is a departure from the FE2, which like the F3 allowed manual selection of shutter speeds up to 8 seconds.) The FM3A‘s electronic operation is silent during long exposures, except for the noise of the shutter opening and closing.

The AE automation of the FM3A provides simple convenience in taking photographs in fluid situations, while still allowing some control by the photographer. Though Nikon has long since adopted other automatic exposure modes — including shutter priority, program, and variable program — many photographers still find the simpler semi-automatic AE feature of the FM3A appealing.