Among
all the F bodies, the F4s is the most elegant look AF-Nikon ever
designed.
The Nikon F4 was the second professional F body to offer autofocusing
(After F3AF, 1983). Outside the Nikon boundary, virtually all
the camera manufacturers faced difficult decisions on the respective
approach to search for a right direction in their AF design. Nikon
(& Pentax) has decided to commit adopting a backward compatibility
with older Nikkor (where Canon & Minolta were replacing all
their FD and Rokkor-mount lenses with a new lens mount). Nikon
F4s actually sold very well in numbers. But the period between
'93 to '96 was a bad time for Nikon due to the appreciation of
the Yen and they was quite slow in responding to market ever changing
needs. The eight years business cycle was too generous for competitions
to catch up. The earlier decision to retain backwardness compatibility
has not been capitalized fully (a move I think all Nikon users
have appreciated such a considerate decision very much, including
me). The slow and indecisiveness in the implementation to address
AF weaknesses (mainly performance related) was proved to be quite
disastrous and users began changing camp(s). (Canon updated the
original EOS 1 to EOS-1n within a shorter 5 years cycle while
Nikon took 8 for Nikon F5 !). Incidentally, the F4 was the first
pro F-model that started to adopt a vertical traveled shutter
curtain, resulting in delivering top shutter speed of 1/8000 sec
with a 1/250sec top sync speed - fastest among all Pro F-models.
The F4 was also the first Nikon-F that solely depends on battery
to function + provides multiple metering systems (Matrix, center-weighted
& spot) and a truly extensive choices in TTL flash modes.
Lastly, F4 was also the least Nikon-F with variants. |
