Nikon F3 for spotting

[oscarderpilotB747]

Hello
i recently got a Canon EOS 1200D with a 55mm lens for my birthday and it’s great, but I would like to know how good the Nikon F3 with a 300mm F/4 lens is for average plane spotting.
thanks

[flyetty]

Hello
i recently got a Canon EOS 1200D with a 55mm lens for my birthday and it’s great, but I would like to know how good the Nikon F3 with a 300mm F/4 lens is for average plane spotting.
thanks

Judging that the F3 is a film camera, it’s not too good for planespotting, as well a prime 300mm lens is also not very good. I’d personally recommend nikon d3… or d7… from personal experience. I had a D3300 and a D7200 and they both served me very well. I’d also recommend a 55-300mm Nikon lens

[B_C]

Hello
i recently got a Canon EOS 1200D with a 55mm lens for my birthday and it’s great, but I would like to know how good the Nikon F3 with a 300mm F/4 lens is for average plane spotting.
thanks

Mate, a 1200d/ Rebel T5 is a great camera. I do not recommend the Nikon d3 since it is quite old. Plus I do not recommend using prime lens in plane spotting, especially at 300mm.

Cheers.

[pawelm]

Is it possible to use film camera for plane spotting nowadays? Ofcourse if is. Does it make sense? Not really. Digital camera is much more convinient to use. Buy a decent lens for your Canon and enjoy the camera

[mahagonny]

The Nikon F3 was a must (like the whole "F" series). But it made sense in its time. Today everything analog is a "retro" pleasure.
Buy a zoom lens for your Canon and shoot without worries (what film can't give you).

[AKH]

,,,Does it make sense? Not really. Digital camera is much more convinient to use. Buy a decent lens for your Canon and enjoy the camera

Disagree... There are still may spotters around shooting analog slides. And a slide often has a better quality than a digiatl photo.

[B_C]

Honestly, just get a good telephoto or zoom lens and you are all good to go. The camera might produce soft images so you probably need
to do post-editing.

[pawelm]

Disagree... There are still may spotters around shooting analog slides. And a slide often has a better quality than a digiatl photo.

I'm not saying it's not possible, but inconvenient. There's no AF, you have to change film often or be very selective with what you're shooting. Not mentioning making correct settings, which judging by the photos that we screen every day, is often a problem even for people shooting with modern day cameras. Same for quality.

[DadatLBA]

You could use the F3, but just think of the cost of film. What does it cost to buy a 36 exposure colour film and get it developed in your country? Plus the cost of getting a good digital scan of the developed image to send to JP.

[AKH]

There's no AF, you have to change film often or be very selective with what you're shooting. Not mentioning making correct settings, .

This is how we went to the airport 30 or 40 years ago And it was fun. I jumped from Pentax to Nikon back in 1999 and have my F90X still in use today. The Pentax and even my Praktica before (I started in 1986) were fully manual. Sometimes it was tricky to find the best settings, especialyl since ISO is given through the film and could not be amended as today. But still we made good shots (I have uploaded some scans to the database). On spotting trips you needed to have enough films with you; I often started with up to 50+ films in the photo bag

But back to the topic...the F3 woudl be not the best camera to start if you really want to shoot films, but you can give it a try. Better would be an F4 or F5. Biggest challenge nowadays is to get the films (especially for slides) and to find a professional lab for development. It became very expensive, unfortunately.

[bleuair]

Just read through this random comparison of the F3 vs. F4 and see what photographers were discussing.

https://www.678vintagecameras.ca/blog/nikon-f3-or-f4-decisions-decisions

And what I really don't understand is why are you asking this question here. To participate here with your F3, your next thread is on how to convert/scan analog photos?

[B_C]

I personally recommend using Camera decisions website to compare features but I doubt they would have the Nikon F3 or F4 since it is mostly focused on newer cameras between 2010 to today.

[IvanovskyYin]

This is how we went to the airport 30 or 40 years ago And it was fun. I jumped from Pentax to Nikon back in 1999 and have my F90X still in use today. The Pentax and even my Praktica before (I started in 1986) were fully manual. Sometimes it was tricky to find the best settings, especialyl since ISO is given through the film and could not be amended as today. But still we made good shots (I have uploaded some scans to the database). On spotting trips you needed to have enough films with you; I often started with up to 50+ films in the photo bag

But back to the topic...the F3 woudl be not the best camera to start if you really want to shoot films, but you can give it a try. Better would be an F4 or F5. Biggest challenge nowadays is to get the films (especially for slides) and to find a professional lab for development. It became very expensive, unfortunately.

I'm wondering what lens equipped on Praktica could make great planespotting shots, as I once tried to shoot an airport terminal with Zenit-12XP and Helios44-2 lens, and I wonder whether a Tair telephoto lens could be used for planespotting.