Viewfinders
However, it was the F2's interchangeable viewfinders (also known as "heads") that marked it as a truly professional level SLR and was its greatest strength. By providing updated heads every few years, Nippon Kogaku was able to introduce new versions of the F2 and keep the basic body in the latest technology until production ended in 1980. Note that F2 heads were often sold separately from the body, mostly in black finish with about 10% in chrome, and it is therefore not unusual to see body/head combinations with mismatched serial numbers and/or colors.
The head on the basic Nikon F2 was called the Nikon DE-1. It provided a virtually 100% accurate viewing image, but was a plain pentaprism eyelevel viewing head with no built-in light meter and so had no metering or exposure information display, except for a flash-ready light. Unlike the other heads, about 90% of DE-1s were chrome finished. It was unpopular because of the lack of a built-in meter, but remained available for the life of the F2.
If a pentaprism head with a built-in light meter was mounted on the F2, the camera became an F2 Photomic. However, since Nippon Kokagu made five different metering heads over the life of the F2, there were five different F2 Photomic versions. The use of any Photomic head requires that batteries (two S76 or A76, or SR44 or LR44) be installed in the F2 body to power the head's electronics.
The original Nikon F2 Photomic, packaged with the Nikon DP-1 head, was manufactured from 1971 to 1977. The DP-1 had a center-the-needle exposure control system using a galvanometer needle pointer moving between horizontally arranged +/– over/underexposure markers at the bottom of the viewfinder to indicate the readings of the built-in 60/40 percent centerweighted, cadmium sulfide (CdS) light meter versus the photographer's actual camera selections. Flanking the needle array on the left and right were a readout of the camera set f-stop and shutter speed, respectively. The needle array was duplicated on the top of the DP-1 head to allow exposure control without looking through the viewfinder. A Nikon F2 Photomic with Nikkor-S 50 mm f/1.4 lens had a US list price of $660 in 1972. Note that SLRs usually sold for 30 to 40 percent below list price.
Manufactured from 1973 to 1977, the F2 S Photomic used the DP-2 head. Although it looked very different, the DP-2 was functional very similar to the DP-1. It substituted an all solid-state light-both-LEDs exposure control system using two arrow shaped light-emitting diode (LED) over/underexposure indicators for better visibility in low light situations and better overall reliability. This was important, because the DP-2's CdS meter had better low light sensitivity than the DP-1 – down to Exposure Value (EV) −2, instead of EV 1, at ASA 100. A chrome Nikon F2 S Photomic with Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 lens had a US list price of $961 in 1976. Note: SLRs were usually discounted 30 to 40 percent from list.
With the DP-3 head, the camera became the F2 SB Photomic, available 1976 to 1977. The DP-3 introduced three innovations: a silicon photodiode light meter (a first for Nikon SLRs) for faster and more accurate light readings, a five stage center-the-LED exposure control system using +/o/− LEDs, and an eyepiece blind.
These three early Photomic heads required Nikon F-mount lenses with a meter coupling shoe ("rabbit ears", see above). Rabbit ear lenses required a special mounting procedure. After mounting, the lens aperture ring must be turned back and forth to the smallest aperture (largest f-stop number) and then to the largest aperture (smallest f-stop number) to ensure that the lens and the head couple properly (Nippon Kogaku called it indexing the maximum aperture of the lens – users called it the Nikon Shuffle!) and meter correctly. This system seems unwieldy to today's photographers, but it was second nature to Nikon and Nikkormat camera using photographers of the 1960s and 1970s.
The F2 A Photomic came with the DP-11 head; the F2 AS Photomic used the DP-12 head. The DP-11 and DP-12 (both introduced in 1977) functioned exactly the same as the DP-1 and DP-3, respectively, except that these heads supported Nikkor lenses with the Automatic Indexing (AI) feature (introduced 1977, see above). Nikkor AI lenses had a "meter coupling ridge" cam on the lens aperture ring that pushed on a spring-loaded "meter coupling lever" on the Photomic head to transfer lens set aperture information. AI lenses allowed carefree lens mounting and ended the double twisting that used to allow observers to spot a Nikon/Nikkormat user from a hundred paces. The F2 AS Photomic with DP-12 head was the most advanced F2 version and the chrome version with Nikkor AI 50 mm f/1.4 lens had a US list price of $1278 in 1978. (SLR selling prices were typically 30 to 40 percent below list.) This, the last version of the Nikon F2 Photomic, has become the most desired and collected F2 today.
The F2 S Photomic (DP-2 head) and F2 SB Photomic (DP-3 head) also accepted the unusual Nikon DS-1 or DS-2 EE Aperture Control Units. The F2 AS (DP-12) required the equivalent DS-12. These were early attempts by Nippon Kogaku to provide shutter priority autoexposure by having an electric servomotor automatically turn the lens aperture ring in response to the set shutter speed and light meter reading. The DS-1, -2 and -12 were bulky, slow and unreliable, and were feeble and inelegant attempts to add autoexposure to the manual exposure F2.
There were also three special purpose meterless heads available for the F2: the Nikon DW-1 waist-level finder (a non-pentaprism head; look down directly at the mirror-reversed image on the focusing screen), the DA-1 action finder (providing 60 mm of eye relief; extremely large exit pupil that can be viewed while wearing face masks, safety goggles, etc.) and the DW-2 6X magnifying finder (waist-level finder with magnifier; good for precise focusing).
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