F3	F4	F5	F6

FM2n	FE2	F100

Digital

D2x	D200	LS 5000 ED

Lenses

Flash

SB-15

SB-25

SB-800

Accessories

Velbon Sherpa 750 tripod

Manfrotto 479 monopod

Lowepro Mini Trekker & Micro Trekker 200 backpacks; Stealth Reporter 300 AW

Lowepro Topload Zoom AW and Street & Field Toploader 75 AW

Other bits and bobs

Note that the above items contain only personal views and points of note. They are not full reviews nor full descriptions of functionality. For links to some exhaustive information on everything Nikon, nikonlinks.com is a very good resource.

A bit of history

I first became hooked on photography at the age of nine when my grandfather bought me a little 126-cartridge camera. It was cheap and leaked light at the bottom, but I found it fascinating and began taking pictures of just about anything. I gradually progressed via a real 126 Kodak Instamatic and an old Box Brownie to my first SLR at the age of eleven.

It was a Zenith EM; a big, heavy Russian tank of a camera with which I learnt all the fundamentals of photography. It was completely manual with an external match-needle exposure meter and shutter speeds were limited to 1/30th to 1/500th sec., but it was extremely rugged and didn't require battery power for anything. It came with a hard leather case and standard lens for £30, if memory serves, and I wish I'd never let it go. I used it to experiment with the effects of depth of field, different shutter speeds and close-ups using extension tubes.

I later traded up to a Praktica MTL3 because I wanted TTL metering. It served me well, despite being dropped onto concrete, and I used it for some years until I traded up again to the Praktica B100 Electronic. This one was initially impressive but had problems, so I switched brands to Minolta. The X300 produced much higher quality images than I'd ever produced before but, ironically, I slowly began to lose some interest in experimenting and being creative.

When the Nikon F301 came out in 1985 I took notice because I'd always longed for a Nikon (they were always featured somewhere in just about every photo publication that I'd read over the years) and this one was being aimed at the lower price bracket. I still couldn't afford one though, so I forgot about it until 1987, when I had my first student credit card. Suddenly I had the means to buy one and I knew I'd be able to pay it off in the Summer. My hobby gained a new lease of life, albeit temporarily, and this fine camera went all around Australia (where it was dropped at least twice) and to India with me during my year off. Alas, I later began to lack inspiration again, so the F301 was used fairly infrequently during much of my remaining time as a student.

With my student days over and a full-time job paying me real money at last, I found that Nikon accessories were no longer out of reach. My cheap non-Nikon flashgun was totally unreliable, so I decided to treat myself to a used SB-15. Then came my first Nikkor lens (apart from the standard 50 mm lens which I didn't use often): a used 35 mm F/2.8 AI which I still have because it's small, very sharp and robust.

My urge to own a classic Nikon body was finally satisfied when a used FE appeared in my local dealer's window, so I traded in my F301 to have it. I really liked the FE but missed TTL flash, so I traded it for an FE2. By the time I'd added an F3 my obsession had begun. A lot of my stuff is second hand; I've derived a great deal of satisfaction from snapping up used bargains and cleaning them up, finding that they look almost as good as new and work flawlessly.