If you ever hear me complain about the weight of my Pentax KX, you have my permission to mock me.įor most cameras I rarely even glance at the manual, but for this Nikon, the booklet is my constant companion. The 50mm prime adds another 10oz (283g) to that, and the various zooms that came with mine add between 19.5oz (552g) and 25.6 oz (727g). The body alone, with batteries, film and a strap, is an ounce shy of two pounds (879g). It’s massive, big enough to dwarf most of my other cameras and its own 50mm lens. So what’s it like? If, like me, you’re used to simpler mechanical cameras, the N8008 is rather intimidating at first. And thanks to the Second Film Revolution and the accompanying Great Democratisation of Camera Prices, I now know! All-electronic cameras are ridiculously cheap, and the N8008 is ridiculously cheaper than most, for reasons about which I’ll speculate in a little bit. Secretly, I always wondered what it would be like to shoot with something like the 8008.
Let the rich show-offs of the world try to buy their way to a great photo – we ragged folks with our ragged cameras were making real art! I hardened myself to that reality, clutching my well-worn Pentax KX to my breast and declaring that great pictures were made behind the camera, not in them. Hell, they’d barely let me look at the damn thing in the store. Its $858 retail price ($1,785 in today’s dollars – just for the body!) was more than my first car was worth.įor a scruffy student like me, buying a Nikon N8008 (or the F-801 if you lived outside the US) wasn’t even in the realm of possibility. The N8008 was introduced in 1988, a couple of years before I started getting serious about photography, as Nikon’s top-of-the-line “advanced amateur” SLR, one step down from the vaunted F4 and surprisingly close to that camera’s abilities.
Writing a level-headed review of the Nikon N8008 (aka the F-801) isn’t easy, because I’m still a little dazzled by the fact that I own one.
“And you may ask yourself, ‘How do I work this?’ And you may say to yourself, ‘My God, what have I done?’” – Talking Heads – ‘Once in a Lifetime’ KF article top The Nikon N8008 – an overlooked bargain these days (All pics: Aaron Gold)
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