Youll have to look at the bayonet mount area of the camera each time you change speeds. It can be awkward if youre used to the standard layout where the shutter speed dial is positioned at the top, it can also be annoying to use if the camera is mounted on a tripod. The ones that were sold domestically (Japan) all use the Nikomat trade-name instead of Nikkormat but theyre basically the same. They also use the old 1.35v mercury cell batteries that are not made anymore these days and this is also another factor for their cheap price. You even get an auto-resetting film counter I know that all these sound trivial today but they were considered to be premium back then. It also has a handy mirror-up switch so you dont have to waste a single exposure (like on the Nikon F ) just to flip the damn mirror up.Ī self-time is also standard and you also have a useful DOF preview plunger for stop-down metering and checking if the DOF is right. This makes it easy to measure your exposure so you dont have to look like a creep pointing your camera at your subjects just to see if the exposure is right. I also love how you can the meters needle without looking-through the eyepiece since its also visible at the top part of the camera. It was developed from the earlier Nikkormat FT which is a good camera but it added things that made the original camera even better in terms of handling.īoth models have built-in TTL meters that have an average 6040 metering pattern thats standard with Nikons. This is probably the most successful one in terms of units produced and its not hard to figure out why because the Nikkormat FTn is a wel-rounded camera thats still relevant today. While were on the tangeant of cheap and reliable, I will share with you a camera that I believe has the same qualities as the Seiko-5 and it is one of the classic Nikons that every collector or Nikon user should have the Nikkormat FTn. The bad side of this if you can call it that is they dont hold value very well unless its special or rare.