New to me Nikon D1...

Stradawhovious · Feb 7, 2016

It's been a long time since I posted here. Hell, it's been a long time since I pressed a shutter. Many of you won't remember me and those who do probably have only a vague memory of my shenanigans but that's ok. My love of this hobby my have recently been rekindled by a Nikon body that's largely been obselete for well over a decade.

The Nikon D1.

I recently picked this bad boy up locally, with an antique Nikkor 80-200mm push pull zoom lens (that I will likely never use) for $75. In 1999, when I was fresh out of trade school making $7.00 an hour, I was convinced I would never ever own this $5,500 professional camera. Didn't stop me from dreaming about it though...

Fast forward to last week, I just then realized that this body now sells for less than a decent dinner at the local brewpub.

So now I own it.

Let me be clear. This camera leaves an awful lot to be desired... 2.7MP, very poor low light performance evidenced by tons of noise and horizontal banding, tiny sensor, terrible and inconsistent color rendering, useless pic preview screen... the list goes on.

What it DOES have going for it is that it's still a professional level camera. No, really, it is. Or was anyways... The viewfinder is wonderfully bright, the controls are all precise and where they need to be and this guy is built like a tank. Forget the endless options and menus of my D7000, this guy has one job. Take pictures. Every button and switch on it is geared towards this one goal with no unnecessary bells and whistles. It allows me to focus on shooting in manual mode, relaxing and having a good time again. So what if my pictures aren't absolutely perfect in image quality. They aren't perfect in subject or composition either, so who cares.

Hopefully I will once again join the ranks of the casual shutterbug with this new purchace. God knows I'm already looking at the Nikon D2X...

To those of you who remember me, I hope you're doing well and I hope to be a reasonably frequent poster here once again in the very near future.

tirediron · Feb 7, 2016

Cool - new gear is always good, even if it's new old gear. Good to see you back!

KmH · Feb 7, 2016

Trade up to a D1X.

Solarflare · Feb 8, 2016

Congrats ! Have fun.

Stradawhovious · Feb 8, 2016

KmH said:
Trade up to a D1X.

Nah, the D1 was simply for nostalgic reasons. When/if I upgrade it will probably be to a D2X. Sure I'd like to get a FX or more recent pro body, but my level of talent and commitment/involvment don't justify it. I'm just happy to have spent a portion of the weekend pressing the shutter button again.

goodguy · Feb 8, 2016

Wow, interesting, I never heard of this camera, had to look it up before replying to your post, looks so cool and it does look like a tank.
From reading a quick Ken Rockwell review it looks like he has very little love to this camera but that doesn't matter one bit, the only important thing is that you are happy and having fun.

Enjoy your new toy and welcome back

Stradawhovious · Feb 8, 2016

goodguy said:
From reading a quick Ken Rockwell review it looks like he has very little love to this camera but that doesn't matter one bit, the only important thing is that you are happy and having fun.

Yeah, I'm kind of over allowing the opinions of others dictate what I end up with in my life. I would much rather do my own research and decide what's best for me, although I do enjoy a good Ken Rockwell review. He is quite right though... this body is drastically outdated, and painfully obsolete. Even the hilariously outdated DX1 is a far superior body in that it eliminates many of the shortcomings of the D1, and can be had for nearly the same price. The good news is I knew this going into the purchase, so there were no surprises. For me, even if this thing doesn't get more than 50 clicks on it in my hands, it's worth the $75 sitting in my office acting as a conversation piece.

After toying with it though, I think it will get far more use than that. My kids and wife want to learn the mechanics of photography now too... and I think this would be the perfect tool due to its brilliant simplicity. Aperture, shutter, ISO. All right there, nothing else to get in the way.

tirediron said:
Good to see you back!

You sure about that??

beachrat · Feb 8, 2016

I guess the 80-200 is the f4.5?

Stradawhovious · Feb 8, 2016

beachrat said:
I guess the 80-200 is the f4.5?

That's the one, but it's the not the one Rockwell raves about, since it doesn't have the square rear element window. I'm sure it's a fine lens. I simply don't have time for a manual focus, manual aperture adjustment lens.

I'm lazy like that.

beachrat · Feb 8, 2016

Rockwell is a raver.
The 2.8 woulda been a great score.

Stradawhovious · Feb 8, 2016

beachrat said:
Rockwell is a raver.
The 2.8 woulda been a great score.

Yeah, it really would have been. I would have almost felt bad if I got the D1 and a 2.8 80-200 lens for $75.

Almost.

But sadly, this f4.5 dinosaur will likely just collect dust in my closet.

beachrat · Feb 8, 2016

I'm sure you would have lost a lot of sleep.

Dave442 · Feb 8, 2016

Should be great fun to use in Manual and RAW.

wfooshee · Feb 9, 2016

That thing could tell you something about the life expectancy of the top pro cameras, having been introduced in 1999.

I wonder if you can get a shutter count for it? Upload a RAW file to camerashuttercount.com and see if they can read it. If you're curious.

Stradawhovious · Feb 10, 2016

wfooshee said:
I wonder if you can get a shutter count for it? Upload a RAW file to camerashuttercount.com and see if they can read it. If you're curious.

No go. The D1 series needs to be sent to Nikon for an actuation count. It's in fantastic shape though. Barely a nick or ding on the guy, so I'd have a hard time believing it was a journalist rig.