Nikon F - "Apollo" Tune-Up.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

I got a nice Nikon F "Apollo"* to fix.

Especially nice to get the 1.4 lens and the flash adapter that I don't already have.

Functionality here is a mystery. I started another thread on the lens.

*The "Apollo" moniker designates this Nikon F as having a plastic tip on the timer and wind lever. Also the strap lugs are reinforced with stainless steel. These Nikon F models were available along side the F2 in 1972 and 1973 when one could buy either one new.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

This is one of the few Nikon brochures I have seen that shows the F and F2 along side each other. Curiously, the Nikon F pictured does not have the black plastic accouterments.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

One of the few ads I have seen with the "Apollo" camera. However, this is an ad for a reseller.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

First thing was to take thelens, prism, focus screen and back off the camera.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

I put new batteries in the FTn finder but it was dead. So I opened that first.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

There is corrostion on both sides of the metal plate identified by the green arrow. The spring is not attached in any way to the metal plate, it contacts by pressure only.

Continuity test shows no continuity between the spring and the brown wire.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

The battery holder was removed and the spring separated from the corroded plate.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

Battery holder being treated with rust remover.

F4U · Mar 24, 2025

uh oh. Is that a little corrosion I see on the bottom of the battery bay? Beware. Corrosion can wick down the wire inside the insulation and actually do more damage than the end where it started. I had a Nikkormat do that once.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

I tested cells from a previous working FTn meter and in the dark they were almost 1 meg ohm individually with my hand over them.

Here I'm getting around 450k for two of them in parallel. Probably OK.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

F4U said:
uh oh. Is that a little corrosion I see on the bottom of the battery bay? Beware. Corrosion can wick down the wire inside the insulation and actually do more damage than the end where it started. I had a Nikkormat do that once.

Luckily the corrosion was impeded by the solder and saved the brown wire!

My experience with corrosion traveling up the insulation is the wire no longer can be solderd.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

After a treatment with rust remover both of these pieces look ok and now conduct electricity.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

I was anxious to get this back together to see if it worked, but first I had to deal with a lot of decaying foam rubber.

Hard to see, but notice the little round ND filters in the bottom of the cups for the CDS cells.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

New foam rubber applied.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

With zinc cells, the light meter response from EV5 to EV16 was within 0.5EV. This was fantastic and I did not touch the trimmers at all.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

New foam here...

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

...and here.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

Everything in here looked OK. The carbon resistor was cleaned with EtOH and a few drops of oil were placed here and there.

F4U · Mar 24, 2025

I'd be interested in a table of the shutter speeds. On all 3 of my F's, after 1/60 everything goes to heck in a handbasket.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

F4U said:
I'd be interested in a table of the shutter speeds. On all 3 of my F's, after 1/60 everything goes to heck in a handbasket.

Ok. So this one has shutter speeds all messed up. There is an orderly method depending on speeds above the X synch speed or below.

Above X-synch the speeds are controlled by curtain timing which varies slit width. Below X synch the escapement times the shutter. The escapement; usually 3 or 4 steps both with and without the pallet (which slows it considerably) giving a total of 6 to 8 slow speeds.

Clean the spinning parts and axles and escapement
Set the curtain travel times.
Adjust fast and slow speeds, usually with little eccentrics.
Re-check and repeat as needed because second curtain tension powers the escapement, so changes in second curtain speed will affect slow speeds to some extent.

Hunter_Compton · Mar 24, 2025

F4U said:
I'd be interested in a table of the shutter speeds. On all 3 of my F's, after 1/60 everything goes to heck in a handbasket.

Interestingly, I also just picked up an F. I was surprised to see that when I put the untouched body on a shutter tester, all the speeds including 1/1000th were within 10% of stated, with no signs of any work having been done.

F4U · Mar 24, 2025

Hunter_Compton said:
Interestingly, I also just picked up an F. I was surprised to see that when I put the untouched body on a shutter tester, all the speeds including 1/1000th were within 10% of stated, with no signs of any work having been done.

What tester are you using? I just got one of those $46 from ebay testers from Japan, and no camera in my house is right, whatever kind of shutter it has. And that particular tester states it's only good up to about 1/250 anyway.

Hunter_Compton · Mar 24, 2025

This one from seller Alexlitv27 in Ukraine. Took about a month to arrive, but it works quite well for me. Slightly picky about light source, so I just built a box with an incandescent bulb in it.

Shutter Tester ST-1. Film camera shutter speed tester up to 1/2000 | eBay

For 1/1000 max error is 4%, for 1/500 - 2% and so on for other shutter speeds. You can use a flashlight or lamp as a light source.

www.ebay.com

The seller is very communicative and helpful, and the tester has three diagonal sensors for testing travel of vertical and horizontal focal plane shutters. Readout is nice in both fractional seconds and milliseconds.

The one available for Japan in that price range seems to only have one sensor which would limit its usefulness for focal plane shutters for me.

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

Pre, the shutter speeds are all slow. 1 sec is about 1.5 sec and 1/1000 was about 1/350

Pre, the opening curtain was 15.2ms and the closing curtain was 19.96ms. Both should be 14.5ms.

After setting the curtain speeds (14.3ms/14.48ms*), the rest of the speeds fell in line.

*Curtain times a tad fast, but I don't have all day. I wanted to get out and shoot some film. Each time one curtain is adjusted all the speeds get messed up until the other curtan is adjusted.

1000	-0.1
500	-0.1
250	-0.3
125	-0.1
60	0
30	0
15	0
8	-0.2
4	-0.1
2	-0.1
1	-0.2

ic-racer · Mar 24, 2025

Infinity focus of the camera/lens combination is spot on. They don't have it set to the back rails or the front rails, it is at the film plane (checked with film in the camera). This perfectly matches the focus screen with the mirror down.

Nikon F - "Apollo" Tune-Up.

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