Nikon F-301 (N2000)

Nikon F-301, also known as Nikon N2000 in the US, was made in 1985-1988 and it was the first Nikon SLR without a film advance lever and the first one with a DX film decoder.

To operate, it needs four AAA batteries on a special holder in the battery compartment. The camera reads the film's ISO automatically from the DX code on the cassette. If your cassette doesn't have a code, you can set it manually. Do not change the ISO afterwards. This is not a digital camera and in order to properly function, the ISO must always be the same to the film you use.

The camera automatically advances the film each frame, but you'll have to rewind it manually. Also this model does not have autofocus (which came with the Nikon F-501 in 1986).

Apart from manual, the camera has 3 modes:
• P (Program): actually the auto mode. Shutter speed and aperture are all set automatically.
• PHi (Program): the same as "P" but to be used when photographing fast moving subjects, or when mounting a telephoto lens (when requiring higher shutter speeds)
• A (Aperture priority): don't confuse this for Auto! With "A" you can set manually the aperture and the camera automatically adjusts the shutter speed.

The viewfinder offers all the indications to help you avoid over- and underexposures. The camera also has an auto exposure lock feature, in order to lightmeter the areas away from your frame's center. An exposure compensation dial is also available. It can also take 2.5 photos per second if put to continuous shooting mode.

Nikon F-301 is generally a good camera which with the lenses available can produce beautiful results. It was a camera made in the transitional period between fully manual cameras and automation, thus ending up in a strange combination of things that can actually be done automatically (e.g. no auto focus and no auto rewind).