Returning to 35mm

How an unlikely introduction to a Nikon F2AS turned a 35mm sceptic into an advocate.

- David Clapp shares his story

In 2019 I went on a photographic recce to Jordan. The trip began in Amman where my friend Bashar showed me a 'box of junk' he was given by a wife of a deceased family friend. Twenty-year-old plastic camera bodies were the order of the day. Sat at the bottom of a few bridge cameras was a heavily brassed and weighty camera body - a Nikon F2AS. The actual working condition was undetermined, and it had no lens. Although the shutter worked, and it also wound on smoothly, the batteries in the meter were understandably flat. The focusing screen was so bad it looked like someone had ground pepper all over it, but there was something about holding this body that spoke to me.

Medical attention

A week later after returning home, I got some batteries and lo and behold the DP12 meter sprang into action. A week later it stopped, just before I purchased a lens - my heart sank. I realised it was time for some professional opinions if I was to get this working.