Nikkormat ELW

Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1976

via machine translation — corrections welcome

Also known as: Nikomat ELW · Nikkormat EL-W · Nikkormat EL W · ニコマートELW

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
Nikkormat ELW	Nikon F	1976–1977	—	No figure published

No production figure has been published. The ELW is generally described as scarce beside the EL, but nothing numerical supports that beyond its short run and single finish.
No weight or dimensions have been published for the ELW separately from the EL. The body is the EL's with a coupling and contacts added, so it will not be lighter than 780 grams; no figure is asserted here.
No serial-date table has been published for any Nikkormat.
The ELW introduced the FRE — a functional resistor element vacuum-deposited onto a glass substrate — in place of the resistor printed on mylar film that the EL used. Kenji Toyoda, a Nikon engineer of thirty years' standing, describes the mylar part as the less reliable of the two in his column on the camera for PRONEWS.
Toyoda dates the ELW to February 1976, two months ahead of the Canon AE-1, which agrees with Nikon's own account and against camera-wiki's 1975.
The AW-1 runs on six AA cells and is quoted at up to two frames a second. Japanese owners report it as loud, and note that the camera is unsteady in the vertical position with the winder fitted.

How to tell them apart (expand)

A small lever around the shutter release — the shutter button switch — which becomes the power switch when the advance lever is folded flat for the winder
Baseplate coupling and electrical contacts for the AW-1 Autowinder
EL on the prism, ELW only in the serial number
Type K focusing screen: 3mm split-image with a 1mm microprism collar
Shutter speed dial on the top plate, and a rabbit-ear prong on the mount — pre-AI

Nikkormat ELW:

Black only — Nikon states the camera was supplied in black finish alone
The W appears nowhere on the body: the prism badge still reads EL, and the only place the model name is written in full is as a prefix to the serial number
A collar switch around the shutter release, which powers the camera and locks the button
Film-advance coupling and winder contacts in the baseplate

Nikkormat ELW: One model. The prism is fixed and the screen is not user changeable, so there are no finder or meter variants of the kind the Nikon F and F2 carry.

Specifications

Format: 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder: Fixed pentaprism, non-interchangeable; fixed Type K screen with 3mm split-image rangefinder, 1mm microprism collar and a 12mm circle marking the meter's centre weighting · no rangefinder image
Shutter: Copal Square SE, metal blade, vertical travel, focal plane, electronically timed · Electronically timed to 1/1000, stepless on automatic; 1/90 mechanically with a dead battery. Sources disagree over whether the automatic range reached 8 seconds here or only on the Nikon EL2 · flash sync X at 1/125 · self-timer
Film advance: single-stroke lever, or the AW-1 Autowinder; with the winder fitted the lever folds flat and the collar switch around the shutter release takes over the power function
Back: hinged
Meter: TTL 60/40 centre-weighted CdS, match-needle, one 6V cell (4SR44 or PX28) housed in the mirror box
Motor drive: AW-1 Autowinder — Nikon called the AW-1 a winder rather than a motor drive on its own definition — the distinction the company drew was whether a unit could shoot continuously, and the AW-1 fires one frame at a time. Wikipedia describes it as advancing at up to two frames a second, which is a rate rather than a burst. The mechanical interest is that a vertical square shutter needs its advance shaft turned both ways to recock, not just one; the drive built to do that here was reused in the later MD-11 and MD-12 motors.
Country: Japan
Accessories: Autowinder AW-1 · Type K focusing screen (fitted, not user-changeable)

Where sources disagree

First

Early 1976 — Nikon, Camera Chronicle Part 8, written by a former Nippon Kogaku designer; Wikipedia agrees with 1976 to 1977
1975 — camera-wiki.org

Better supported: Nikon's own account, which fixes the launch against the April 1976 release of the Canon AE-1 and describes the ELW as the company's response to it.

Speeds

The ELW expanded the automatic shutter speed range to eight seconds — Wikipedia
The eight-second speed was added on the Nikon EL2, not the ELW — Nikon, Camera Chronicle Part 8, which lists 'Added 8 sec. to the shutter speed' among the EL2's changes and among no others

The two claims may be about different things. The Nikomat EL could already reach eight seconds through an unmarked position between B and 4, deleted from the engraving because the timing capacitor was unreliable at that length; the question is when the speed went back onto the dial, not when the circuit could produce it.

Last

1977 — Mike Eckman, who gives the run as 1976 to 1977; Wikipedia agrees
End of 1979 — mynikons.org, which gives 'manufactured from February 1976 until the end of 1979'

Better supported: 1977, on weight of sources. The Nikon EL2 replaced the ELW in 1977, which makes a run to the end of 1979 hard to place; but no source consulted, Nikon's included, states a discontinuation date outright, and mynikons.org is the only one that puts a month to either end.

Nothing settles this from a camera in hand, because no Nikkormat serial-date table exists.

What reviewers say

Mike Eckman (mikeeckman.com) (blog) — Recommends adding an EL-series body to a collection and says Nikon did not cut quality for the cheaper line — all-metal build, a good needle readout, and it takes non-Ai and Ai glass alike — but records that early ELs had a reputation for unreliability that led repair shops to turn them away, that non-Ai coupling limits what the finder can report, and that the battery under the mirror is a frustrating place to have put it.
Kenji Toyoda (PRONEWS, ニコンの系譜 Vol.19) (blog) — A thirty-year Nikon engineer's account of what the ELW solved — how to motorise a camera whose square shutter needs its advance shaft turned both ways — and his own criticism of the fix: the collar switch added around the shutter release is far less visible than the swung-out advance lever it replaces, which is exactly the property that had stopped owners leaving the camera switched on. via machine translation — corrections welcome
foto-pooh (写真と模型を愛する人へ) (blog) — Values it as the only Nikomat that takes a winder and as a camera still worth using with old Nikkors, but calls the AW-1 conspicuously loud beside anything modern and the ELW itself the end of a line that was only ever incrementally revised before it was dropped. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

In April 1976 Canon released the AE-1 with a Power Winder and sold it in Japan on the phrase “continuous shooting SLR”. Nikon’s own history of the period records the sting: the engineer who wrote it was asked by a parts salesman whether Nippon Kogaku was going to make a continuous-shooting SLR, and notes that the man plainly did not know the company had been motorising cameras since the S2. The Nikkormat ELW was the reply, and Nikon is straightforward that automatic advance had been in the EL’s plans from the beginning — the parts had simply never been fitted.

What was added is small and specific: a film-advance coupling in the baseplate, an electrical contact to tell the camera to fire, and a lock lever around the shutter button. That last one solves a problem the EL had created. On the EL, power is switched by swinging the advance lever out; with a winder underneath, the lever stays folded and something else has to do the job, so a collar appeared around the shutter release that switches the camera on and locks the button. Nikon’s account admits the cost of the change — the collar is inconspicuous, and people forgot to switch off, which on a camera drawing milliamps continuously meant a flat battery in days. The problem was not really solved until the timed auto-off of the Nikon EM and F3 in 1980.

The Autowinder AW-1 is the only Nikon accessory ever called a winder rather than a motor drive, because Nippon Kogaku drew the line at continuous shooting and the AW-1 fires one frame at a time. Mechanically it is the more interesting half of the camera. A vertical square shutter cannot be recocked by turning the advance shaft one way; the shaft has to go both ways, and the top lever must not spin while it happens, so the two axles had to be separated and then relinked. The drive built to manage that turns up again in the MD-11 and MD-12 motors sold for the FM and FE.

Everything else is the Nikomat EL: the same shell, the same CdS meter, the same rabbit-ear coupling, the same electronically timed Copal Square. The only cosmetic change is that the ELW was made in black alone, and the W was never put on the prism — the badge still says EL, and the model name appears in full only as a prefix to the serial number, which means an ELW is identified from underneath its own serial or from the coupling in its baseplate.

Three things remain unsettled. Camera-wiki dates the launch to 1975 against Nikon’s early 1976, and Wikipedia credits the ELW with extending the automatic range to eight seconds where Nikon lists that change under the EL2 instead — a question complicated by the fact that the plain EL could already reach eight seconds through a position its dial did not mark. The end of the run is no firmer: Mike Eckman and Wikipedia stop it in 1977, where the collector site mynikons.org has it running from February 1976 to the end of 1979. And no production figure exists for the ELW at all. It was on sale for about eighteen months, in one finish, between two better-known cameras, which is the kind of run that ought to have a number attached to it. None has been published.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $80 across 4 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-06 (middle half $78–$140). First day tracked.

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

Nikon Nikkormat ELW EL(W) 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Black W/Aw-1 Winder #G649 — $78.10 · eBay · likely ELW
Nikon Nikkormat ELW EL W Black SLR Film Camera Body — $80.00 · eBay · likely ELW
*Rare ELW : APP Mint* Nikon Nikomat ELW EL W Black Film Camera Body From Japan — $136.79 · eBay · likely ELW
*Rare ELW : Near Mint ++* Nikon Nikomat ELW EL W Black Film Camera Body From JPN — $189.99 · eBay · likely ELW

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Listings updated 2026-09-05. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.