Nikon F-601

Variants & identification

1. No production figure has been published for the F-601 or the F-601M, and no serial blocks. Nikon's own product-archive page for each model is a short list of key features with no specification table at all — the same archive gives full tables for the F90X and the F100. The public database that carries Nikon serial blocks for the digital bodies still records film cameras as a section yet to be added.
2. Photography in Malaysia identifies the autofocus module as the AM200 used in the F-801, working from EV −1 to EV 19, and calls the F-601 the second Nikon to carry predictive focus tracking and the first to run on a 6V lithium cell. Nikon's own page for the model names none of these things.
3. Film speed is set from the DX code between ISO 25 and 5000, or by hand from ISO 6 to 6400. Exposure compensation runs ±5 EV in 1/3 EV steps.
4. Finder magnification of 0.75× and 92% frame coverage are published for the F-601M and not separately for the F-601; the same is true of the 154.5 × 96 × 65mm body size. The autofocus body's weight is given only as "approx. 650g" without battery. Matt Denton's specification table for the N6006 gives 92% coverage for the autofocus body as well, which is the only place that figure has been found attached to this model rather than to the F-601M.
5. Exposure compensation is given here as ±5 EV in 1/3 EV steps. Matt Denton's table for the N6006 says ±2 EV. The narrower figure has not been corroborated and may be the flash compensation range or a transcription error, but it is recorded rather than discarded because no manufacturer's specification table for this model survives to settle it.
6. 赤城耕一, writing for Photo & Culture, Tokyo, states that the F-601M keeps the AI coupling lever but that non-CPU AI Nikkors get centre-weighted metering only, while multi-pattern metering and the P and S modes need a CPU lens. He also says he believes the F-601M was at first an export-only model — a hedged recollection, not a document, and it sits awkwardly beside Nikon's own Japanese product-archive page for the camera. Neither point is corroborated elsewhere in the sources examined.
7. Older non-AI Nikkors will not mount without conversion, and forcing one damages the indexing pin. G-type lenses without an aperture ring work in program and shutter priority only if the aperture-ring sensor is held at its maximum position by hand, which Nikon does not endorse.
8. Nikon's product-archive pages for this model are no longer served from imaging.nikon.com and were read through the Internet Archive.

• F-601: Nikon catalogued a date-back version as the F-601 QD, sold in North America as the N6006 QD. It carries a CR2025 cell for the back and is otherwise the same camera; no mechanical difference beyond the imprinting mechanism is recorded in the sources examined.
• F-601M: Nikon's own archive describes it as a simplified F-601 without autofocus and without the built-in Speedlight, and lists matrix and centre-weighted metering only. Photography in Malaysia gives the same September 1990 date as the F-601 and adds that the spot meter went with the flash. A manual-focus body tooled in 1990, four years after the company's first autofocus reflex.

Specifications

Format

24×36mm on 35mm film

Finder

Fixed eye-level pentaprism with LCD readout · no rangefinder image

Shutter

electromagnetically controlled focal plane · 30s – 1/2000 and B, the B setting held open by the battery · flash sync 1/125 · self-timer

Film advance

integral motor; automatic loading to the first frame, 2 frames a second in continuous high and 1.2 in continuous low

Back

hinged

Meter

TTL five-segment matrix, centre-weighted and spot at full aperture, EV 0–19 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens; the F-601M has matrix and centre-weighted only

Motor drive

Not compatible — The motor is integral and there is no drive to add. Film advances and loads under power; the electronic self-timer runs from 2 to 30 seconds in one-second steps and has a two-shot mode that fires again after the first frame.

Weight

650 g

Country

Japan

Accessories

6V CR-P2 or DL223A lithium cell (the only power source) · CR2025 cell for the QD date back

What reviewers say

• John Margetts (John's Cameras) (blog) — Finds a metal chassis under the plastic fascias and a meter that copes with high dynamic range, and rates the film loading and DX reading as trouble-free; his complaints are the CR-P2 cell, a finder with no split-image or microprism aid at all so manual focus has nothing to work against, and a rewind that pulls the leader entirely into the cassette.
• Matt Denton (Matt's Classic Cameras) (blog) — Bought one as a practical camera for his wife and rates the matrix metering and the automatic balanced fill flash as giving results that look professional; names the battery cover as the camera's real fault, its plastic retaining tabs weakly held on and broken twice on his own body — once from a drop and once from ordinary use — and repaired both times with epoxy.
• ImagingPixel (blog) — Calls the body solid and extremely well made with one of the largest and brightest fixed eye-level finders in its class, and treats the F-801's autofocus module and five-segment matrix meter as the reason to buy one; the reservations are the proprietary 6V lithium cell where rivals took AAs, autofocus slower than a modern digital body, and a battery life that runs from about 75 rolls without flash down to three in the cold with it.
• 赤城耕一 / Koichi Akagi (Photo & Culture, Tokyo) (blog) — Writing on the F-601M, admires the nerve of shipping a manual-focus body in 1990 and rates its finder above the Pentax MZ-M's, but says the all-plastic shell goes shiny and cheap with use and never acquires any patina, and lands on the contradiction at the centre of the camera — a manual-focus SLR that gives manual-focus Nikkors centre-weighted metering only, while the AF lenses it meters fully have focus rings too light to focus by hand. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

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.

Photographs

Live listings

• Nikon F-601 Pin - Daring Photography Nikon Pin - Ideal für eine Sammlung ! — €4.90 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 / M Buch #P2 — €9.90 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 Spiegelreflex Kamera AF Filmkamera - Ungetestet — €15.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 AF body Gehäuse Kamera SLR analoge Spiegelreflexkamera — €23.25 · eBay · likely F-601
• ✮ Nikon F-601 SLR Body | [TESTED] | Advanced Matrix Metering | Analog 35mm ✅ — €24.99 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 – analoge Spiegelreflexkamera (gebraucht, voll funktionsfähig) — €28.50 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 Gehäuse analoge Spiegelreflexkamera — €29.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 AF anloge Spiegelreflexkamera SLR Gehäuse #2239248-5 — €29.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 AF analoge Spiegelreflexkamera #2031024-42 — €29.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Fotocamera Analogica NIKON F-601 Quartz date - non funzionante non testata — €29.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 Quartz Date Fotocamera Reflex Analogica Nera SLR — €30.95 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 35mm SLR Analogkamera Gehäuse schwarz, Autofokus, Blitz — €34.99 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 Quartz Date Analoge Spiegelreflexkamera Schwarz SLR — €37.95 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 35mm Spiegelreflexkamera SLR #2216212 - Fachhändler — €39.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F – 601 Analoge Klein Bild Kamera — €39.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 NOTTESTED — €40.00 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 35mm Spiegelreflexkamera SLR analog Body Gehäuse (Nikon AF) — €44.99 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 AF 35mm Spiegelreflexkamera SLR analog Body Gehäuse (Nikon AF) — €44.99 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 SLR Quartz Date 35mm SLR analog Body (Nikon AF) — €44.99 · eBay · likely F-601
• Nikon F-601 Quartz Date AF Spiegelreflexkamera mit AF Nikkor 35-70mm 1:3,3-4,5 — €49.00 · eBay · likely F-601

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.