Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Nikon F4

Nikon · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back · 1988

our own finding

Also known as: Nikon F4s · Nikon F4e · Nikon F4S · ニコンF4

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
F4 (MB-20 battery pack) Nikon F 1988–1997 — No separate figure published
F4S (MB-21 high-speed battery pack) Nikon F 1988–1997 — No separate figure published
F4E (MB-23 battery pack) Nikon F 1991–1997 — No separate figure published
NASA F4 Electronic Still Camera Nikon F 1991 — No figure published
  1. Nikon publishes one figure and it covers three years, not the whole run: 93,000 sold at home and 137,000 exported, "totaling 230,000 units in three years by the end of 1991". No company total for 1988–1996 has ever appeared.
  2. Van Dijk's "more than 600,000" is the only whole-run figure in print, and it rests on serial numbers rather than on any statement from Nikon.
  3. The count of parts is quoted the same way everywhere it appears: 1,850 body parts, four processors, and control software written against 43 million combinations of operating conditions. Jeb Inge and Dirk Saeger both give it; neither says where the number comes from, and it does not appear in Nikon's own history of the camera.
  4. Robert Gulley notes that the F4 was the first professional Nikon on which a flash could be mounted on top of the finder, earlier bodies in the line having required a bracket at the side.
  5. The most-reported fault is display bleed. Robert Gulley describes it as a leaking display that ranges from slight discolouration to blocking the reading altogether; Dirk Saeger reports the same deterioration in the DP-20 prism. Both treat it as an age fault rather than a design fault, and neither gives a rate.
  6. The two reviewers name different parts for that fault — Gulley a liquid-crystal display, Saeger LEDs, on the ground that the camera predates LCDs in that position — and Nikon's specification settles it. The DP-20 carries both, doing different jobs: "By LCD — exposure compensation value, frame counter, metering system in use, shutter speed, aperture, exposure mode, electronic analog display, AE Lock indicator … by LED display — focus indicators, exposure compensation mark and flash ready-light." The symptom both describe is a readout going blotchy and unreadable, and the readout is the LCD. Saeger's premise is also wrong on its own terms: the F3 of 1980 put an LCD strip in the finder eight years before the F4.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • The metering mode is set by which finder is fitted: matrix needs the DP-20, spot works with any of them
  • A meter coupling cam that folds out of the way, so lenses made before Ai in 1977 will mount and meter
  • Dials and levers where the F5 and everything after it would use a command wheel and an LCD — the last professional Nikon laid out like a mechanical camera
  • A body that changes size and weight with the battery pack: the model name is the pack

F4 (MB-20 battery pack):

  • The short pack: four AA cells, no vertical grip, 169 × 118 × 77 mm and about 1,090 g
  • 4 frames a second

F4S (MB-21 high-speed battery pack):

  • Six AA cells and a vertical grip with its own release; 169 × 139 × 77 mm, about 1,280 g
  • 5.7 frames a second

F4E (MB-23 battery pack):

  • The tallest pack: 169 × 157 × 77 mm and about 1,400 g
  • Takes six AA cells or the MN-20 rechargeable unit

NASA F4 Electronic Still Camera:

  • A monochrome CCD of 1024 × 1024 pixels on a 15 × 15 mm area, in place of the film gate

Serial-range notes

2000001
The first F4, on Nico van Dijk's record.
2000001 – 2230000
Issued by the end of 1991 — the same span as Nikon's own figure of 230,000 bodies sold in the first three years. Serials and sales agree to the unit.
above 23xxxxx
Robert Gulley advises buyers to prefer bodies numbered above 23xxxxx for small improvements made during the run. He does not say what the improvements were, and no Nikon document has been found that records a change at that point.
26xxxxx
The range reached in 1996, van Dijk's last production year. He puts the total at "more than 600,000 cameras", which the serial arithmetic supports.

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film, hinged back
Finder
DP-20 Multi-Meter Finder as standard — a fixed High-Eyepoint pentaprism; interchangeable with the DA-20 AE Action Finder, the DW-21 6× magnifier and the DW-20 waist-level finder · 0.7× magnification · 100% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
vertical-travel focal plane, carbon-fibre composite blades, electromagnetically controlled with a shutter balancer · 1/8000 – 30s stepless in programmed and aperture-priority modes; 1/8000 – 4s in 1 EV steps in manual and shutter-priority; B, T and X. Timed by a lithium niobate oscillator · flash sync X at 1/250 · self-timer
Film advance
integral motor; 5.7 frames a second on continuous high with the MB-21 or MB-23, 4 with the MB-20
Back
hinged
Meter
Five-segment matrix metering with the DP-20 finder; centre-weighted with the DP-20 or the DA-20; spot metering with any finder fitted.
Motor drive
MB-20, MB-21, MB-23 — Built in rather than bolted on. The three packs are not accessories to one camera but the three models: MB-20 makes an F4, MB-21 an F4S, MB-23 an F4E.
Designed by
Giugiaro Giorgetto — exterior design, contracted in August 1985 on the strength of the F3, the EM and the Pikaichi compacts
Weight
1090 g
Dimensions
169 × 118 × 77 (MB-20); 169 × 139 × 77 (MB-21); 169 × 157 × 77 (MB-23) mm
Country
Japan
Original price
284,000 yen with the AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4S at release in 1988, reduced to 259,000 yen (consumption tax excluded) in April 1993 when the commodity tax was abolished. No Nikon price list for other markets has been found; Jeb Inge gives $2,500 in the United States at release and Dirk Saeger DM 4,200 in Germany, both from reviews rather than from Nikon. Neither says which body the figure covers, and on this camera that matters: the F4 and the F4S were sold from the same day at different prices, being different battery packs. (today ¥362,000)
Accessories
MB-20, MB-21 and MB-23 battery packs; MN-20 rechargeable unit · DP-20 Multi-Meter Finder, DA-20 AE Action Finder, DW-20 waist-level, DW-21 6× magnifier

Figures we worked out rather than found: Roughly 600,000 bodies for the whole run, read off the serial span 2000001 to 26xxxxx. This is van Dijk's own figure and the arithmetic agrees with it, but a serial span is not a production figure and Nikon has published nothing to check it against.

Where sources disagree

End of production
  • May 1997 — 'All F4 models were discontinued soon after, in May 1997' (English Wikipedia)
  • 1996 — the last production year, with serials in the 26xxxxx range (Nico van Dijk); camera-wiki.org likewise has the F4 replaced in 1996

Better supported: Unresolved

The two may be describing different events — bodies leaving the line in 1996, the model leaving the catalogue in May 1997 — but no source says so, and the F5 was announced in October 1996, which would fit either reading.

What reviewers say

History

Nikon contracted Giugiaro in August 1985, began production in June 1987, announced the F4 in September 1988 and then could not ship it. The company’s own history is unusually candid about why: the sales estimate had been conservative, orders came in beyond the scheduled supply at home and for export, and the release slipped about a month to December, worldwide and simultaneous.

What arrived was the first autofocus camera in the professional line, and — read from the outside — the least radical way of getting there. The F4 is operated by dials. Shutter speeds on a dial, exposure compensation on a dial, film speed on a dial, drive mode on a collar, and every one of them readable with the camera switched off. The generation that followed put those settings behind command wheels and an LCD panel, so the F4 is the last professional Nikon whose controls could be learned by looking at it.

Two older habits survive in it. The first is that the finder decides the metering: matrix needs the DP-20 prism, centre-weighted works with the DP-20 or the DA-20 action finder, and only spot works with all of them — the same arrangement, in principle, that put the F’s meter in the Photomic head. The second is backwards compatibility taken further than any other F body takes it. The meter coupling cam folds out of the way, so a non-Ai lens from before 1977 will mount and meter, which means a 1959 Nikkor works on a camera built in 1988.

The body’s model name is its battery pack. MB-20 and four AA cells make an F4 at about 1,090 grams and 4 frames a second; MB-21 and six cells make an F4S at 1,280 grams and 5.7; the MB-23 of 1991 makes an F4E at 1,400. Nikon sold the first two together from the opening day rather than staggering them, and the packs change the camera’s height by 39 millimetres between the shortest and the tallest.

The production record is a single sentence from Nikon and a piece of arithmetic. The sentence covers three years: 93,000 sold at home, 137,000 exported, “totaling 230,000 units in three years by the end of 1991”. Van Dijk records that serials had reached 2230000 by exactly that date, from a first body at 2000001 — 230,000 numbers for 230,000 cameras, which suggests the sequence ran without gaps and makes his 26xxxxx endpoint for 1996 worth about 600,000 bodies for the whole run. That is the only whole-run figure anywhere, it comes from serials rather than from the maker, and it sits beside a discontinuation date that two sources put a year apart.

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.

Photographs

Nikon F4
Nikon F4 with its body cap — Michael Sporleder, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
Nikon F4
Nikon F4 with the AF Nikkor 35–70mm — Martintoy, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Nikon F4
Nikon F4 Electronic Still Camera, NASA — NASA, via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $270 across 45 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $220–$360). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $270.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$270$220–$36045
2026-09-06$270$220–$36045

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

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

Related: Nikon F-801 · Nikon F2 · Nikon F3 · Nikon F5 · Nikon F90

Lenses for this body: Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4 · Nikkor 105mm f/1.8 · AF DC-Nikkor 105mm f/2D · Nikkor 135mm f/2 · Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 ED · Nikkor 200mm f/2 IF-ED · Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 · Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 · Ai AF Nikkor 28mm f/1.4D · Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 ED · Nikkor 85mm f/1.4 · PC-Nikkor 28mm f/3.5

Sources (8)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.