Nikon F50

Nikon · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film; the F50D masks 13×36mm for panorama · 1994

Also known as: Nikon N50 · Nikon F50D · ニコンF50

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
F50 Nikon F 1994 No figure published
F50D Nikon F 1994 No figure published
  1. The long setting is a Time, not a Bulb, and Nikon says so. The N50 instruction manual's specification table gives the shutter speeds as "1/2000 sec. to 30 sec.; electromagnetically controlled Time setting is provided (for ADVANCED mode)", and the manual devotes a page to "LONG TIME EXPOSURE AT 'TIME' SETTING (ADVANCED mode only)": the speed is set to TIME next to the 30-second mark, the release is fully depressed to start the exposure — the shutter opens about half a second after the finger comes off — and lightly pressed again to end it. The self-timer LED blinks while the shutter is open. This entry previously recorded a Bulb setting, which it had from nowhere; Aaron Gold's review, which described the Time mode and its operation, was right, and the maker's own document now confirms him. The distinction is not cosmetic on this body: it has no socket for a cable release, so a Bulb would give no practical way to hold the shutter open at all.
  2. The weight is 580g, from Nikon: the N50 manual gives "Approx. 580g or 20.5 oz." for the body without battery, alongside dimensions of approximately 149 × 96 × 70mm. Aaron Gold's specification table gives 595g and 21 oz; both halves of that are a little over the maker's figure, and the entry keeps 580.
  3. Further figures from the N50 manual's specification table, none of which appears in Nikon's online product history: the finder is a fixed pentaprism of 0.78× magnification with a 50mm lens at infinity and approximately 90 per cent coverage, at an 18mm eyepoint, over a fixed B-type BriteView screen; autofocus detection runs approximately EV −1 to EV 19 at ISO 100; the film advances one frame in about a second; the built-in TTL flash has a guide number of 13 metres at ISO 100 and covers a 35mm or longer lens; and the power source is a 6V lithium pack, 2CR5 or DL245.
  4. The autofocus module is the AM200 — the same unit as the Nikon F4 of 1988, on both Aaron Gold and davidde, and named in Nikon's own specification table as the "Nikon advanced AM200 autofocus module", with moving-subject tracking. The matrix meter has six segments where the F4's has five, and, used with an AF-D lens, factors subject distance into the calculation, which the F4 cannot do.
  5. Exposure compensation runs to ±5 stops in half steps and works in ADVANCED mode only, on Nikon's own specification — against the two or three usual on a consumer body and the four on an F4. Gold treats it as the workaround for the F50's refusal to override the ISO of a DX-coded cassette: the manual range of 6 to 6400 applies to non-DX film only.
  6. Flash synchronises at 1/125 or slower. Gold and davidde both give the figure and Nikon's specification table confirms it.
  7. The US list price at launch in 1994 was $535, with a mail-order price of $379, on Aaron Gold's figures. Both are body prices.
  8. Gold's specification table names the dated version N50QD and calls the data back optional, where Nikon's own product history lists the pair as models, "F50/F50D (N50)". The manual narrows the question without closing it: its specification gives the camera back as "Hinged back; unchangeable", so whatever the QD is, it is not a back an owner could fit to a plain body afterwards. Optional at the counter and a separate factory model are then two descriptions of one arrangement, and the remaining question — whether North America got the dated version under its own designation — is answered by Gold and not by Nikon.
  9. No production figure has been published for the F50 or the F50D, and no serial blocks are recorded. Nikon's Camera Chronicle, which gives the F-501 and F-301 a joint article, has nothing on this camera. Vink's serial database has not yet reached the autofocus film bodies.
  10. Film speed comes off the DX code from ISO 25 to 5000, and can be set by hand from ISO 6 to 6400.
  11. In ADVANCED the camera offers eight subject programs alongside P, S, A and M; in SIMPLE it is a point-and-shoot with the settings hidden. Nikon leads its own one-line summary of the model with that choice rather than with any specification.
  12. No Japanese launch price has been located, in yen; the US figures above are the only ones in the sources consulted.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • A slider marked SIMPLE and ADVANCED rather than a mode dial
  • Dot-matrix LCD showing exposure modes as icons, not as letters and numbers
  • Polycarbonate over metal, in champagne silver or in black
  • No depth-of-field preview and no socket for a remote release
  • A TIME setting past 30 seconds in place of a Bulb, and only in ADVANCED

F50:

  • SIMPLE / ADVANCED switch on the top plate — the whole control philosophy of the camera in one slider
  • Plain hinged back, no imprinting window

F50D:

  • Date and time imprinting through the back
  • Panorama mode, masking the frame to 13 × 36mm

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film; the F50D masks 13×36mm for panorama
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism with the flash housed above it; fixed B-type BriteView screen · 0.78× magnification · 90% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
electronically controlled vertical-travel metal-blade focal plane · 30s – 1/2000, and past 30 seconds a Time setting rather than a Bulb — available in ADVANCED mode only. There is no B · flash sync 1/125 · self-timer
Film advance
integral motor for loading, advance and rewind; single frame only — there is no continuous mode, and one frame takes about a second
Back
hinged; the F50D's imprints date and time
Meter
TTL at full aperture; no metering at all with a lens that has no CPU, so manual-focus AI and AI-S Nikkors give no automatic exposure
Motor drive
Not compatible — Integral. No external drive was made for this body.
Weight
580 g
Dimensions
149 × 96 × 70 mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
One 6V 2CR5 (DL245) lithium cell

18mm eyepoint; the readout is a liquid-crystal strip below the frame

What reviewers say

History

The F50 of 1994 sits at the bottom of Nikon’s reflex range, and the interesting thing about it is not what it cost but how it was meant to be operated. There is no mode dial. There is a slider with two positions, SIMPLE and ADVANCED, and a dot-matrix LCD that draws the exposure modes as pictures. In SIMPLE the camera decides everything and shows almost nothing. In ADVANCED eight subject programs appear alongside P, S, A and M, as icons rather than as letters. Nikon’s own one-line description of the model leads with that choice and not with any specification, which is a fair indication of what the design was for.

Underneath it is a conventional entry-level body of its date: an electronically timed vertical shutter from 30 seconds to 1/2000 synchronising flash at 1/125 — with a Time setting rather than a Bulb beyond 30 seconds, opened by one press of the release and closed by the next — a motor that loads, advances and rewinds one frame at a time and offers no continuous mode, a flash in the prism, DX film speed from ISO 25 to 5000 with a manual range of 6 to 6400, polycarbonate over metal in champagne silver or black, 580 grams, one 2CR5 lithium cell. There is no depth-of-field preview and no way to fire the shutter from a cable or a remote.

The lens rule is the one carried down from the F-401. Every Nikkor made since 1959 will mount, and one without a CPU will not meter — no automatic exposure of any kind. On an F50 an AI-S lens is a manual-aperture, manual-everything proposition.

Two versions were sold. The F50D adds date and time imprinting and a panorama mask cutting the frame to 13 × 36mm. Nikon’s product history lists the pair under a single North American name, N50, where the F60 four years later gets two names, N60 and N60 QD; what that difference reflects is not explained on the page.

The interface is what everyone who has written about the camera argues over. davidde calls the icon menus confusing and unnecessarily complicated and advises skipping the body entirely for an N65, N75, N80 or F100; Mark McMahon says changing a setting is like solving a puzzle; Aaron Gold, who likes the camera more than either, agrees it is the wrong one for a beginner and recommends a later Nikon with a mode dial instead. Jim Grey adds a complaint about the mechanism rather than the menus: the winder sounds weak and wobbly, and there is a small lag between pressing the release and the shutter firing.

What the same reviewers found underneath is better than the price suggests. The autofocus module is the AM200, the unit Nikon put in the F4 of 1988. The matrix meter has six segments where the F4’s has five, and reads subject distance off an AF-D lens, which the F4 cannot. Compensation runs to ±5 stops — more than the F4 offers — which matters because the F50 will not let a DX-coded cassette be overridden; the manual range of 6 to 6400 is for film that carries no code at all. Gold’s verdict is that an F4 owner should keep one as a second body, and that it does nearly everything an F100 or an F80 does.

It sold for $535 in 1994, or $379 by mail order. The F60 replaced it in 1998 at about the same price and took the icon panel out. Why is not recorded anywhere consulted — nor is how many F50s were built, nor what serial numbers they carry. Nikon’s Camera Chronicle wrote up the F-501 and the F-301 in detail and never came back for the cameras that followed them, so for this one the maker’s account of its own history simply stops.

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 F50
Nikon F50 with the AF Nikkor 28–80mm — No machine-readable author provided. Ashley Pomeroy assumed (based on copyright, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Nikon F50
Nikon F50 — Yaskin Nikita, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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