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

Nikon F60

Nikon · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1998

Also known as: Nikon N60 · Nikon N60 QD · Nikon F60D · ニコンF60

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
F60 Nikon F 1998–2001 — No figure published
F60D Nikon F 1998–2001 — No figure published
  1. No production figure has been published for the F60 or the F60D, and no serial blocks are recorded. Nikon's Camera Chronicle covers neither. Vink's serial database has not yet reached the autofocus film bodies.
  2. Film speed is taken from the DX code and cannot be set by hand — Jim Grey gives the range read from the code as ISO 25 to 5000. The camera has a manual exposure mode but no manual film-speed control, so a hand-loaded or uncoded cassette is metered at whatever the body assumes.
  3. Flash synchronisation is 1/125, from Nikon. The N60 instruction manual's specification table reads "X-contact only (semiconductor-type); flash synchronization up to 1/125 sec. Automatically set to 1/125 sec. when shutter speed is set to 1/2000 to 1/180 sec.", and the section on optional Speedlights repeats that "flash sync speed is 1/125 sec. or slower". Jim Grey's review gives 1/90; it is an error, and the entry no longer treats the two figures as a live disagreement.
  4. There is no B on this camera. The entry said "30s – 1/2000, plus B and a T setting"; the manual's specification table gives "30 to 1/2000 sec., Long Time Exposure (only be selected in M)", and Long Time Exposure works as a T rather than a B — the release is pressed once to open the shutter and again to close it, and Nikon quotes about 15 hours of continuous exposure on a fresh set of lithium cells. Corrected against the manufacturer's own document.
  5. Jim Grey's review describes the autofocus as a three-point system. Nikon's manual does not support it. The specification gives only "TTL phase detection AF system with AF-Assist Illuminator" and a detection range of EV −1 to EV 19, and the shooting instructions describe one set of focus brackets in the finder, telling the photographer to use focus lock "to take a picture of a subject outside the focus brackets" — which is how a single-area camera is operated. No number of areas is stated anywhere in the manual, so the count is not asserted here either; what can be said is that nothing in Nikon's document supports three.
  6. Also from the manual, and published nowhere in Nikon's online product history: exposure compensation over a ±3 EV range in half steps; a built-in Speedlight of guide number 15 (metres, ISO 100) covering a 28mm lens; DX film speeds ISO 25 to 5000, with TTL flash limited to ISO 25 to 800; and a continuous shooting speed of approximately 1 frame per second, which is the figure this entry already carried.
  7. Second-hand prices, for scale against the absent launch price: Jim Grey writes about $30 in 2026, frequently with a lens already mounted.
  8. Fujifilm built the FinePix S1 Pro on a modified F60 body. English Wikipedia's article on the F60 dates that camera to 2001; its own article on the S1 Pro dates the introduction to January 2000. The two pages disagree, and neither cites Fujifilm.
  9. No launch price for the body has been located in the sources consulted, in yen or in dollars.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Exposure-mode dial and command dial, in place of the F50's SIMPLE/ADVANCED slider and icon panel
  • Auto-Servo AF, which chooses single or continuous servo without being told
  • Built-in flash covering the field of a 28mm lens
  • Film speed set by DX code only — there is no manual ISO control on the body
  • No depth-of-field preview and no remote release, as on the F50
  • No B: past 30 seconds the only setting is Long Time Exposure, which opens on one press and closes on the next

F60:

  • Conventional exposure-mode dial on the left of the prism, command dial on the right — the F50's icon panel is gone
  • Plain hinged back with no imprinting window
  • About 575g

F60D:

  • Date and time imprinting through the back
  • About 585g, ten grams over the plain body

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism with the flash housed above it · no rangefinder image
Shutter
electronically controlled vertical-travel focal plane · 30s – 1/2000; automatically set in the program and Vari-Program modes, chosen by the photographer in S and M. Long Time Exposure, selectable only in M, is the setting beyond 30 seconds: one press of the release opens the shutter and a second closes it. There is no B · flash sync X-contact only; synchronisation up to 1/125, set automatically to 1/125 when the speed is 1/2000 to 1/180
Film advance
integral motor for loading, advance and rewind; up to about 1 frame a second
Back
hinged; the F60D's imprints date and time
Meter
TTL, from EV 1 to EV 20 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens; no metering with a lens that has no CPU
Motor drive
Not compatible — Integral, and slow: about one frame a second, against 3.7 on the F70 of four years earlier. No external drive was made for this body.
Weight
575 g
Dimensions
148.5 × 96 × 69 mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
2 × CR123A lithium cells

What reviewers say

History

Nikon’s own product history introduces the F60 of 1998 as the succeeding model to the F50, and the first thing the succession did was undo the predecessor’s one idea. The SIMPLE/ADVANCED slider and the icon-drawing dot-matrix panel are gone; in their place are an exposure-mode dial on the left of the prism and a command dial on the right. That is the arrangement every Nikon consumer body has carried since, and the F50’s is the arrangement none of them carried again.

The rest is an entry-level body of its date, and in one respect a slower one than the camera four years above it. The shutter runs 30 seconds to 1/2000 with flash synchronised at 1/125, and past 30 seconds there is no B at all — the manual’s Long Time Exposure opens on one press of the release and closes on the next, for up to about fifteen hours. The meter works from EV 1 to EV 20 with an f/1.4 lens at ISO 100; the motor advances at about a frame a second, where the F70 of 1994 managed 3.7. Autofocus gained something the F70 did not have — Auto-Servo AF, which decides for itself whether to lock focus or track it. The flash in the prism covers a 28mm field. There is no depth-of-field preview and no remote release, both of which the F65 restored in 2001.

One limitation is worth stating plainly because it sits oddly with the feature list. Film speed can only be set from the DX code on the cassette. The camera has a manual exposure mode, and no way to tell it what film is inside. As on the F50 and the F-401 before it, a Nikkor without a CPU meters nothing at all.

Two versions were sold: the F60, and the F60D with date and time imprinting, about ten grams heavier. Nikon lists them as N60 and N60 QD in North America — two names, where the F50 and F50D got one between them.

What the F60 is chiefly remembered for was not built by Nikon. Fujifilm took the body, put a sensor and its own electronics in it, and sold it as the FinePix S1 Pro; the cheapest reflex in Nikon’s 1998 catalogue became the housing for one of the first digital SLRs offered at a professional price. Even that is imprecisely dated in the published record — Wikipedia’s F60 article says 2001, Wikipedia’s S1 Pro article says January 2000, and neither cites Fujifilm. For the F60 itself there is no production figure, no serial block and no launch price on record at all.

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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 F60
Nikon F60 with the AF Nikkor 28–80mm — Multicherry, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Nikon F60
Nikon F60, black — Wolfgang Pehlemann, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 de)
Nikon F60
Tobermory harbour — shot on a Nikon F60 (cyber_arts) — cyber_arts, via Flickr (Openverse) (CC BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $100 across 43 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $72–$110). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: unchanged from $100.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$100$72–$11043
2026-09-09$100$72–$11043
2026-09-06$100$72–$11043

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 F50 · Nikon F55 · Nikon F65 · Nikon F70 · Nikon F80

Sources (11)

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.