Nikon F70

Variants & identification

1. No production figure has been published for the F70 or the F70D, and no serial blocks are recorded. Roland Vink's database, which is the best published source for Nikon serial blocks, states outright that it covers digital bodies and that the manual-focus and autofocus film cameras are still to come.
2. Nikon's Camera Chronicle carries articles on the F-501 and F-301 and nothing at all on the F70, the F50, the F60 or the F80. The maker's published history of its own cameras stops short of this whole line.
3. Film speed is set automatically from the DX code between ISO 25 and 5000, or by hand from ISO 6 to 6400. Also from the manual's specification table, and published nowhere in Nikon's online material: the finder is a high-eyepoint pentaprism of 0.77× magnification with a 50mm lens at infinity, approximately 92 per cent coverage at an 18mm eyepoint, over a fixed BriteView III screen; exposure compensation runs ±5 EV in 1/3 steps; and the shutter is timed by a lithium niobate oscillator from 1/4000 to 30 seconds in 1/3 EV steps with an electromagnetically controlled bulb.
4. The autofocus module is the CAM274, and Nikon names it. The N70 instruction manual's specification table gives the autofocus detection system as the "Nikon CAM274 autofocus module", with a detection range of approximately EV −1 to EV 19 at ISO 100. English Wikipedia calls it the CMA274; that is a transposition of the same three letters, not a second name, and this entry no longer carries the two as competing. Alan D at Canny Cameras has the correct form and adds that it is a single focal point with spot and wide-area options, which matches the manual's "Autofocus area: Wide and Spot selectable".
5. Prices and dates from reviewers, none of them from Nikon. Jim Grey gives a 1994 list price of $842. Alan D dates the launch to late 1994 in Japan and the first quarter of 1995 elsewhere, and records about $700 with a 50mm lens in December 1995. Daniel J. Schneider says the camera was discontinued in 2003; no other source consulted gives an end date, so it stays out of the table above. It is not an implausible claim — nine years in the catalogue is unremarkable for Nikon, whose F3 ran twenty-one, and the F80 of 2000 sat above this camera rather than replacing it — but Schneider cites nothing and nobody corroborates him.
6. Alan D gives the retractable Speedlight as guide number 14m at ISO 100, and calls it the most powerful built-in flash of the class at launch.
7. Nikon describes the IX240-format PRONEA 600i of 1996 as having similar specifications to the F70, which makes the F70's mechanism the basis of an Advanced Photo System body as well as a 35mm one.

• F70D: Nikon lists the F70 and F70D together under a single North American name, N70, and does not say whether the panorama and imprinting versions were sold there under a separate designation. Both features are named in Nikon's own summary of the model.

Specifications

Format

24×36mm on 35mm film; the F70D masks 13×36mm for panorama

Finder

Fixed eye-level pentaprism with the retractable flash housed above it · no rangefinder image

Shutter

electronically controlled vertical-travel metal focal plane · 30s – 1/4000 in 1/3 EV steps, plus an electromagnetic B · flash sync X at 1/125

Film advance

integral motor; 3.7 frames a second in high continuous, about 2.0 in low, about 3.1 with focus tracking

Back

hinged; the F70D's imprints data

Meter

TTL 3D Matrix from an eight-segment sensor, with centre-weighted and spot alternatives; matrix and centre-weighted from EV −1 to 20, spot from EV 3 to 20 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens

Motor drive

Not compatible — Integral, and it rewinds as well as advances. No external drive was made for this body.

Weight

585 g

Dimensions

151 × 103 × 70 mm

Country

Japan

Accessories

2 × CR123A lithium cells — the camera has no alkaline option

What reviewers say

• Jim Grey (Down the Road) (blog) — The most sympathetic reading of the fan anyone gives: every function sits at the same level of the interface, which makes swapping between the ones you use often tedious, but the system is "consistent and uncomplicated, and therefore learnable" and he thinks its critics protest too much. He still concludes most people will be happier with a camera that has a proper PASM dial, praises the fill-flash and the way it handles in program, and sold his on eBay to keep the N90s.
• Daniel J. Schneider (blog) — Three stars out of five and a fine camera for the money, but it feels to him like a digital SLR that happens to take film, which is precisely what he did not want; the button combinations are unintuitive enough that he had to take the camera away from his eye to change things, the shutter release is so light that a feather touch wastes frames, and he saw inconsistent autoexposure, though he allows that expired film may be part of it. The autofocus motors are very quiet but slow by later standards.
• Sam (Camera Legend) (blog) — Nominates it for worst camera of all time, on the interface alone: he holds that a camera should be 80 to 90 per cent usable without the manual and this one is not, and "you will need a manual if you want to figure out all the Nikon N70/F70 can do". Everything he says about the pictures is positive — speedy autofocus, matrix, centre-weighted and spot metering, perfect or near-perfect exposures, 1/4000 and 3.7 frames a second — which is what makes the verdict a design one rather than a performance one.
• Alan D (Canny Cameras) (blog) — Calls it a game of two halves — excellent once set and left alone, and "an ergonomic hot steaming mess" the moment anything needs changing, since even exposure compensation means going into the fan while rivals gave it a button. Rates the 3D matrix metering above Canon's at launch, the built-in flash the most powerful of its class at GN 14m/ISO 100, the motor virtually silent, and the body able to meter manual-focus glass back to the 1970s.

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 F70 F70D AF Käyttöohje #E3 — €7.00 · eBay
• Nikon F70 F70D Käyttöohje #E3 — €7.00 · eBay
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• Nikon F70 Kamera analog schwarz funktionsfähig Spiegelreflexgehäuse #x121 — €33.70 · eBay · likely F70
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• Nikon F70 + Sehr Gut (282937) — €36.00 · eBay · likely F70
• Nikon F70 + Sehr Gut (290261) — €39.00 · eBay · likely F70
• Nikon F70 35mm Spiegelreflexkamera Body — €39.00 · eBay · likely F70
• Nikon F70 35mm Spiegelreflexkamera nur Gehäuse — €39.00 · eBay · likely F70
• Nikon F70 Analoge Spiegelreflexkamera 35mm Autofokus Kameragehäuse funktionsfähig — €39.90 · eBay · likely F70
• Nikon F70 Gehäuse Body SLR Kamera analoge Spiegelreflexkamera — €40.00 · eBay · likely F70

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