Nikon F75

Nikon · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 2003

via machine translation — corrections welcome our own finding

Also known as: Nikon N75 · Nikon N75 QD · Nikon U2 · ニコンU2

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
F75	Nikon F	2003–2006	—	No figure published for the version without the date back
F75 QD	Nikon F	2003–2006	—	Nikon planned 55,000 a month initially. That is a stated intention at announcement, not an achieved total, and no total was ever published

The weight and the long-exposure setting are both settled by Nikon's own N75 instruction manual, and both had been left open here. Its specification table gives "N75: Approx. 380g or 13.4 oz." and "N75QD: Approx. 385g or 13.6 oz." without batteries, with dimensions of 131 × 92.5 × 65mm and 131 × 92.5 × 67.5mm respectively — so the five grams and the 2.5 millimetres are the date back, exactly as this entry had guessed and could not show. The plain body's 380g agrees with English Wikipedia and with Thom Hogan's 13.4oz; the 385g this entry carried was the dated body's figure, and the table above now separates the two. The same table gives the manual-mode shutter as "30 to 1/2000 sec. (in 1/2 steps), Time", so Time is Nikon's word in English too and the Bulb of the secondary English sources is theirs alone.
Nikon's release announces a planned output of 55,000 bodies a month at the outset. That is a manufacturing intention published on the day of the announcement, not a record of what was built, and no cumulative total for the F75 has ever appeared. It is nonetheless the only production number Nikon put in print for any of the F55, F65 or F75.
No serial blocks are published. Roland Vink's database, the best public source for Nikon numbering, covers the lenses and the digital bodies and states that the film cameras are still to be added.
The metering is the odd fact about this camera. Twenty-five segments is more than the F80 directly above it, which has ten, and more than the F100. Against the F80 the F75 gives up the shutter (1/2000 against 1/4000), the sync speed (1/90 against 1/125), the frame rate (1.5 against 2.5 a second) and the eighteen custom settings, and keeps the Vari-Brite finder display.
Film speed comes off the DX code from ISO 25 to 5000 and cannot be set by hand; non-DX film is exposed at ISO 100, which rules out infrared work. DX Nikkors and IX Nikkors will not work on it at all.
The built-in flash sits close to the prism housing, and Thom Hogan reports that any zoom wider than about 28mm shades it. Nikon's own coverage figure for the flash is the angle of a 28mm lens, guide number 12 in metres at ISO 100.
The camera took the EISA European Camera of the Year award for 2003–2004, which is recorded in Japanese sources rather than English ones.
Thom Hogan names the autofocus module the CAM900 and reports that its outer sensors are both less sensitive in low light and less able to hold low-contrast subjects than the centre one. He gives the built-in flash a working range of about 14 feet at ISO 100 with an f/2.8 lens.
The finder is where the reviews converge and the specification does not show it. Hamish Gill, who shot the camera for a six-part series, calls it "not the best example of an SLR viewfinder" and too dim at wide apertures to read a background; Akagi Koichi describes looking through it as peering into a well and says it rules out manual-focus lenses. Both are describing the pentamirror the 0.68× and 89% figures do not capture.

How to tell them apart (expand)

Vari-Brite focus area display — the five focus brackets reverse from red to black according to the brightness behind them, a feature otherwise found on the F80 and F100
An eye-level pentamirror, not a pentaprism, as on the F65 and F55
Twenty-five-segment matrix metering: more segments than the F80 above it, which has ten
Prewinding transport — the whole roll is wound out of the cassette on loading and wound back into it frame by frame, so opening the back part-way through spoils nothing already exposed
Exposure compensation to ±3 stops where the F65 and F55 stop at ±2

F75:

Plain hinged back with no imprinting window
131 × 92.5 × 65mm and about 380g — 2.5mm shallower and 5g lighter than the QD
Sold in black and in silver

F75 QD:

Quartz date window in the back; 131 × 92.5 × 67.5mm and about 385g

F75 QD: Nikon's Japanese specification for the U2 carries the quartz date in the main table rather than as an option, which places the domestic model here. The clock is accurate to ±90 seconds a month and corrects leap years to 31 December 2049.

Specifications

Format: 24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder: Fixed eye-level pentamirror, B-type clear matte screen V with focus frames, dioptre adjustment from −1.5 to +0.8 m⁻¹ · 0.68× magnification · 89% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter: electronically controlled vertical-travel metal focal plane · 30s – 1/2000; set automatically in the program and Vari-Program modes, and in half steps by the photographer in S and M. In M there is additionally a Time setting, which is what Nikon calls it in the English manual as well as the Japanese specification · flash sync X only, 1/90 and slower · self-timer
Film advance: integral motor with prewinding load; single frame or continuous to about 1.5 frames a second — slower than the F65 it replaced
Back: hinged, with a film confirmation window; the QD version imprints the date
Meter: TTL at full aperture — 3D 25-segment matrix with D- and G-type lenses, 25-segment matrix with other AF and Ai-P lenses, centre-weighted in manual and on AE lock, and spot metering reachable through a custom setting on the AE-L button. Matrix and centre-weighted EV 1–20, spot EV 4–20, at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens. CPU coupling only
Motor drive: Not compatible — Integral. The MB-18 is a battery pack, not a drive, and does not change the frame rate.
Weight: 380 g
Dimensions: 131 × 92.5 × 65 (plain back); 131 × 92.5 × 67.5 (QD) mm
Country: Thailand
Original price: ¥64,000 for the body with remote, strap and DK-5 eyepiece cap, ¥89,000 with the AF Zoom-Nikkor 28–80mm f/3.3–5.6G, both excluding tax (Japan, 8 March 2003). English Wikipedia gives roughly US$300 with a lens and about US$190 for the body alone, without naming a date (today ¥73,000)
Accessories: MB-18 battery pack · CF-53 semi-soft case · ML-L3 infrared remote, supplied with the camera · Two 3V CR2 lithium cells in the body

Magnification runs about 0.68× to 0.60× with a 50mm lens at infinity, depending where the dioptre is set; eyepoint 17mm. Battery and film-transport warnings appear in the finder, which they do not on the F65.

Where sources disagree

First

8 March 2003 in Japan — Nikon's own release of 18 February 2003, which gives the on-sale date
February 2003 — English Wikipedia, which also gives January 2006 for the end

The two may be describing different markets, or Wikipedia may be reporting the announcement rather than the sale. Nothing published says which.

What reviewers say

Thom Hogan (byThom Filmbodies) (blog) — "Anyone considering the N65 should get the N75 instead. Period." — he reads it as the F65 with its faults removed and probably the nicest autofocus options of any Nikon consumer body, but qualifies that hard: the CAM900's outer sensors struggle with low contrast and low light, the built-in flash reaches only about 14 feet at ISO 100 with an f/2.8 lens and vignettes with wide lenses, the build is what an inexpensive body is expected to be, and manual AI and AI-S Nikkors will not meter at all.
Hamish Gill (35mmc), Nikon F75 Project part 6 (blog) — Ends a six-part project by concluding the F75 was the wrong camera for it and moving to an F80: he calls the automatic settings "dad-cam modes", found working manually through a consumer interface cumbersome under pressure, and preferred the F80's two dials — though his honest conclusion is that the objection was as much his own ideology about rangefinders as the camera.
Hamish Gill (35mmc), Nikon F75 Project part 4 (blog) — On the finder specifically: "not the best example of an SLR viewfinder", too dim at wide apertures to see a background subject, and he had to override mentally what it showed him — the pentamirror's cost, in the words of someone who shot the camera for months.
赤城耕一 Akagi Koichi (Photo & Culture, Tokyo) (blog) — Likes the iron-grey silver finish and says the plastic shell does not feel as cheap as expected, with a metal lens mount that is characteristically Nikon — but calls the finder "like peering into a well", which puts manual-focus lenses out of the question, and describes the camera as about 1.5 frames a second with noticeable shutter lag, a restricted autofocus area, an awkwardly placed preview button, and essentially a cut-price F80 with nothing of its own. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

The F75 is the cheap camera with the best meter Nikon was selling. Twenty-five matrix segments, against ten on the F80 that cost half as much again and ten on the professional F100. It also carries the Vari-Brite focus area display, the one feature Nikon claimed as a world’s first on the F80: the five focus brackets show red against a dark subject and black against a bright one, so they stay readable either way. All of that is in a 385-gram body with a pentamirror instead of a prism, one command dial, and a mode collar with pictograms on it.

What it gives up is everything to do with speed. The shutter stops at 1/2000 where the F80 reaches 1/4000; flash syncs at 1/90 rather than 1/125; the motor manages about 1.5 frames a second, which is slower than the F65 this camera replaced. Thom Hogan, who thought the F65 badly laid out, considered the F75 the fixed version of it and a considerable bargain, with one physical complaint: the flash is set so close to the prism that a zoom wider than 28mm casts its own shadow.

The transport is the part worth handling. Load a roll and the motor winds the whole thing out of the cassette; every exposure then winds one frame back in. Open the back halfway through and the frames already shot are already home and safe. It is a mechanism built for people who are not sure how a camera works, and it is the same one the F55 uses.

Nikon published something for this camera it published for no other in the line: a production plan. The release of 18 February 2003 states an initial output of 55,000 bodies a month. That is an intention printed on the day of the announcement rather than a record of what was made, and no cumulative figure ever followed it — nor any serial block, the film bodies still being absent from Vink’s database. So the one number available describes what Nikon meant to build, and how nearly it managed it is not on the record anywhere.

Two dates and one weight remain unsettled, all in the same small way. Nikon says on sale 8 March 2003 and gives 385 grams for the Japanese U2; Wikipedia says February 2003 and 380 grams, and stops the camera in January 2006. The five grams are almost certainly the date back and the month is probably a different market, but no source examined says either thing, and a camera discontinued twenty years ago has not attracted anyone willing to check.

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 F75 with the AF Nikkor 28–80mm G — Sebastian Koppehel, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $100 across 11 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $42–$200). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $100.

By day

Date	Median	Middle half	Listings
2026-09-11	$100	$42–$200	11
2026-09-06	$100	$42–$200	11

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

SOLIGOR NIKON F 75-250 MACRO ZOOM f:4.5 — $23.91 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon N75/F75 (Magic Lantern Guides) by Klaus-Peter Bredschneider — $39.35 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon N75/F75 (Magic - Paperback, by Bredschneider Klaus-Peter - Very Good — $42.09 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon N75/F75 (Magic Lantern Guides) — $57.35 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm SLR Film Camera — $80.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm SLR Camera with AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-100mm Lens Kit — $100.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon N75 35mm (aka F75) SLR film camera w/SIGMA Lense 70-300mmD MACRO 200-300 — $100.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 AE-L 35mm Film SLR Camera AF Nikkor 28-80mm 1:3.3-5.6 Zoom Lens Japan — $199.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon U2 (F75/N75) 35mm AF SLR Film Camera — $199.99 · eBay
Nikon F75 black 35mm autofocus film SLR camera body — $245.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 w. 28-80 1:3.3-5.6mm Film Camera/Zoom Lens Kit - Awesome (SLR Camera) — $279.95 · eBay · likely F75
Junk Nikon u2 Japanese name F75 35mm AF SLR Film Camera Black For parts — $61.77 · eBay junk / for parts
Nikon F75 Con Obiettivo Nikon AF Nikkor 28-100mm Per Pezzi Di Ricambio (#239) — €40.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F 75 AF Nikkor 28-80mm 1:3.3-5.6G — €75.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 + 28–100 mm + Metz Blitz + Lowepro Tasche — €79.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 SLR Kamera mit Nikon AF Nikkor 3.5-5.6 / 28-80 mm G in silber — €89.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 + Nikkor Zoom 28-80mm f3.3 — €90.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm - BOITIER ARGENTIQUE - + Objectif Zoom 36-72mm — €90.00 · eBay · likely F75
✮ Nikon F75 mit AF Nikkor 28-100mm f/3.5-5.6 G #2009215 || vom Händler! — €99.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 Analogkamera guter Zustand mit Zoom — €105.00 · eBay · likely F75

Show 16 more listings

Fotocamera Reflex Anlogiica Nikon F75 silver +28-100mm (Garanzia 6 mesi) — €150.07 · eBay · likely F75
NIKON F75 argentique + Objectif + sac — €180.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F 75 für Ersatzteile — €33.00 · eBay · likely F75 junk / for parts
Faulty Nikon F75 Camera with 28-100mm f3.5-5.6 G Lens -Not Working + Lens Fungus — £30.95 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm Film SLR Camera Untested — £34.68 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 Film Camera with a Nikon AF Nikkor 28-80mm lens — £42.30 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 Silver 35mm SLR Film Camera with AF Nikkor 28-100mm Lens — £42.30 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 analoge Spiegelreflexkamera 35 mm mit 28–100 mm Objektiv – getestet — £49.99 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm SLR Film Camera + Tamron AF 28-105mm Lens Tested Working — £54.78 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm SLR Film with 28-100mm Lens - Silver, great camera — £125.50 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm SLR Film Camera Kit w/ AF Nikkor 28-100mm f/3.5-5.6 G Lens — £130.70 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 analoge Kleinbildspiegelreflexkamera mit Objektiv 28–100 mm f/3,5–5,6 G – Top Zustand — £132.21 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm Film SLR Camera + Nikon 28-100mm f3.5-5.6 G Zoom Lens - Mint — £139.95 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm Film SLR Camera AF Nikkor 28-80mm 1:3.3-5.6G — CA$125.00 · eBay · likely F75
Nikon F75 35mm Film Camera With Sigma 28-300mm 1:3.5-6.3D Lens Like New — CA$155.00 · eBay · likely F75
[Excellent++] Nikon F75/N75 with Yongnuo 50mm F1.8N -- great set to enjoy 35mm — CA$200.00 · eBay · likely F75

eBay links are affiliate links. If you buy through one, Glass Bodies earns a small commission from eBay at no cost to you. It does not change which listings appear, their prices or their order — those come from the search and the sort described above.

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