Nikon FM2 Half Frame
Nippon Kogaku · Nikon F mount · 18×24 mm on 35mm film, upright with the camera held normally; hinged back as the FM2 · 1983
Known as “the Norwegian police camera”
Also known as: Nikon FM2 half frame · Nikon FM2 halfframe · Nikon FM2N half frame · Nikon FM2 police · Nikon FM2 Norwegian police · FM2 1/2 · Nikon FM2 halvformat
Variants & identification
| Variant | Mount | Years | Serial ranges | Production |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Japan-converted (Nikon, 1983) | Nikon F | 1983 | — | About three dozen. 39 finished (Nippon Kogaku Klub); 34 (McKeown, via Collectiblend); 29 delivered to Norway (a 2020 Catawiki lot description). No Nikon figure exists. |
| Interfoto-converted (Norway, mid-1980s) | Nikon F | 1984 | — | About 40, converted in Norway by Interfoto with Nikon's parts and permission (collector accounts; a Norwegian seller names the technician Terje Linde) |
- Every number here is a collector's. Nikon has never published anything about the camera and there is no Nikon document to cite. The Nippon Kogaku Klub's 39, McKeown's 34 and a Catawiki seller's 29 delivered are three counts of the same small run; the Interfoto 40 is the collectors' consensus for the Norwegian conversions.
- Who ordered it is also unsettled at the margin: the Nippon Kogaku Klub says the Norwegian army, everyone else the Norwegian police, and the purpose — identity and arrest photographs, upright, 72 to a roll — fits the police.
- An example asked about US$4,000 on eBay in late 2014 (Camera Collector board); Collectiblend puts the model at roughly ten times a standard FM2. Sales are rare enough that no price series exists.
How to tell them apart
- Load a film and fire: the advance moves half a frame and the counter runs to 72. Nothing on the outside says so
- Through the finder, black bars either side of a vertical window — the picture is upright, as an identity photograph must be, with the camera and its flash held the normal way
- Half a roll of the standard Nikon FM2: same 1/4000 shutter, same meter, same F bayonet, which made these few cameras, in CameraQuest's phrase, the largest half-frame system ever — larger than the Pen F's
Japan-converted (Nikon, 1983):
- A one-piece 18×24 film gate made for the camera — not a standard gate masked (CameraQuest)
- Finder edges blacked out to a vertical centre area on an ordinary focusing screen
- No exterior half-frame marking of any kind: from outside it is an FM2
- Early FM2 body with the 1/200 sync (CameraQuest); NKK's example is body 7215302
Interfoto-converted (Norway, mid-1980s):
- A mask over a standard gate rather than the Japanese one-piece gate — Interfoto's cost saving
- Finder mask and film-transport parts supplied by Nikon; otherwise a stock FM2 or FM2n, so the N-prefix body may appear
- Japan-converted (Nikon, 1983): Nikon gave the conversion to a small Tokyo workshop and supplied the parts. The workshop stopped after a few dozen because the job took far longer than it had been priced at, and Nikon delivered the finished cameras plus the remaining parts for the rest of the order (Nippon Kogaku Klub; a collector's account on the Camera Collector board says Nikon 'stopped the order because it was costing more to produce than they could possibly make').
- Interfoto-converted (Norway, mid-1980s): Perhaps a dozen or fewer survive: the collector who owns the example Will pointed to counts five in Norway and two abroad after an extended search, and believes the police destroyed most of theirs after service. A few surplus bodies were sold new through a Norwegian camera shop (CameraQuest).
Specifications
- Format
- 18×24 mm on 35mm film, upright with the camera held normally; hinged back as the FM2 · 72 exposures
- Finder
- Fixed pentaprism, the FM2's, with the screen masked to an upright 18×24 window · 93% coverage · no rangefinder image
- Shutter
- Vertical-travel titanium-bladed focal-plane shutter, mechanical, as the FM2 · 1 s – 1/4000 and B · flash sync X at 1/200 on FM2 bodies, 1/250 on FM2n bodies · self-timer
- Film advance
- Single-stroke lever, geared to advance half a frame
- Back
- Hinged
- Meter
- Centre-weighted TTL, LED match as the FM2; two LR44 / SR44, meter only
- Country
- Japan
Where sources disagree
- Production
- 39 finished (Nippon Kogaku Klub)
- 34 (McKeown, cited by Collectiblend)
- 29 delivered to Norway (Catawiki lot, September 2020)
- 'several hundred' estimated (CameraQuest, 2003 — before the Norwegian accounts surfaced)
Better supported: About three dozen — NKK's and McKeown's figures agree within five
CameraQuest's estimate predates the Norwegian information and is probably counting Interfoto's conversions in.
- Customer
- Norwegian police (CameraQuest, Interfoto accounts, the owning collector)
- Norwegian army (Nippon Kogaku Klub)
Better supported: Police
The use — mugshots and identity photographs — is a police function, and the Norwegian sources say politiet.
What reviewers say
No reviews aggregated yet — this family is still in the research queue. Written one? We'd love to index it.
History
Somewhere around 1983 the Norwegian police asked Nikon for a camera that would take upright identity photographs, seventy-two to a roll, with the camera and its flash held the normal way. Nikon accepted an order the Nippon Kogaku Klub puts at 150 bodies, handed the conversion to a small workshop in Tokyo and supplied it with parts: a one-piece 18×24 film gate, a finder mask that blacks the screen down to a vertical window, and transport gearing that advances half a frame. The workshop finished thirty-nine — or thirty-four, or twenty-nine delivered, depending on who is counting — and stopped, because the work was taking far longer than it had been priced at. Nikon shipped the finished cameras and the remaining parts to Norway and let the importer, Interfoto, finish the job itself with a mask over a standard gate; collectors put those conversions at about forty.
From the outside nothing has changed. It is an FM2, later an FM2n, with the same 1/4000 titanium shutter, the same meter and the same F bayonet, which is why Stephen Gandy could observe that these few dozen bodies made Nikon, briefly, the largest half-frame lens system in the world — every Nikkor fits. The police used them, and when they were done most were destroyed. The collector who owns the one Will pointed to has spent years counting and knows of five in Norway and two abroad. One asked $4,000 on eBay in 2014. Nikon has never said a word about them.
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.
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