I am an amateur photographer who occasionally returns to the hobby for the joy of it. I first took a class in middle school with an old Brownie. My parents went on their travels with Olympic cameras -- first an OM-1 and then an OM-2, and my mother shot fabulous slides in China, Nepal, and other places. But I've spent most of my adult life with point-and-shoot cameras because, well, a photographic hobby is more expensive than our household resources could afford, and having both a starting career and young children gives you plenty of things to do.
In the last year, I've come back to photography with the gift of an old Nikon FE to my children, and the Nikon N65 is a major reason why it's been easy to indulge this occasional love and easy to introduce my 8-year-old son to photography.
The N65 is a lightweight SLR body with most of the controls on the top of the body. The controls on the front of the body are related to autofocus, flash, and stopped-down aperture settings, and they're far enough apart that you're unlikely to confuse them if seeking them tactilely. On the top left you'll find the camera program-setting dial and the delayed-exposure (or timer) and exposure-bracketing buttons (the timer button towards the front). On the right top are the shutter-release and the exposure-adjustment button, and just in the top right corner of the back is the dial where I spend most of my time making adjustments. The timer and bracketing buttons are recessed, and most of the buttons are rather small, but that's a reasonable design compromise to get everything else. Most of the settings are visible either on the screen panel on the top right of the body or in a display in the viewfinder.
For the inexperienced amateur photographer, there are common-purpose settings for portraiture, scenery, macro photography, sports or speed settings, and night photography. These "optimize" easy photography by emphasizing either an aperture setting—wide-open for portraiture, so the subject is in focus while the background is blurry—or a shutter setting—as fast as possible for sports. They're reasonable settings if you don't want to fiddle much with the camera, and there's a fully-automatic setting if you want to take your chances with whatever the camera decides is best at the moment (which is generally not bad). There are also manual, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and program settings for the more serious photographer. I'm not going to dwell too much on these, as the serious photographer will know what I'm talking about, and other reviews of the N65 discuss both the design features and the limitations (specifically, the need to push a tiny button and use the dial simultaneously to set the aperture in the manual setting). For those who haven't gone beyond point-and-shoot, all I'll say is: borrow an N65 from a friend (a trusting one!), put the camera on aperture-priority ("A"), and shoot a roll.
So what do the results look like? I have three lenses: an all-purpose 50mm Nikon, a 28-105 Sigma zoom, and a 70-300 Nikon zoom. They're all inexpensive lenses but with very decent quality (with some vignetting at the 28-mm setting of the shorter zoom, but that's about all that I can tell). I've used the N65 in a variety of settings, from sparklers after dark on July 4 to full daylight in Hawaii. And I've never yet seen something that the Nikon couldn't handle. (That I messed up in the heat of the moment is a different issue!) I don't blow up pictures to 8x10, but I use both print and slide film, and the Nikon is fabulous. Go to the page of my entries for the LiveJournal Photochallenge community (http://web.tampabay.rr.com/sdorn/photochallenge.htm) and see if you can spot the photographs taken with the N65, as opposed to either the old Nikon FE or a point-and-shoot. "Speed" and everything from "Reflection" on is the N65.
The telling point of this is my son's use of the N65. Normally, you wouldn't expect an 8-year-old child to handle a lightweight body well. It's too easy to get camera shake and so forth. But, somehow, the N65 is intuitive enough that my son is able to use it in the hand in daylight conditions and is willing to use a tripod for anything overcast or darker. And it's been easy enough that he can focus on what he wants in the image rather than what to push and twist on the camera: the angle from which I shot the pre-sunrise slide (see the link above) was his suggestion.
The few downsides of this body are the result of inevitable design compromises. Setting both shutter speed and aperture in the manual mode requires using one of the tiny buttons simultaneously with the dial (for aperture). I've had troubles forcing the camera to use flash (for fill-in light), and there is no way to set the film speed manually. But those are minor limitations, in the long run (and I just may not have found the right page or two lines in the manual on the forced flash!).
As of August 2003, the price for the N65 body is plummeting, which is great for consumers. I know that the trend is towards digital photography, but if you've ever got the hankering to see what you can do with an SLR, buy an N65, any of the inexpensive Nikon-mount aspherical lenses recommended by Howard Creech, and some Provia slide film. Then go have a ball. Years from now, older amateurs will feel nostalgic for this camera body, and for very good reasons. As it appears that the sun is setting on much of film photography, Nikon was still cranking out fabulous bodies.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 250 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
Nikon F65 QD 35mm SLR Camera Body Only (F65 = N65). The features of the F65 include: Single and continues AF focus tracking to 2.5 FPS multiple AF sen...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Over 38 Years of Customer Satisfaction! EBay's Highest Power Seller Level! Search Hotdigital Club Shipping Payment Contact Us Shop By Brand Ebay Store...More at eBay
Nikon F65 QD has a compact, lightweight design with fully automatic focus and exposure controls, built-in flash and automatic film advance. Its ergono...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.