Nikon EM

The Nikon EM is an SLR camera for 35mm film. It was introduced in the late 1970s and produced by Nippon Kogaku K. K. (today Nikon) in Japan. At that time, Nikon positioned it as an amateur camera. For this reason, it offers fewer settings than other SLRs.

The body is black. Some parts of the Nikon EM are made of plastic, but most of it is made of metal. It weighs a little over 450 grams.

The Nikon EM mostly comes with Nikon Series E 50mm f/1.8. Matching Nikon Series E lenses included a 28mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2.5, 100mm f/2.8, 75-150mm f/3.5, 70-210mm f/4 and 135mm f/2.8.

All lenses must be focused manually, the Nikon EM does not have autofocus. Since it is equipped with the Nikon F bayonet, all Nikon and third-party lenses with this bayonet can be used on the SLR.

The Nikon EM has a built-in light meter. You choose the aperture yourself; then you have three options. You can either set it to Auto, in which case the camera will choose what it thinks is the correct exposure time from 1/1000 second to 1 second, or you can set it to Bulb, in which case the shutter will stay open as long as the shutter button is pressed. The third option is M90, which corresponds to 1/90 second, e.g. for shots with flash.

If you take Auto, you don’t have a very big influence on the exposure, which is probably one of the reasons why it’s an amateur camera, since you can’t set the exposure time yourself. However, you can use a button to increase the exposure time by two stops (e.g. 1/250 s instead of 1/1000 s), for backlit shots, for example.

Another possibility is to influence the exposure with the ISO value. Let’s say we have ISO 100 film in the camera and the camera suggests 1/125 second, but we prefer 1/60 second, then we set the ISO wheel to ISO 50.

In the viewfinder, there is a scale on the side that shows the currently selected sensitivity. In case of overexposure or short exposure times, the EM gives a warning signal.

The Nikon EM is powered by two SR44 (eBay / Amazon*) or LR44 (eBay / Amazon*) batteries. However, it also works without power, but without a light meter. Also, the exposure time is always 1/1000 second for Auto, and stays the same for Bulb and M90.

The Nikon EM is loaded with 35mm film (eBay / Amazon*). Since the light meter only goes from ISO 25 to ISO 1600, you should put film with the appropriate sensitivity in it.

The camera can’t tell what sensitivity the film has, you have to set it with a wheel on the top, so it’s also easy to expose a film with a different ISO value.

Sample photos

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