I recently purchased a nice Nikon FE2 from KEH.com. It wasn’t expensive, and after using the FM2n for a bit, I wanted to try something like it, but with automatic exposure. The camera is lovely.
Nikon FE2
I’ve put one roll of film through it. As expected, the match-needle metering in the viewfinder is much more to my liking than the LED version in the FM2n. It’s how I like a meter to work, given a choice.
The first roll’s results were meh. This wasn’t the camera’s fault, but there was nothing there that jumped out at me, image quality-wise.
Then this happened:
Nikon FE2 with broken self-timer lever
The self-timer lever fell right off when I tried using it. This should be easy to fix, but I’m not going to bother. I could exchange the camera for one without a broken self-timer. Or I could fix the one I have. Except this wouldn’t solve the biggest problem with the FE2, and that is the need to pull out the shutter advance in order to turn the camera on.
The FE2 needs the shutter advance lever pulled out like this to operate
I thought I could get used to it, but I consider it a design flaw and I hate it. I miss shots. I’m left-eyed, so it pokes me in the eye and generally annoys me.
I’ve also noticed that to continue using the camera, I’d need a diopter.
So, the camera is going back and I won’t be replacing it. I’m happy I got to try it, but it’s just not for me.