INTRODUCTION
I bought the Nikon F65 in January 2001 as a present to my girlfriend. She is new to photography, and I am not sure how long her new interest will last, so I decide to choose a budget end Nikon for her new hobby. There is no other reason for me choosing the Nikon F65 for her other than it is a NIKON.
As I am a Nikon user, I have all the Nikon accessories that she can make use of without spending additional money. Since the Nikon F65 is the most basis entry level SLR Nikon is providing at the moment, it naturally became my choice.
If I am not wrong, the F65 (F65 in Singapore) was introduced in 2000 to replace the F60 (N60 in US). The F60 was originally introduced in 1998 to replace the F50. And barely 2 years of service, Nikon knows the F60 would have to be replaced by a more features F65 to maintain competition from the likes of Canon, whose budget end SLR camera offers lots of useful features which is very useful for creative photography.
BUILD
The F65 have a body that is very similar to its predecessor, the Nikon F60. This mean it has a very plastic feel body. It does have the look of a Nikon, but in term of toughness and durability, that is going to be questionable.
Using basically the same body of the F60, the F65 is very good when it come to hand gripped. Gripping the camera in both horizontal and vertical position proved to be easy and comfortable. One of the important reasons might be the weight of the camera. Weighing just about ½ kg, it is light enough for long hour shooting.
FOCUSING
The F65 offers both Auto focus and Manual focus.
In the Manual Focus mode, focusing is done by turning the focusing ring on the lens till the image on the viewfinder look sharp.
In the Auto focus mode, it offers Auto Servo AF, which will choose automatically between Single Servo AF and Continuous Servo AF according to object status, and it includes directional information. The Nikon F65 used Nikon TTL Phase Detector, Nikon Multi-Cam 900 Auto-focus Module with AF Assist Illuminator, which is an improvement over earlier model.
The Nikon F65 comes with a B-Type Clear Matte V Screen with focus bracket.
EXPOSURE
The F60 offers 2 types of metering systems, namely,
1) 6 Segments 3D Matrix - When used with a D or G Lens
2) Centre Weighted
It has an Exposure Metering Range of EV -1 to 19 at ISO 100, which is an improvement from the F60, which offer EV 1 to 20 at ISO 100.
It offers 5 build in vari programs modes for casual users, as in
1) Portraits
2) Landscape
3) Close-up
4) Sports
5) Night Scene
As well as 5 Advance mode, as in
1) General Purpose Program
2) Program
2) Shutter Priority
3) Aperture Priority
4) Manual
LENS
With the common Nikon F mount, the Nikon F65 readily accepts the whole range of Nikon AF lenses.
For some package promotion, the F65 comes with a Nikon 28-80 G lens. I would encourage buyer not to get it. I have used the G lens once, and I am very disappointed by the build and quality of the lens. Many members of my photography clubs results in getting a higher quality D lens later, and have problem trying to sell away the mint condition G lens. In my opinions, don’t waste your money on something that is going to be worthless sooner or later.
The F65 also third party lenses maker like the popular low cost Sigma, Tokina, Tamron... etc. To achieve high picture quality and most important sharpness, none of this cheap lenses maker is comparable to the original Nikkor lenses. I always believe that that extra cost spent on the optics is worthy.
QUALITY TEST
Upon getting the F65, we went for a shooting lesson at Chinatown. It was around the Chinese New Year when we bought the camera. The whole Chinatown is beautifully decorated, with lots of bright coloured decoration and lots of people doing Chinese New Year shopping.
We loaded the F65 with a roll of Kodak Supra 400 for this test. The Kodak Supra 400 is my favourite colour negative film so far because of its fast speed and yet maintains a reasonable fine grain property.
To begin, the F65 is a very simple camera to learn and use. Keeping the manual handy, my girlfriend managed to figure out every function of the camera even before I have time to look into it. Although there are some technical terms that needs my explanation, but overall, it is simple enough for a beginner to appreciate it.
As similar to the F60, the Nikon F65 offer a range of shutter speed from 1/2000s to 30s, plus bulb. This range is standard for a camera of this price range, and should be enough for most shooting situation. I have a lot of students using budget end SLR which offer this range of shutter speed, and I have not heard any complain of inefficiency due to this.
The build in flash, with an ISO guide number of 39 (at ISO 100ft), is too weak for any good uses. As with all other camera, I would strongly recommend the use of an external unit to get better flash effects. There are a number of low cost flash units like the Nikon SB-22s or even the new Nikon SB-50, as well as any third party flash from Sigma, Sunpak… etc., which will provide better flashes options compared to the build it units. The pictures taken with the built in flash (a family photo taken at home) look terrible. The flash lighting make the photo looks flat and harsh.
The Nikon F65 offers Multiple Exposure capability, which is a bonus from its predecessor, the Nikon F60. We tried it once and the effect is good. But exposure compensation need to be catered off hand to ensure the picture is correctly exposure twice.
Focusing is easy with the Auto Servo AF. It is much improved over the F60 that I tested recently. The only problem it has is with moving objects. Focusing can be difficult when trying to focus on a fast moving object. Pictures taken were well focus, especially on stationary objects. As for moving objects, the focusing is not that good for some pictures, but overall it is still acceptable.
Metering is accurate with the 6 Segment 3D Matrix. Pictures taken both day and night are very much accurate. Even for a shot with the setting sun behind the building, which is rather tricky for centre weighted metering, the 6 Segment 3D Matrix did fairly well, producing a well exposed photo.
SUMMARY
The F65 is very user-friendly, and is suitable for casual photographers who are not that particular about all those features found in a higher end model.
With so much update in this version of the entry level Nikon, it is going to be a real match in this segment of the market.
For nearly a year now, and my girlfriend is still enjoying her photography interest with her Nikon F65, although she kept pestering me for my Nikon F3HP and Nikon F4 at times.
