Weird title, but all will become clear :biggrin: ....
Having recently purchased a pair of old Nikon FE SLRs and starting to carry one around with me (almost) everywhere I went, I was keen to try and make using them as ergonomic and pleasurable an experience as possible and one thing which stood in the way of that was the shutter release button :frown:.
On an FE (FM etc.), the button is surrounded by a metal collar and has a threaded hole drilled in it to permit the use of a cable release. To actually push the shutter button far enough down to trip the shutter, requires the top of the button to go down slightly below the lip of the collar - making a fingertip the tool of choice. As I have big fingers and quite long fingernails (for guitar playing), I was finding this far less comfortable than the buttons on my DSLRs.
Once I discovered that one could buy 'soft release' buttons, which screw into the threaded hole and effectively extend the height and increase the width of the shutter button, I bought a cheap one on ebay and gave it a go! Sadly, it didn't fit and was so wide that it fouled the shutter speed dial each time that I pushed down on it :frown:. As the top control panel on the FE is quite tightly packed, I needed something smaller. Enter Tim Isaac and his "Bug" soft releases
....
Through my (futile :redface pawings through LFI (Leica Film International) magazine, I has seen these small, domed buttons before, screwed into M7s, CLs and various other exotic RF cameras. It occurred to my that one of these might be just the thing to fit onto my FE, as it was clearly small enough to avoid fouling any other controls. So, with a little difficulty, I sourced one in Germany and gave it a go.
Once I'd spent a few minutes experimenting with different ways of holding the camera, so that I could release the shutter by pressing down with the middle joint of my index finger onto the "Bug" (instead of just pressing it with my fingertip), I realised that I could achieve a much steadier 'platform' for making slow exposures from this way :smile:. Although hard to measure in terms of fractions of a second (as I'm using film and can't instantly see the results of A/B tests), I was sure that this was going to be worth up to about 1 stop of decreased shutter speed, in most situations. What a cheap way to gain a stop, without doubling the cost of ones lenses, or doubling the grain on the film prints :biggrin:.
I was so chuffed, that I wrote an email to Mr. Isaac, via his company's (Match Technical) website and included a couple of snaps of one of his "Bugs" on my chrome Nikon FE, telling him that he was free to use those images on his website if he wanted to. Imagine my surprise when I checked back a week later and found my humble Nikon gracing his homepage ...
http://matchtechnical.com/default.aspx
As you'll see from the rest of the products on his website, they are primarily aimed at Leica owners, for use on those fine German RFs and SLRS :wink:. Getting a photo of a Nikon FE into the 'top spot' on his website is kind of like having ones bright red Toyota featured alongside a row of gleaming Testarossas at a Ferrari Owners Club meeting :biggrin:.
Anyway, the word is out now. Hopefully, owners of other camera brands will discover and make use of these small soft releases, as they are a really practical modification to many SLRs and are the only things that I could find to fit my Nikon :smile:.
(Disclaimer: I have no commercial/incentivised interest in promoting Match Technical's products and am writing this purely from the perspective of a satisfied customer).
Having recently purchased a pair of old Nikon FE SLRs and starting to carry one around with me (almost) everywhere I went, I was keen to try and make using them as ergonomic and pleasurable an experience as possible and one thing which stood in the way of that was the shutter release button :frown:.
On an FE (FM etc.), the button is surrounded by a metal collar and has a threaded hole drilled in it to permit the use of a cable release. To actually push the shutter button far enough down to trip the shutter, requires the top of the button to go down slightly below the lip of the collar - making a fingertip the tool of choice. As I have big fingers and quite long fingernails (for guitar playing), I was finding this far less comfortable than the buttons on my DSLRs.
Once I discovered that one could buy 'soft release' buttons, which screw into the threaded hole and effectively extend the height and increase the width of the shutter button, I bought a cheap one on ebay and gave it a go! Sadly, it didn't fit and was so wide that it fouled the shutter speed dial each time that I pushed down on it :frown:. As the top control panel on the FE is quite tightly packed, I needed something smaller. Enter Tim Isaac and his "Bug" soft releases
....
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Through my (futile :redface
pawings through LFI (Leica Film International) magazine, I has seen these small, domed buttons before, screwed into M7s, CLs and various other exotic RF cameras. It occurred to my that one of these might be just the thing to fit onto my FE, as it was clearly small enough to avoid fouling any other controls. So, with a little difficulty, I sourced one in Germany and gave it a go.Once I'd spent a few minutes experimenting with different ways of holding the camera, so that I could release the shutter by pressing down with the middle joint of my index finger onto the "Bug" (instead of just pressing it with my fingertip), I realised that I could achieve a much steadier 'platform' for making slow exposures from this way :smile:. Although hard to measure in terms of fractions of a second (as I'm using film and can't instantly see the results of A/B tests), I was sure that this was going to be worth up to about 1 stop of decreased shutter speed, in most situations. What a cheap way to gain a stop, without doubling the cost of ones lenses, or doubling the grain on the film prints :biggrin:.
I was so chuffed, that I wrote an email to Mr. Isaac, via his company's (Match Technical) website and included a couple of snaps of one of his "Bugs" on my chrome Nikon FE, telling him that he was free to use those images on his website if he wanted to. Imagine my surprise when I checked back a week later and found my humble Nikon gracing his homepage
...http://matchtechnical.com/default.aspx
As you'll see from the rest of the products on his website, they are primarily aimed at Leica owners, for use on those fine German RFs and SLRS :wink:. Getting a photo of a Nikon FE into the 'top spot' on his website is kind of like having ones bright red Toyota featured alongside a row of gleaming Testarossas at a Ferrari Owners Club meeting :biggrin:.
Anyway, the word is out now. Hopefully, owners of other camera brands will discover and make use of these small soft releases, as they are a really practical modification to many SLRs and are the only things that I could find to fit my Nikon :smile:.
(Disclaimer: I have no commercial/incentivised interest in promoting Match Technical's products and am writing this purely from the perspective of a satisfied customer).
