Although it was rumored early last month, it seems to have quietly become official: Nikon is listing the F6, its last pro 35mm film body, as “old product” on their website.
Rumors have swirled for years about whether the F6 was actually still in production or not. The film market collapsed so rapidly at the dawn of the DSLR age that Canon and Nikon were selling off New-Old-Stock inventory for years. Still, every now and again a guy on a forum would report buying a new F6 and finding a letter in the box signed by the production crew of these precisely-engineered electromechanical marvels, thanking the buyer for his patronage.
Apparently those rumors may be put to bed now, and the Nikon F line, which began back in 1959 with the camera Private Joker carried in Full Metal Jacket, and ended up with F5’s in Operation Iraqi Freedom and on the ISS, is officially no more.
The F5 was really the last pro F. By the time the F6 replaced it, most working pro photogs had migrated to digital with the D1X and D2 and never really looked back.
Still, though, like my friend Kevin pointed out, it’s hard to hear this news and not see The Fighting Temeraire in the mind’s eye.
And so it goes...
