Nikkorex F
Introduced in 1962, the Nikkorex F was a major evolution in the Nikkorex line of cameras. Nippon Kogaku (aka Nikon) had released the original Nikkorex in 1960 as a simpler, lower cost alternative to their flagship professional Nikon F slr camera. That first Nikkorex lacked a lot of features that the Nikon F enjoyed, such as interchangeable lenses, a simpler leaf shutter instead of a focal plane shutter, a mirror-based viewfinder instead of a glass pentaprism and no instant return mirror. The original Nikkorex saw a small update in the Nikkorex II of 1962, but that same year also saw the release of the Nikkorex F.
The Nikkorex F is a surprisingly revolutionary camera. First, it offered some major improvements over the earlier Nikkorex models incorporating an interchangeable Nikon F lens mount as well as a hinged back door for easier film loading. Probably the Nikkorex F's biggest claim to fame is that it incorporated a brand new Copal Square shutter, the first such camera to feature this shutter. The Copal Square shutter would go on to become widely adopted but at the time of the Nikkorex F's launch it offered a more advanced focal plane shutter than even the one the Nikon F used. This allowed the Nikkorex F to enjoy a faster 1/125 flash sync speed. These improvements moved the Nikkorex F into the gap between the vaunted Nikon F and the earlier Nikkorex cameras. Yes, it is a pared-down camera compared the Nikon F but it was also significantly more advanced than the previous Nikkorex models.
As an interesting historical footnote, the Nikkorex F was not actually made by Nikon, but rather by Mamiya for the Nikon brand name. It had a relatively short run of things as a Nikon camera, being superceded by the launch of the Nikon-made Nikkormat series in 1965. In 1966 the Nikkorex F was retired but the camera itself was not quite done. Mamiya sold the design to Ricoh who used it to produce the Ricoh Singlex (also marketed as the Sears SL11).
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v. 10.06 | 2026-10-22 15:43:01
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