I've had a black F2S for many years now. It was always my dream camera, and I figured I'd probably never get another one. I mean, it worked fine, so why bother? Well, last year I was in my favorite junktique store, and there was an F2S in chrome for $60. It looked to be a low mileage model, as the body had no marks on it, and the meter head had what could be described as handling marks, considering how it was part of an estate sale, and who knows what kind of box it may have been stuffed in for transfer to the store. The Series E 1.8/50 on the front was kind of a let down, but it was in good shape, and I needed one for my EM anyway.
Now when the advance lever was pulled out, the meter did not activate. Eh, no problem, either the battery is dead, or missing I figured. Besides, it can still be used like it had an eye level prism installed. I get it home, and sure enough there is no battery, so I cleaned off the contacts, and installed a 3v lithium. No lights!
I tried several times to get the meter to activate. I switched the head to the black body, and it was a no go. I put the head from the black body on the chrome one, and it worked, so that showed power to the meter head. I put the heads back on their respective bodies, and set the chrome one back for later work.
Fast forward to yesterday. I had done some rearranging around the apartment, and when I came across the dead F2S I set it out where I could see it so that it would get me to do something with it. Saturday was that day. I again took the head off, cleaned all the contacts, put in a pair of 357's that I use to test out various pieces of equipment, and still nothing.
So last night just before going to bed I once more put the camera through its paces. Suddenly the meter came on! It wasn't right away, more like about ten seconds after I pulled the advance lever out from the body to activate the meter switch. I kept turning it off and on, and the times between pulling the lever and meter activation started to get shorter. Then one time it sort of flickered quite a bit, but the next time came on good and strong. I switched out the 357's for a fresh 3v lithium, and the meter start became instantaneous. Man, I was so happy when my head finally hit the pillow a short while later.
Got up this morning, and checked the camera operation, and it was still working good. Haven't taken it out yet to see how accurate it is against a good meter, but it passes the desk lamp test I do where I set the ISO to 125, and point it to the lamp from a foot away, then see what aperture it settles on. f5.6 is the target, and that's where it was. Which is good because I had perused the auction site to see what DP-12's were going for, and found it was cheaper to get another camera with that head, though still an expensive proposition. I didn't want to wind up with another body, so I'm happy this one came back to life, especially since it has the P screen, and I didn't want to be swapping prisms and screens every time I wanted to switch which F2 body I was going to use. I likely would have just gotten another DP-2 in case things didn't work out.
So I was wondering if any of you have had a similar experience with your DP-2. My take on the whole thing is there is a capacitor in the circuit that, like in a flash unit, will "dry out" from non-use, and needs to be rejuvenated by putting in fresh batteries and turning the unit on until the ready light appears (may take hours or days). I'll have to find a meter circuit to see if that could be true. One other possibility is the activation of the lever to the lens prong (by working the aperture control ring back and forth) may have cleaned the wipers inside the meter head so the circuit could be completed. Third possibility is a combination of the two.
Whatever it was, I'm pleased that I now have two F2S's in working order (though the chrome one could use a new set of seals). They should both be getting more exercise now, along with me.
Nikon F2S Chrome by P F McFarland, on Flickr
Nikon F2S by P F McFarland, on Flickr
PF
