Welcome to issue 74

I’m very excited about this issue. It feels likes all of my birthdays have come at once, which actually isn’t far off the mark. In fact, it’s Nikon’s birthdays that have all come at once; 100 of them, to be precise. Yes, in case you hadn’t guessed it from the enormous ‘100’ on the cover, Nikon is celebrating its centenary this month, which provides us with a pretty good excuse to look back over a century of Nikon innovation, and celebrate the cameras, lenses, people and photographs that together make up the Nikon story: its remarkable journey from microscope manufacturer to iconic photography brand. You can read the whole story, and enjoy dipping in and out of Nikon’s many milestones, in this issue’s special feature (p. 8) and accompanying collector’s supplement. We hope you enjoy reading them both as much as we’ve enjoyed putting them together.

Staying in celebratory mode (and with rose-tinted spectacles well and truly set to ‘nostalgia’), this issue also features a head to head between the D5 and the venerated F5 film SLR (p. 90), a centenary-inspired Big Project (p. 50) and an in-depth review of the classic F501 (p. 91), the first ever Nikon SLR to feature autofocus (a fully working example of which will today set you back the princely sum of £25/$30!).

Plus, we have our usual brilliant mix of regulars, including an inspirational interview with leading adventure pro Corey Rich (p. 96), a masterclass on landscape photography (p. 60), and a group test on the best superzooms for travel, so that you can start adding your own journeys to the Nikon story. Enjoy!