Cons: A little heavy, and usually a bit expensive, and a lack of a vertical grip.
The Bottom Line: Overall I recomend purchasing the F100 whenever possible. It's powerful, easy to use, and much lighter than comparable professional grade cameras.
When I bought my F100, I was making a switch over from a (really old) Nikon FE that I had been shooting with for several years. Since, at the time, I worked in a camera shop and had to chance to play with it on a daily basis, I had the chance to place the F100 back to back with not only it's big brother the F5, but also the extreme precision of the FE I own. Although I love my FE dearly and intended to stay “manual” and not go to the “automatic” cameras, the words of my manager came true, “Once you shoot with the F100, you’ll never go back to the FE.” I’m almost sad to say that my FE is now collecting a lot more dust than I had orginally intended. With it’s very powerful fully automated mode, the F100 snaps as quickly and easily as a point and shoot, while still giving you true professional grade photographs. Its fully manual mode gives you full control over all settings, while ‘inbetween’ settings such as shutter priority and aperture priority give you half manual and half automated with outstanding results. Its advanced electronics alow it to syncronized with virually all Nikon (and made-for-Nikon) products including manual and autofocus lenses, older origional SB-series and brand new SB-28DX and SB-30DX flashes, as well as a host of accessories.
Some My favorite features on the F100 include:
Universal Lense Mount- So you don't have to get rid of all those old manual Nikkor (or made-for-Nikon) lenses while still supporting virtually EVERY lense that Nikon still makes (Auto Focus or Manual).
Continuous Shooting Mode- Shooting about 4 frames a second (up to about 5.5-6 fps with the optional battery expansion pack) and an interesting ‘Continuous Silent’ mode which lowers your frame rate, but is a lot quieter with the shutter (great for a wedding or other ‘church’ event where a loud shutter is distracting to the people attending).
Autofocus System- 5 point autofocus system that knows where the subject is and has to ability to ‘lock-on’ to it while shooting in either of the Continuous modes.
Flash Modes- 3D balanced fill flash built on a 3D Matrix light metering system that allows for multiple flash units and a wide range of flash modes (up to 1/250 flash sync) including Red Eye Reduction and Flash Bracketing and Slow sync.
Custom Settings- 22 built in customizable settings that allows the F100 to tailor to you including auto film load and rewind, self-timer settings and menu scrolling keys.
Along with these features, the F100 also has the ability to hook up to a PC (through addional cords and software from Nikon) and download vital statistics including shutter, aperture, and filmspeed ect, for up to 100 photos. It also features shutter speeds from 30 seconds to a mind-bending 1/8,000 of a second, built-in diopter and exposure compensation up to +/- 5 stops.
The shoot out: F5 vs. F100 vs. FE
The Nikon F5 represents the ‘Big Dog’ of professional cameras, with the F100 now being seen as the ‘little brother.’ In all honesty, I have to say that is entirely backwards. For all intensive purposes, the F5 is a F100 with a vertical grip, a few more customizable settings (most of which can only be accessed through hooking the F5 to a computer by purchasing the F5 computer kit from Nikon) and the ability to hold 4 more AA type batteries. They both house the same metering and flash sync systems and both cameras have the same exposure times (30 to 1/8,000 sec). In addition, the F5's menus and controls are far more complex than the F100's. So, for the price of an F5 (brand new-about $2,000) you can purchase two F100s (around $1,000) and have a back up camera identical to your primary in the event that you loose you primary off the cliff while getting the “awesome” shot (although I am considering the fact that the F100 may have survived the fall).
As far as the Nikon FE goes, well, sorry- but you’re going to keep collecting dust. The F100’s ability to take a professional grade camera and make it as easy to snap as a point-and-shoot and still achieve the outstanding quality that it does- to put it plainly- leaves the pro-grade all-manual FE.. um.. in the dust.
The F100 a 35mm SLR body geared to the professional and is situated beyond the N90 and behind the F5 as the #2 top camera in the Nikon line With its s...More at Amazon Marketplace
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