gear

THE DIGITAL SOAPBOX OF ANDY CLEAVENGER

NIKON F100

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Email:  graycard18@gmail.com

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If I started shooting weddings, and I were going to do it with film, this is the camera I would use.

These days you can pick up just about any film body for a song, so why would I use this and not an F5 (a camera most Nikon users lusted after less than 10 years ago) or the super abundant and über reliable N90s (a camera that has saturated the used market so completely in recent years that they actually cost less now than cameras that are older and far less advanced)? Because, as it turns out, I just like the ergonomics better than the F5 and it’s a bit lighter (an important point if you’re shooting for 10 straight hours). And the N90s will not work with a fair number of Nikon’s most current lenses (no front command dial to control aperture on G lenses).

Since I don’t shoot weddings, I rarely pick up this camera anymore. When I want to shoot 35mm film I usually go for a manual focus body like my FM3A or F2. While the F100 is quite enjoyable to use in manual exposure mode, I find the manual focus bodies to be even more so. Therefore the only reason I would start using this camera again is if my eyesight was shot and I needed to start depending on auto focus. For that reason (and the fact that I’d get shit for it as a trade in) I keep it around.

When this camera was first introduced a lot of people had some issues with the “Nintendo” pad on the back getting gummed up with dirt, and apparently quite a few had the plastic rewind fork break. I’m not sure how they managed that... the rewind fork in the N90s is plastic and I’ve never heard the same complaints about it. My theory is that the excellent fit and finish of the F100 inspires an overconfidence in its durability and people subsequently treat it like a boat anchor. Surprise! If you use it to drive in your tent stakes you’re probably going to screw it up.

Anyway, back to the camera... both of the issues mentioned above seemed to have been addressed after the first couple years of production. So if you’re looking for a used one, try to make sure that it’s from a fairly recent production run. You can tell the early ones from the later ones by the shape of the rewind fork. Open the back and if the rewind fork has square shaped ends it should be one of the later production runs. If it has pointed ends on it, put it down gently, thank the salesman for their time and back away from the counter.