Nikon F100 - a few notes

This is not a review in the usual sense, but rather several notes that I derived from my personal experience with the camera and do not seem to have read in other reviews. I am not writing a full review because, first, there already are a lot of reviews of the F100 on the Internet and, second, I reckon that most of the people who consider buying a camera of this calibre are going digital anyway.

Links to reviews of and opinions on the camera can be found here. If you are reading this article you might also be interested in the Nikon F6.

Mirror slap myth

As I am sure you know, the F5 has several useful features that the F100 does not. However, I never felt that I really needed the blistering 8fps, or interchangeable viewfinders, or additional custom settings; I also seemed to get along well without the color matrix metering and never had any problem with the plastic back of the F100. The only thing that bothered me and could have made me switch to an F5 was the mirror lockup feature. Why? Because it is almost common wisdom that if your camera does not have a mirror lock up it is bound to be incapable of producing sharp images at certain speeds. As far as the F100 is concerned, its mirror slap is supposed to be at its worst at 1/8 seconds and, as I read in many sources, due to the effect the camera is pretty much useless from 1/30 through 1 seconds. Some people even suggest that Nikon did this on purpose so as to make those for whom mirror lockup matters spend the money and buy the more expensive F5. But then I thought, well, just how bad is it? And took a couple of photos just to check it - see the images below.

The image above was taken with a AF Zoom-Nikkor ED 80-200mm f/2.8D at about 85mm using a (Gitzo) tripod; parts of the image (below) were scanned at 2820dpi.

1/15, f/6.7	1/8, f/9.5	1/4, f/13	1", f/22

If there is an influence of mirror slap, we should see a vertical blurring on horizontal shots and a horizontal blurring on vertical shots. See any in the above images? I do not - neither in the above scans, nor in the original slides with a 10X lope. Moreover, the above pictures are as sharp as any other taken with this lens at fast shutter speeds with the lens stopped down. You might think that this is a heavy lens that might have dampened mirror slap effect with its weight. However, I got the same result when I was testing the AF Nikkor 28mm f/2.8D, which is one of the lightest lenses. So, maybe, after all, Nikon did not incorporate the mirror lockup feature in the F100 simply because... it was not necessary? Do not take anything for granted - check it out for yourself!

P.S. Michael Weber tested Gitzo carbon tripods using F5 and F100 bodies attached to long telephoto lenses. His results indirectly support what I have written above. In particular, he has written: "I can forget MLU with my 300mm lenses and shorter as these Gitzos absorb vibration so effectively that I could detect no difference between photos with and without MLU!". He also wrote: "At 1/15s my F100 is situated exactly between F5 plus MLU activated and F5 without MLU (cable release)". This indicates that F5 appears to have a worse mirror mechanism and yet even on it mirror slap with lenses shorter than 300mm is insignificant. The only difference is that Michael suggests that the mirror slap vibrations are absorbed by the carbon tripods. Well, I used a Gitzo G1220 tripod (which is a classic aluminum tripod) with a Gitzo G1376M ball head and for my purposes can consider the F100 mirror slap free either way (as long as I do not use lenses longer than 300mm).

Lack of mode indication

There is no indication either in the viewfinder or on the LCD screen if you are using self-timer, multiple exposure, or continuous drive mode. In theory, it should not pose any problems as you can see what mode you are using by simply looking at the camera; however in real life it is not so and I have wasted film on both the self-timer and continuous drive. What usually happens is that you use one of the modes and then forget to turn it off when you are finished. Then, say, the next day, you want to take pictures in the normal mode, you press the shutter release button and either you shoot three to four frames (if you used continuous mode the day before), or nothing happens (if you used self-timer). In the latter case you try to realize what happens, turn the camera in your hands and then, all of a sudden, the shutter goes off. And it is even worse if you used the multiple exposure mode, did not turn it off and forgot about it. In this case you shall be continuously exposing the same frame and, if it gets to worst, might only realize this when you start getting the feeling that you should be approaching the end of film and you are still on frame 5. Beware!

Custom function no. 17 - very useful

I found custom function no. 17, which turns the light of the LCD screen on each time you half-depress the shutter release button very useful when shooting in the dark (usually from a tripod). I found it especially handy when one time I was to photograph a sunrise and was in the place when it was still dark. This might sound very obvious, however, we normally read through all the custom functions once or twice, make all the permanent adjustments and afterwards do not remember or look into what other custom functions are available and tend to do things the hard way. Know your camera well!

Update: you will not believe it, but the F6 does not have this feature!

Custom function no. 1 - do not turn it on

At first it seems like a very useful feature when your camera automatically rewinds the film when it reaches its end and so I turned custom function no. 1 on. However, several times I had a very strange experience when the film would be winded back when I had only shot only half of it. This appeared to happen when the batteries were about to be depleted. After this happened, I, of course, turned the feature off.

Battery life indication - an alternative approach

As you might read else where, battery life indication on the LCD screen is pretty useless - when it starts reading that your batteries are half-depleted it pretty much means that they are already used up and will not last long. Interestingly enough, though, I discovered that it is possible to... hear how alive your batteries are! Seriously, listen to the film forwarding sound/speed when the batteries are fresh and when they are almost exhausted and you will know what I am talking about. With time, I, unintentionally, learned to hear when it is about the time to change batteries and, usually, the LCD indicator would start showing half-depleted batteries soon after I detect the longer film forwarding sound. I know this might sound strange but I am sure you will discover the same if you simply pay attention to it.

The rubber coating problem

I read in several reviews that Nikon F5's rubber coating starts coming off at some point. I thought this would not be an issue with the F100 yet after about three years of relatively heavy use my Nikon F100 has now shown the same problem. During a trip to Hangzhou I met a pro from Hangzhou Morning Post - interestingly enough, rubber coating of his Nikon D1H came off really badly on the vertical grip. All in all, it looks like this is a major problem with all Nikon pro-calibre cameras if/when they are used heavily enough.