zedorzee's Full Review: Nikon F100 Body Only 35mm Film Camera
The Nikon F100 is, without doubt, a professional level camera. It's ruggedly built, not too heavy, well sized, and very reliable. It's certainly a much closer relative to the F5 than the N90s/F90x, and is comparable to the EOS 3 in the Canon line-up.
I've shot with an F100 in varying conditions, from snow fields to deserts, and it hasn't given me any problems -- it seems to be well sealed against the elements, and the magnesium alloy frame can handle a good amount of abuse.
Battery life appears to be decent. I haven't counted how many rolls of film it takes to run down a set of alkaline AA batteries, but it didn't strike me as remarkable in either a good or bad sense.
The metering is excellent. The Matrix Meter has 10-segments (up from eight with the N90s), and is arranged to incorporate the five-point auto-focus system. The camera has about 30,000 "images" it compares the scene against to determine exposure, and it does so very quickly and accurately. I've been quite pleased with the results when shooting in automatic modes. It's not as advanced as the F5's color metering system, but performs well none-the-less.
The camera also supports center weighted and spot metering, in addition to the advanced Matrix Metering. The center weighted mode gives a 75% weight to the subjects in the middle circle of the view finder, and the spot meter is a true 1 degree meter which has the added bonus that it can be moved around the 5 auto-focus points.
The auto-focus system rocks my world, to put it lightly. There's a thumb pad on the back of the camera which allows you to select between five different auto-focus points in the view finder, which are placed according to the rule of thirds. The camera can automatically track objects moving between auto-focus points, which is particularly nice when shooting sports or other high speed subjects. A switch on the front of the camera allows you to change between manual, servo (one time), and continuous (tracking) focusing modes.
There are two additional thumb buttons which can be quite handy. There's a singular auto-exposure/auto-focus lock button, and an auto-focus on button. The auto-focus on button is a nice feature, which activate the auto-focus mechanism so that you can manually track objects in the view finder.
The controls are pretty easy to use. There are both thumb and forefinger wheels, who's functionality can be customized to suit your preferences.
Exposure modes are pretty standard -- aperture priority, shutter priority, program, and manual. I haven't really touched the preset program modes, so I can't comment on their value, but aperture and priority modes work as they should. The camera also has a nice bracketing mode.
The custom functions are nice. They cover the following: auto rewind, EV steps for exposure control, bracketing order, AF activation with the shutter button, DX reading error warning, focus area selection, AE lock with the shutter button, auto film loading, dynamic AF modes with AF-S and AF-C, auto/flash exposure bracketing, command dial functions, multiple exposures, delay for meter shut off, self timer duration, LCD illumination with auto-meter switch, data imprint on frame 0 (with the MF29 databack), aperture control during zooming, shutter release indication with the self-timer LED, auto-exposure/focus lock button functionality, and aperture selection wheel. Phew! Lots of useful things.
Regarding lens compatibility, the F100 is able to use the new VR (vibration reduction) lenses, unlike the N90s.
All things considered, the F100 is a wonderful camera. Unless you specifically need some of the features of the F5 (like mirror lock-up), the F100 is quite capable as a do-all professional camera.
I highly recommend this camera to anyone looking for a robust, well featured, highly dependable camera.
I'm hesitant to recommend this camera to anyone who works in very extreme climates -- the lack of a manual rewind system may cause static problems in very cold situation, and the controls aren't sealed as well as the F5 (which also has the manual rewind feature).
An evolution of the N90s with many of the F5s traits, the F100 is a lightweight professional alternative to the big F5. The list of features is not li...More at Buy.com
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