I had a chance to handle the F100 last night. My dealer got in two that
he'd already sold sight unseen, and has orders for four more that he can't
yet fill. The local Nikon rep was at the store and said that in this area
each dealer had been allocated just two F100s from the initial shipment,
and he didn't know when the next shipment would go out. My dealer was
amazed that he has taken orders for and sold six F100s before anyone even
saw the camera. Meanwhile, a couple of EOS3 sit on his display shelf.

It was the Nikon rep's sample that I had had a chance to play with, with
the new AF-S 80-200 f/2.8 and a couple other lenses. The AF-S 80-200
focuses amazingly fast on the camera. Faster than I've ever seen an AF
Nikkor focus. It's also surprisingly quiet. And being able to manually
focus at any time, without even filpping a switch, is exceptionally nice.
Now I understand this advantage that EOS users have had for years. All AF
Nikkors should work like this lens. The lens is big and, surprisingly,
comes with the lens hood. My dealer has the lens priced at $1600.00 USD.

The F100 is priced -- whenever the dealer gets more of them -- at $1300.00
USD. I've moved from AF cameras (N8008s and F4) back to a couple of FM2s,
and I've not regretted it. I was never tempted by the N90S. Despite this,
my impression is the F100 is an exceptionally nice camera. As someone who
manually sets exposure, having a 4-stop exposure scale (something lost when
Nikon moved from the N8008S to the N90) is enticing. And having the
metering pattern in use visible in the finder, like my F4 did, is another
detail that makes a difference.

But eliminating the finder blind and instead enclosing a separate little
plastic finder cover (which, of course, will not go over the accessory
rubber eyecup)? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The camera feels good in the hands. Solid but light. I've never been a fan
of the front command dial when handling the F5, and I didn't care for it on
the F100 either. But custom function 22 allows you to use the lens aperture
ring instead, with apertures showing up in the finder LCD. So no harm done
by the dial's being there.

I found the rear command dial easy to use and well placed. The AF button on
the back fell right under my thumb; I think I'd find that control of more
use than I'd have expected before handling this camera. But the autofocus
thumbpad is not placed where any fingers natuarally fall and frankly, I
found it a nuisance. Perhaps in time one gets used to it. But I suspect I'd
find it easier to lock the middle sensor as the only one in use, and focus
and recompose, rather than fiddle with the oddly-placed thumbpad, which
impresses me as technology creating a bigger problem than it solves.

The control to change metering patterns requires some very unnatural finger
contortions to press a central button and turn the control. I don't see how
that can be done while holding the viewfinder to the eye. Very unfortunate.

But the discreet red rectangle briefly illuminating in the viewfinder to
indicate the AF sensor in use is nice. I greatly preferred it to the
flashing (and to me distracting) arrows, or the lost-in-darkness black
rectangles, of the F5.

My biggest complaint about AF cameras remains with the F100. The
viewfinder, while exceptionally bright, I found exceptionally poor for
manual focusing. It's bright at the expense of contrastiness, and images do
not snap into definite, assured focus like they do with my FM2. This is a
viewfinder made for autofocus.

Overall, I found the F100 to be a well-made and generally well-designed
package. I had abandoned my N8008S and F4 for the FM2 because I found
myself more comfortable focusing manually than putting up with the camera's
all-too-often focus hunting. Unfortunately, the F100 does not have a
viewfinder that I'd want to use much for manual focus. So I'd have to feel
that the focusing of this body will prove more useful more often than the
previous AF bodies I owned before I'd buy one. I'll be interested to read
what those who purchase the camera have to write on that matter after
putting it to some use. And I'll try it out myself some more, whenever
Nikon sends my dealer another shipment.

Larry

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