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
