WHO REALLY NEEDS AN F5 >I can understand that some of the poeple who own F5's don't really need >them but WHO really needs one? Are the only people who need an F5 those >that shoot at 8fps with fast moving subjects in some special lighting >situation that needs 1005 metering zones? Am I to understand that the >photographer in Bosnia using the F5 because it's durable and weather >resistant doesn't actually need it? Hmm, I ought to speak up here. I spent a great deal of time in 1997 in Guam and Bosnia. Yea, two different parts oof the world, but I needed reliability. I played with the Nc2000e thinkning I wanted one, and that is the best argument around to get a second F5. Now in Bosnia you can count on everything being covered wiht MUD. I fell in the mud while carrying my F5 with 24-120, a Domke bag with a slew of lenses, an M-16, body armor, and all the extra toys that go with that. I weighed so much I needed help to get up, I was not going to release a thing for fear the mud would suck it up! The F5 was fine but VERY muddy. It kept shooting. I could have taken a Contax G2 that day, now THAT little guy would have been toast. When I got back to the USA I traded in the G2 for another F5. I got the F5 because I am very tough on cameras, I have sent them rolling, dunking, bouncing, bumping and skating. I have doused them in mud,d exposed them to the heat and cold and the wet and the dry. They have bounced for 2 days in a C-130 cargo plane and fell under the seats of a C-141. I drove around in a hummer (hmmwv) that made my teeth hurt, nevermind the cameras. The lenses and cameras you see today are great, but if they wil be the same after a ride in the washing machine is a different story. Others got F5s in Bosnia, one friend shold his before he left for a great sum more than it cost him. Cameras like the F5 are appreciated very much when needed. As for the example of the overweigh soccer dad who uses a 400/2.8, well good for him. Doctors use Leicas and may shoot a roll and then trade it in, it is their money and we can harvest the bounty on the trade. If you can afford it and want it that ought to be reason enough. If soccer dad mortgaged the house for the 400/2.8 then that's a different story. The F5 I took to a war zone is the same F5 I shot my little sister's birthday party with last month. I have no idea what it may be called on to do tomorrow, but I know one thing for sure, it WILL work. How inportant are YOUR pictures??? Robert in Redlands SFC, USA and PROUD to serve!
