Nikon F100 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Only

Do you still love film? Are you a life long Nikon photographer? Are you accumulating some really sharp full frame Nikon lenses which are G type, i.e. have no aperture ring? Is the F6 a machine that you just dream about but it's too expensive.....
Then the Nikon F100 is for you. The pricing is surpressed because there is a slight chance that early models (you have to look up the serial numbers to know for sure) had, on occasion, usually associated with the use of autorewind, some problems with the prongs that fit into the film cannister breaking. That was fixed in later models and there are many of the earlier version which will never experience the difficulty. It can be fixed by Nikon, but it costs as much as the camera to do so.

Now why is the F100 for you?
Light, agile and fully loaded as if it were the nearly twice as heavy F5, this camera has both the aperture and shutter speed adjustment wheels of all modern Nikons. So far there are no FX lenses that this camera won't take. It has a great viewfinder, bright and adjustable to your eyesight. The lcd panel tells you most everything you want to know but hey, it's a Nikon, so if you really have been using them your whole life, then you don't have to relearn anything. The camera just feels right in your hands.

There are a couple dozen or so customizations that you can program into the camera. It has a long life shutter so even a well used one probably has some good life left in it. It's going in my bag to Asia this spring because Nikon hasn't come out with the D4 yet. I am going to use fine grain b+w film and slide film with it and use my digital D300 for test shots. I think I know what is going up on my wall when I get home.....

In the meantime, I pray that all the Nikon families in Japan have been spared as much as possible the suffering that has befallen so many of their countrymen and women.

I love this camera. Excellent build quality- rugged, made to last & be used! I shoot landscapes, street, animals/ horses/ action, some portraits & the occasional wedding. In the field I like to carry light & carry equipment on a waist pack originally designed for water bottles! Lenses are handy & bag part holds flash & film. I've been using an F100 for over a year now & finally bought my own on Ebay. It will do an awesome job if you just point & shoot on Program mode You can use Aperture or shutter priority, go fully Manual or you can download the PDF manual & get into more complicated functions & custom menus. The 10 segment matrix metering gives excellent results. I was comparing it with the F5. The F5 has faster Autofocus being designed as a journalism camera(harder on your lenses- don't put non-Nikon lenses on that baby!) & RGB metering but for my use wasn't worth the extra weight for me. I use the F100 with a 75-300mm F4.5-5.6, a 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 & an SB28 flash. It has also given great results with a 50mm & 85mm prime lenses. Whilst there are some advantages to digital I still feel film is better- as technology improves can always rescan negatives. I couldn't get anywhere near the quality of this camera in digital for the $200 I paid for it (July '08). Further reviews/ info see Kenrockwell.com or bythom.com. I like that Nikon camera have been rearwards compatible with lenses but don't recommend using DX on this as you may see fall of in the corners. Excellent doesn't rate this camera high enough IMO!

My recent purchase of the Nikon F100 film camera supports my belief that this is the top of the line film camera. While Nikon is now out of the film camera business and relying on digital cameras for their prime revenue, the F100 marks the ultimate engineering and design success for what a film camera should be. Yes, there are tons of dials, buttons, meters, and controls, but that is what professional photographers demand when controlling light, contrast, shadow, and color. The camera is intuitive, has all the features that the older Nikons do not ( lighted window, diopter adjustment, MF-29 film back, spot and matrix metering, Aperture and shutter priority, manual mode if you choose, and , most importantly, ease of use.
Another nice feature is that the Nikon AF lenses can be used on the Nikon Digital camera line for the most part. There are some exceptions down in the F60 lines, but mostly every Nikkor AF lens will work on this camera. This backward and forward compatibility help with flexible and changing conditions.
Make no mistake, this magnesium body, film back, and power winder make this a heavy camera, but it feels substatial. It feels like: "this is the only camera I need to use" kind of feeling.
You will need to review the operating instructions and the manual to figure out what all the buttons and dials do, but once you master this, the camera will outperform and enhance your professional photographic experience. I would say that this camera is not for the casual photographer or weekend snapshot although it certainly can be used as such. This is a complex camera that allows you to adjust many parameters, or simply flow with the automatic mode and let the camera handle the complexities. Everything is there that you need plus the camera keeps you from making mistakes.

Love this thing. Wish I had bought it years ago. I carry it with me most of the time. Simple, easy to use. Light weight and highly portable. And my Vivitar 285 flash works great with it.

After shooting digital for three years, I decided it was time to shoot some film again. I had been wanting a Holga or Diana for some time. Got a good on-line price on the Holga and bought it. Shooting with it makes you stop and think.
Like the soft focus, light leaks and all. Only thing I don't like is no "B" setting on the shutter for long exposures. But, I can live with that.
If you're looking for a camera that's fun to use...get one. It's point and shoot all the way. I use 200 speed B&W film and it works well. I get the film processed and scanned at a pro photo lab and then Photoshop the scans. I'm looking for another one for color film.
------TP

I bought the Nikon F100 to serve as a backup camera to my D300 digital SLR. This might sound a bit strange, but the F100, one of the best-designed film SLRs ever, is a very economical way to extend the capabilities of a digital SLR.

For one thing, you get a full-frame camera at a tiny fraction of the cost of a full-frame digital SLR. So, wide angle shots which are difficult with a cropped-frame camera such as the D300 are easy with the F100. I have an fixed-focal length 18mm lens which I picked up cheap on ebay. On the D300, this acts like a 24mm lens, but on the F100, when you use an 18mm lens you get the full coverage of an 18mm.

Although I shoot film with the F100, it's easy to have the processor return a CD with the prints, so everything winds up digital anyway.

The F100 is a solid and dependablle camera, but it also has the added benefit that the major controls (e.g., for aperture and shutter speed) work just like they do on my D300. Plus, it's great fun shooting film again.