Yeah...it's kind of mind blowing when you think about How Much these "Professional" camera bodies cost. And these prices are 25-50 years old...!!
I have Almost bought an F4...probably 100 different times. It would probably be good for me for a few reasons.
I do need rapid fire sometimes.
The "advanced" metering would be nice to have in certain scenarios.
If i had an F4, i most likely would not need my F3.....it is very similar to my F2, and i "never" use Aperture Priority. Seems like an F4 makes the F3 redundant... in My Situation anyway.
That was an awesome deal you got. No doubt (sooner or later) you will find a battery tray or an entire F4 beater that is so cheap you can just snag the whole camera.
I am still looking at your original F4 price. Who would have Ever Thought they would be this cheap.?
I've thought about this a lot recently, the F4 and F3 and their relationship to the other F series cameras.
I have all the single digit F's up to the F5 in my cabinet. I also have some Olympus OM bodies, and Canon stuff to compare it all to.
I like all the Nikon F bodies but for most things prefer manual focus. I just don't shoot much anymore where auto focus matters. With that in mind the F4 and F3 both become somewhat redundant to each other.
The F2 is a wonderful camera with a fantastic solid feel. The F is wonderful too but with the F2 Nikon took care of a couple ergonomic issues which makes it the better user (my opinion only). The F3 is a solid dependable camera but too me just doesn't feel as solid. I do like the aperture priority though, and mine being an HP, I really like the viewfinder.
The F4 though has found itself in a bit of a tight spot. Many tout it as being the best Nikon for manual focus lenses and it will allow you to mount pretty much anything. Problem is, that once you mount anything prior to a P lens your stuck with manual or aperture priority metering. Thus the F4 becomes an F3 with a big grip and lots more weight. Matrix metering is I think available but I'm not convinced that's such a big deal beyond the doors of Nikons marketing department. Things aren't any better for the F4 if your wanting auto focus. Its just not that great at it, at least not in those instances where AF is a big help. Speed is king, and the F4 just isn't as fast as an F5.
So my F4S mostly sat in the cabinet unused. A good friend who used to have and love an F4 told me I should get an MB-20, that as a smaller camera I's love the thing. So I finally found one (MB-20) that wasn't quite as stupidly expensive as usual and bought it. 3 freaking days later, Japan to Colorado (amazing...), I had it on the camera. Turned it into a heavy F3 with a big grip... Oh well. And yeah I've mentioned that big grip a couple times. I have large hands and find the F5 an easy thing to haul around a race track all day, but the F4's grip is just too fat. It's size also makes it very hard to reach a finger across the access the depth of field preview button, which is a nice thing to get to if you want to use older pre AI lenses on the thing. The F5's grip just fits me. The camera just hangs off my fingers, I don't really have to "grip" at all. Ergonomically its almost as perfect in my hand as the Canon T90.
At this point I expect the F4 and maybe the F3 also to be sold. The F will stay just because its an F. The F2 for much the same reason with the fact that its also an amazing camera thrown in. I wont be selling it on, but I do want to send it to Sover. Weird really. The Canon F1 is I think a slightly better camera, but the differences between the two are quite minimal, the F2 is just too cool. The F5 too will stay. That's the need for speed do everything camera. I used to have a Canon EOS 1n but it was too like the F5, and didn't feel as good in my hand so I moved it on.
So much for my quiet Sunday rambling. YMMV and all that, the above is just one guys opinion.