Nikon F6 nightmare.

jphendren · Nov 25, 2009

Well,

After going through much pain and agony in getting my new to me Nikon F6 from UPS, I finally picked the camera up from UPS this morning.

I get home and open the box. The camera is pretty near new condition, I'm very satisfied in this regard. I guess it was bound to happen to me sooner or later, I've purchased probably 10 used camera's over the years and all worked perfectly. Well, my beautiful F6 will not autofocus. I've tried doing a reset, playing with the various switches etc... Nothing. I put the lens on my F5, and it AF's fast and precise with this lens.

So I guess that I have to return it. This is a real bummer for me; I've been looking for one of these for a few months, they are not easy to find. And now I've got one and it is broken.

Sorry to whine, I just had to tell somebody.

Jared

FilmOnly · Nov 25, 2009

I am sorry this has not worked out. Whomever sold it to you should have inspected it better.

jphendren · Nov 25, 2009

On the RMA form that B&H sent me, it has the option of having them send out the camera for repair and resending it to me. I am leaning toward that option, as these are pretty scarce, and it really is a beautiful little camera. My guess is that I will not have the camera back until after Christmas though.

Jared

Barry S · Nov 25, 2009

If B&H is willing to send it to Nikon in Melville for repair, I'd go for it. If it goes to someone like Mack--forget it and move on.

jphendren · Nov 25, 2009

"If B&H is willing to send it to Nikon in Melville for repair, I'd go for it. If it goes to someone like Mack--forget it and move on."

I have no idea who they use, or if they do repairs in house. I think I will see what I can dig up.

Jared

wildbill · Nov 25, 2009

I'd get your money back. I saw one listed on photo.net the other day.

jphendren · Nov 25, 2009

"I'd get your money back. I saw one listed on photo.net the other day."

Yeah, I found that one after you mentioned it. Unfortunately I don't have a Photo.net account.

Jared

jphendren · Nov 25, 2009

UPDATE. The F6 is fully functional. It was operator error. The previous owner had set a custom function to disable AF with the shutter botton. I've never used AF-ON before, so had no idea what it was for.

Jared

glockman99 · Nov 25, 2009

It's nice to read that you woke up from your nighmare, and that your F6 is just fine.

nsouto · Nov 25, 2009

Great news! I love my F6: it is by far the best 35mm film camera ever.
And I use it exactly the same way: set to trigger AF only when I touch the AF button.
Makes for a funny reaction when folks try to use it and tap the shutter button...

Enjoy the F6! Oh, and get a MV1 for it also from B&H: you can then use its output to create EXIF info for your scanned photos, if you do scans. Or add it to an image catalogue or doco.

Sirius Glass · Nov 26, 2009

jphendren said:
UPDATE. The F6 is fully functional. It was operator error. The previous owner had set a custom function to disable AF with the shutter botton. I've never used AF-ON before, so had no idea what it was for.

Jared

The technical term is OAF [Operator Assisted Failure], as in "The OAF did this."

Please do not take it personally, we have all been there.

Steve

resummerfield · Nov 26, 2009

jphendren said:
.....The previous owner had set a custom function to disable AF with the shutter botton. I've never used AF-ON before, so had no idea what it was for......

See, this may have a silver lining after all. I use the AF-ON function, and I like it more than the "standard" way of using the shutter button. Try it!

Chris Nielsen · Nov 26, 2009

resummerfield said:
See, this may have a silver lining after all. I use the AF-ON function, and I like it more than the "standard" way of using the shutter button. Try it!

I agree. My F5 is set to use AF-on instead of the shutter, and also set to Release priority, this way you can AF on something that might not be in quite the right place for an AF sensor, then recompose slightly and fire, and when you press the shutter it doesn't try to reacquire AF.

Also I hear AF-S lenses work better with that setting as well, allows for manual override

jphendren · Nov 26, 2009

"See, this may have a silver lining after all. I use the AF-ON function, and I like it more than the "standard" way of using the shutter button. Try it!"

EDIT: I should have read the above post, it explains a good use for the AF-ON button.

I'm not sure I see how it could be a benefit. What is the main type of photography for using the AF-ON button? I will admit, that my style of photography is mostly manual focus, in fact I should be shooting a 4X5". The only instance where I wished that I had AF was shooting a grizzly up in Yellowstone with my F5, my only long Nikon lens at this time is a 50-135mm AI-S. At this time I have my eggs in too many baskets, I own quite a bit of Canon and Nikon equipment, I need to sell of the Canon gear and use the money for a nice Nikon 300mm f/4 of some flavor.

Jared

moouers · Nov 27, 2009

jphendren said:
UPDATE. The F6 is fully functional. It was operator error. The previous owner had set a custom function to disable AF with the shutter botton. I've never used AF-ON before, so had no idea what it was for.

Jared

Haha! Glad it worked out for you like that!

Nikon F6 nightmare.

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