I'm a Canon F1 fan Chan which are all pretty "heavy metal" cameras but this body with four AA batteries and a 35-70 f2.8 fitted must have weighed around seven pounds, and I'm at a time in life when I'm trying to reduce the amount of weight I lug about.
Unlike the F100, if the F5 and the F4 as you know motorized rewind fails you can still use it with manual rewind. My F4 motorized rewind failed but I think it's a mechanical problem.
That makes sense Steve, because some 35mm "minature" cameras these days are becoming as large and heavy as medium format ones. and once you put a 70-210 zoom on them or bigger are boat anchors, so by the time you have lugged them around for an hour or two you are too pooped to use them, and as I discovered in the military there's a limit to how much weight one can carry and still be fit for combat.
Let's make a date: March 26, 2039 (roughly the 80th anniversary of the U.S. introduction of the Nikon F). We can meet at the base of Cleopatra's Needle in NYC. Bring your F6; I'll be the guy with the Nikon F. See you there!
Other Photrions welcome.
Theo I hope I am still around on that 2039 and wouldn't care if either camera survive but I believe both of them will.
I will definitely not be around in 2039, and I will be far too busy "pushing up daisies" to travel to New York
I agree. I had two Nikons with matrix metering and shot slides almost exclusively on them. There's no shortage of underexposed backlit shots. Matrix was a 1990s attempt at segmented exposure evaluation, and certainly not foolproof. Even modern digital cameras with another quarter century of technology can fluff exposures. Cameras don't know what you want, they can only ameliorate the worst excesses of under or over-exposure.
The F5 is an excellent camera for static photography like motorsports, where the body weight compensates for hefty lenses. For almost everything else it's serious overkill.
Still hard to believe it accepts the same film format as an Olympus MjuII. The F5 isn't a camera I'd want to hand hold while walking around all day, which is my normal modus operandi. Repeatedly lifting it to the eye constitutes a workout. That era of professional 35mm battery powered camera was a bridge between low voltage SLRs, and modern single cell rechargeable varieties. Most of the body is ballast. Handy for sports, pap shots and the news scrum, but for amateurs a lot of dead weight.
. Naturally this comment doesn't apply to those that have been injured and are unable to lift heavy objects.To be clear I was talking about an F5 in 2018 where film tends to be used as an "alternative" imaging medium for personal satisfaction, not professional use. This is born out by the current value of small film cameras relative to large ones like the F5, that would have cost many times more originally. People don't generally need "bullet proof design" from a 35mm camera today, though no doubt there are exceptions. It's also worth bearing in mind that all film SLR autofocus systems are getting long in the tooth, and people shooting subjects where fast frame rates and instantaneous autofocus are necessary probably won't be shooting on film.Pretty broad generalization there old boy. It might be to heavy for you but many of us don't find it a problem. It's a cost/benefit thing. The cost is weight, the benefit to those that find it important are the extra features and bullet proof design. Before I switched to digital FF the F5 was my go to camera. I used it all over the world doing street photography and just about every other kind of photography I needed to do. My backup camera was a N90s with a battery grip.
Given the lack of physical conditioning of the average North American maybe lugging around a heavy camera would be a good idea. Have fun and strengthen your body at the same time
Although I dislike the F5 for the reasons I posted earlier but I never mind its weight. I like the weight and size. Overall I do like it just that there are something I don't like about it so I said it first. The controls on the F5 actually are slow to operate but they are logical and consistent. All adjustments are in 1/3 stop. Although I do like the handling of the F3 without the motor drive better than the F5 but for a camera with motor drive the F5 handling is very good. Much better than the F4.Pretty broad generalization there old boy. It might be to heavy for you but many of us don't find it a problem. It's a cost/benefit thing. The cost is weight, the benefit to those that find it important are the extra features and bullet proof design. Before I switched to digital FF the F5 was my go to camera. I used it all over the world doing street photography and just about every other kind of photography I needed to do. My backup camera was a N90s with a battery grip.
Given the lack of physical conditioning of the average North American maybe lugging around a heavy camera would be a good idea. Have fun and strengthen your body at the same time
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