Nikon F100 Camera Review

It’s been a long time since I’ve used a film camera in earnest. When I did, my camera of choice was the Nikon F100. I bought one shortly after it was released in 1999 and used it pretty heavily for about five years.

I happily sold the camera on eBay (for about $800, I think), though I now sort of wish I held on to it. I found it to be such a joy to use that I took it everywhere, and I was always impressed with how well the camera worked.

I stumbled upon some old reviews I had posted on photographyreview.com, and thought I might repost the F100 review here. I shared this on June 27, 2000:

This is a fantastic camera body. I moved up from an N70 and really appreciate the improvements. I can’t adequately express how much I enjoy using it. I have done significantly more photography since getting this body ~7 months ago.

Honestly, it’s more camera than I need but it’s nice to have the options available if I want them. (Currently, I don’t use multiple exposures, 4.5fps advance, many of the custom functions, or dynamic AF, to name a few.)

My only real complaint is that if you use the rubber eyecup (DK-6?), you’ll find that it needs to be flipped out of the way to open the back to change film. But since I bought the rubber eyecup, I brought this problem upon myself. :)

If the price of the F100 were to come down a bit ($1000-1100), I would give it a Value Rating of 5. I bet after the N90s disappears the price will drop a little, at which point I think it will be a better deal.

Strengths:

• Well-built
• Weighty
• Fast autofocus
• Very accurate metering, including Matrix
• Comfortable
• Complete viewfinder information

Weaknesses:

• Loud depth-of-field preview (sometimes I think I’ve hit the shutter release accidentally).
• AF-C/AF-S/M switch is too small and a little hard to use.