Nikon F5 experieced people

sjstremb said:

I have a D800 a D7000 and two film Nikons, a F2 and an F5. The F5 is very digital the way it operates and is a fine camera. Great AF system and the metering in the one I have is very good. Worth mentioning, I only use mine to shoot black and white film.

All the other consideration about shooting film aside, if you can score a used clean one for less than $250 USD its a deal.

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The guy that offered to me says he doesnt know anything about cameras, and that the F5 he has his sister gave it to him. I am SURE he would sell it for 250 or less, but to do what with it?? The only lens i would be able to use would be my Nikon 50 1.8D and my Rokinon 85 1.4 but it wont meter on the F5 so it sounds like i need to buy FF lenses? Ayayai mama mia!! plus from the looks of it it will be expensive FOR ME to buy such camera, expensive rolls, especially since i would have to waste so many of them because i am gonna have to learn how to shoot with it, plus a very expensive scanner?

I guess i don't have to buy a scanner, just go to the store and get the prints developed there. I mean, i don't get paid to do anything, all this would be for my hobby. I dont know, i am still thinking about it

I stand corrected. Should have checked. I see it replaces the F4 knobs and dials with the LCD panel and selection wheel - amongst other things.

Anyway, may upgrade my D70 to a D800 later this year though I still have lots of LF sheet film to keep me busy.

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/NikonF5/focusing/index.htm

F5 Instruction Manual page

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/NikonF5/NikonF5Manual/index.htm

PierreD

mistermejia

The 50mm 1.8 Nikon might be cheapo, but a good lens all the same. Lend the camera for 1-2 weeks, buy 3-4 rolls of film, and make a happening doing portraits of friends and family. Or whatever. Just for the fun of it: be slow, be cool, be analog. Se what happens.

Yes even disregard my scanner advice!

Kind Regards

The F5 was my last, and best, 35mm film camera ... and penultimate film camera, an XPan being the last one. I went from F to F2 to F3 to F5.

The F5 was great all the way around, except , as has been pointed out, that it is a heavy tank of a camera. I loved it in all other respects.

There are other cameras, medium format, F3, Hexar, etc., that should be of interest to a film shooter. But if you want a Nikon SLR, the F5 will give you a great experience.

I'll also repeat that you should not have great difficulty finding a pro lab that will process your film, and you don't want lesser processing if you are at all serious. In the last days of my flim experience, when I took the shortcut of using the local branch of a camera store chain to process my film, the results were visibly inferior to what pro labs were doing.

Denis
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I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter. Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662

sjstremb said:

I have a D800 a D7000 and two film Nikons, a F2 and an F5. The F5 is very digital the way it operates and is a fine camera. Great AF system and the metering in the one I have is very good. Worth mentioning, I only use mine to shoot black and white film.

All the other consideration about shooting film aside, if you can score a used clean one for less than $250 USD its a deal.

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So, you don't suggest to use it for color, just black and white? I am sure i can get the camera for less than 250, just maybe. This is all a new language for me, Samy's Camera doesn not have any film camera courses. Maybe i should look for local stores that can provide me with a small camera film 101 course. I don't know what type of scaning equipment and processes are out there, but it sounds like is expensive.

sjstremb said:

I have a D800 a D7000 and two film Nikons, a F2 and an F5. The F5 is very digital the way it operates and is a fine camera. Great AF system and the metering in the one I have is very good. Worth mentioning, I only use mine to shoot black and white film.

All the other consideration about shooting film aside, if you can score a used clean one for less than $250 USD its a deal.

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i called three local stores and they do scan the film and put it on CD, BUT, it costs an everage of $10 bucks PER ROLL, to go into the CD. So if i take five rolls to the store for them to do this, it would cost me $50 dollars for ONE cd. That is out of the question. No thanks!

Unless you guys know of a really high quality film scanner for a LOW price, then i would look into this further more

I have a question folks. After scanning the film and putting it on a CD, wheather that is performed by me or the store, once i have the CD, what format is in the CD??

I mean, will i be able to edit the photos in RAW or jpeg or both?? How does this work?

mistermejia said:

I have a question folks. After scanning the film and putting it on a CD, wheather that is performed by me or the store, once i have the CD, what format is in the CD??

I mean, will i be able to edit the photos in RAW or jpeg or both?? How does this work?

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Labs will most likely deliver jpeg, often fairly low quality - good enough for web and small prints (perhaps), no more. No doubt you will be able to find labs with better scans - this will be part of your "homework".
When scanning yourself your the boss.

Kind Regards

For a complete film experience, perhaps you can find an analog photography class at a local community college. Shoot and process black and white yourself using the school's equipment.

Indeed, a quality/inexpensive scanner is an oxymoron. You might try this; shoot slide film, select only the best shots, have them scanned. That's what I did when I shot film but printed digitally. If you've not experienced nice slides on a light box, you've missed a glorious experience.

Denis
--

I have made this letter a rather long one, only because I didn't have the leisure to make it shorter. Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662

I just called Costco, they charge $299 per roll, to scan onto a DVD or CD, it is in jpeg but that is the best i can do because this price sounds like a really good deal, they ARE the cheapest around here, everybody else including some really good online services ares about 10 dollars PER roll, i think i will end up getting the F5 if i get it for $200 or less.

I think the F5 is an excellent camera - maybe the best film 35mm camera ever to appear on the market. And it can be had dirt cheap.

Would I want to buy one, now?

No.

It's a beast. It's big. It's fast. It's heavy. It's the perfect sports film camera. It can churn through film like nothing.

It's for the guys and from the days when mayor film companies still had kiosks to give away and free develop film on mayor sporting venues. For coming home with bags of developed film to chuck half of them, unseen, in the dumpster before climbing the stairs.

All the really amazing things it did, and can still do, are very expensive now.

And the standard stuff can be done by a camera half the size, half the weight and 1/10 the power. Get an F2, or similar. Or MF. Or "REAL" FF. Or a Holga. Or Xpan...

It's rather sad. Seeing them for sale at 250$ or roundabouts.

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Best Regards

Thorsten

Speed? Heavy weight? My type of camera baby!

A Owens said:

Great camera with the only fault as far as I was concerned was that the focus points were indicated in black. Its contemporary, the F100 indicated its focus points in red and if I recall correctly took a lot of sales away from the F5. Funnily enough Canon has reintroduced the black focus point on its 5dIII and 1dx. Do we never learn!?

The bigger question AFAIAC is whether 35mm film is worth it in this day and age.

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Having both the F5 and F100 you are correct about the red focus points on the F100. In fact I much much prefer the focus points of the F100 to the F5's black. Also like the smaller size of the F100.

Anyway the F5 is a very capable camera of producing great shots. And it is definitely a pro camera body well built, has a 3D matrix metering system featuring a 1005 pixel sensor for color reading, and allows for interchangeable focusing screens, just to name a few features. I love this camera.

Now… I've seen some posts here suggesting Costco or whatever for their developing needs. My opinion??? NEVER. If you're going to get an F5 and shoot some film, get some profession B&W film like Ilford Delta 400, Kodak P3200 Tmax, or slide film and have it developed by a professional lab, not a fast food production line like Costco.

On the flip side, if you are shooting professional film like Tmax, Ilford, or slide film.... you won't have to worry about Costco because they won't touch it (at least in my area), but even if they could, I wouldn’t let them.

Anyway there are some quality labs around but you have to hunt for them, or you could seek out places like Duggal in New York City - http://duggal.com/photographic-lab-services.aspx – a bit expensive but worth it, especially if you want to insure your slides or negatives are pristine for scanning purposes.

All that said you won’t be disappointed in seeing what the camera can do with some quality film and good development!

BTW even though I just got a D800, I'm keeping both my film bodies (F5, F100) as I'll continue to shoot film. It also helps that I have a Nikon Coolscan 4000 which allows me to scan my negatives & slides.

My two cents.

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New to this forum, not to forums!

mistermejia said:

I just called Costco, they charge $299 per roll, to scan onto a DVD or CD, it is in jpeg but that is the best i can do because this price sounds like a really good deal, they ARE the cheapest around here, everybody else including some really good online services ares about 10 dollars PER roll, i think i will end up getting the F5 if i get it for $200 or less.

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I use a CanoScan 9000F flatbed for scanning. It works fine for web and prints up to 18x24 cm. Its inexpensive and fast, can scan 12 frames in one pass. For larger prints i let a pro lab do the scanning. They have a service where they shot the slides with a Nikon D3X and micro Nikkor creating 50 mb Raw files for about 2 dollars per image.
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http://dslr-video.com/blogmag/

mistermejia said:

I just called Costco, they charge $299 per roll, to scan onto a DVD or CD, it is in jpeg but that is the best i can do because this price sounds like a really good deal, they ARE the cheapest around here, everybody else including some really good online services ares about 10 dollars PER roll, i think i will end up getting the F5 if i get it for $200 or less.

Click to expand...

If you can, see if you can find a Nikon Coolscan scanner for cheap. If you can get one, it'll save you time, and money in the long run by being able to scan your own files, and they can be scanned as high resolution tiff files. My Coolscan 4000 has a max resolution of 4000 dpi. With that you can scan tiff files as large as 135mb.

And for clarification I just got off the phone (like 3 minutes before this post) with Nikon’s tech support and was informed that they no longer service (have parts) for the Coolscan 4000 (my scanner), but they are still servicing the Coolscan 5000 & 9000. However, this does NOT include driver updates to work with say Windows 7, which of course I already knew that since I’ve written instructions on how to get them (4000, 5000, 9000) working on Windows 7 on my website: http://www.exposedvisions.com/Win7%20Scans.htm

A troubleshooting thread here: http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/44994-getting-your-nikon-coolscan-work-w7-x64.html

Anyway those looking to get a used Nikon Coolscan, beware that support is dwindling and repairs could be expensive, and wait times long. Keep this in mind when negotiating the price for a used one. And, unfortunately, stay away from the 4000 unless you’re getting it dirt dirt cheap... meaning if it breaks, you can afford to throw it out becaue Nikon can't repair it.

My two cents

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New to this forum, not to forums!

mistermejia said:

sjstremb said:

I have a D800 a D7000 and two film Nikons, a F2 and an F5. The F5 is very digital the way it operates and is a fine camera. Great AF system and the metering in the one I have is very good. Worth mentioning, I only use mine to shoot black and white film.

Click to expand...

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mistermejia said:

So, you don't suggest to use it for color, just black and white?

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I'm not sure that's what's being said, but....

The way I might do it today is use the F5 to shoot b&w film, but use my digital camera for color purposes. Now that's the short simple answer as this comes down to creative purposes and looks. Everyone has their own reason as to why they do what they do.

At any rate I can assure you that the F5 is very very capable of dealing with color, especially with color slide. Shoot a role slide film and you'll be thoroughly impressed with what the camera can do in color! It's that good, and it's no slouch.

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New to this forum, not to forums!

Hello there! The person that originally offered me the F5 put batteries to test it because i asked him to do that for me, he told me that the camera is "DEAD" it does not power up AT ALL.

Do any of you previous or currect F5 owners know what the problem might be, have any of you had this experience or have heard what the problem is and what the fix could be. I will appreciate your experties

As you are in UK I suggest no more than £225 for a good one with box etc in a private sale.

There are plenty with 6 month warranty and credit card facilities at places like Ffordes.

The F5 is built like a tank and the weight of a brick part because it needs 8 AA batteries - if film is still around in 25 years when you are 65 an F5 is likely to still be working.
--
Leonard Shepherd

Many problems turn out to be a lack of intimate knowledge of complex modern camera equipment.

mistermejia said:

Hello there! The person that originally offered me the F5 put batteries to test it because i asked him to do that for me, he told me that the camera is "DEAD" it does not power up AT ALL.

Do any of you previous or currect F5 owners know what the problem might be, have any of you had this experience or have heard what the problem is and what the fix could be. I will appreciate your experties

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i was just reading about how this camera records EXIF exposure data INTERNALLY, i was just wondering, would this have anything to do with the camera not turning ON? Is there a way that when the camera's memory or buffer gets completely FILLED with this exif exposure date, could that be why the F5 wont turn on at all?? Anyone's input on this?