What I hate most about Nikon bodies

You can't really fix the stickiness as it has to do with the breakdown of the components of the material. The severity will depend on the amount of humidity, heat cycles etc. your camera is exposed to. My D700 suffered from it tremendously in Asia. I have since taken the habit of wiping my hands before handling the camera or the lenses. No more problems since. One trick I use which works well, but only for a few weeks at a time, is to lightly coat the rubber bits in Armer All.

Many years ago, decades, in fact, one of the kids wanted to earn some extra spending money. Had him wash and clean the car. Did a wonderful job, ex. for putting Armorall on the pedals, slippery, an exciting moment or two. I'd never put it on a camera. Never had the sticky problem, and I use a wrist strap, the camera is in my hand or in one of the Thinktank shoulder bags.

It's too bad no entrepreneur has taken the opportunity to offer alternative grips made of some less-hygroscopic material that doesn't swell and become sticky. The treated leather that covers the steering wheel in my 14-year-old Honda Accord would be close to ideal. Its texture and appearance haven't appreciably changed in all those years.

All the old manual bodies need the film advance lever in the off position to turn the meter on - rules them out for most left eye viewers.

Someone is selling replacements ...

For Nikon D700 Camera Body Front/Rear Grip Rubber Cover Unit Replacement | eBay

I can live with a sticky covering, but the delicate back latches on my F100 and N80 (F80) have made these cameras unusable. It's a real shame.

Someone is selling replacements ...

For Nikon D700 Camera Body Front/Rear Grip Rubber Cover Unit Replacement | eBay

 

Nikon sells grip covers too, although not for anything as old as the D700. A few weeks after paying over $50 for a D810 main grip cover to a random seller on eBay, I found out to my everlasting regret that Nikon still sells all the grip covers for the D810, and very cheaply too.

Edited September 26, 2020 by chulster

REgarding Armor-All: I recall long ago a friend told of another friend who made the mistake of using it on his motorcycle seat. You can probably fill in what happened when he had to stop at a toll booth!