F80 / N80 error, please help?

Hi,

My trusty F80 (8 years old) starts to give me problems recently. Sometimes when

I press the DOF preview button the camera locks up and a "E" flashes at the

frame counter. Sometimes it happens after I fire the shutter.

I can't get out of this lock up state unless I fire another shot and waste

another frame. The lock up problem comes and goes depending on the mood of the

camera, and I can't recreate the problem at will.

What is broken in this camera? Is it a common problem? Is it gonna be a costly

fix? (provided the ridiculously low price of film camera today). If it is not

worth it, I will just go ahead to buy a used F100.

thanks,

I can't help you in removing the problem from your camera, but the next time this comes up, you can move on without wasting a frame. Flip the mode setting to manual, put the lenscap on, set it to multiple exposure.

When you fire off that frame to get past the lockup, the frame won't be exposed (use a fast shutter speed!), nor will it advance to the next frame. Don't forget to take it off multiple exposure when you go to actually expose the frame.

The situation must be very frustrating for you, and I know it's not a fix for your camera, but it should save you a few frames of film. Hopefully someone can give you a fix rather than a stopgap film-saver. You'll likely have to take it in for service...I think I see an F100 in your future.

I have exactly the same problem on my F100. The problem developed about 3 years into my ownership of the camera. Whenever I press on the DOF preview, I see an error and I have to dry run the shutter once to clear it. If the camera is in that error state, when I press on the shutter release, the shutter doesn't actually fire nor does the film advance, so I don't really lose a frame.

I "met" someone with the same problem on his F100 in one of these forums and we discussed over the phone about it. In his case Nikon couldn't quite figure out the problem.

At the time I knew that I would move onto digital and repair cost would likely be in the $200 range, so I never even bothered to get it fixed. Now 4+ years later, my F100 still works fine other than this one problem. But I don't shoot film any more.

Given how cheap used N80's are, IMO repair is pretty much out of the question. Either live with it or buy another camera.

I had that happen to me with my F100. I simply turned off the camera, got the batteries out, put them back in, and turned the camera back on. Everything normal!

But then, I've been careful not to push the DOF button immediately after or before switching modes. These cameras have a small on-board computer that gets confused when you give them different commands in rapid succession.