What is the life expectancy of an Nikon F100?

I have owned one F100 body (ser 2093xxx)for almost 3 years. It has

been used for approximately 250 rolls of film. It is used year

around in the mountains, skiing and backpacking. The camera has been

great except for the fact that it has required service 2 times (both

out of the one year warrenty period).

 

The first problem occurred about a year ago, the self timer was stuck

in the "on" position requiring replacement of the front bayonet mount

and focus mode selector. Now the camera is in the Nikon shop in

Torrence again. This time the focus area selector isn't working. So

I am faced with my 2nd +$200 repair. Let me recap....that's one

payment per year of $200 to $300 to keep this body functioning.

 

I am trying to decide what to do. (In retrospect maybe I should have

purchased an extended service warrenty...but it's too late now.)

 

What is the reasonable life expectancy of the F100? Is it worth

repairing? Should the body be replaced?

 

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Definately replace it, let me send you a check for $25 to take it off your hands....

 

I'd guess that the shutter would be worth about 50,000 snaps. That gives you a little over 1000rolls worth of shooting more. I'd say you're just having a little bad luck with the repairs and you really haven't described a significant mechanical problem, more electronic ones if I understand the repairs you've needed correctly.

 

If it were mine I'm not sure what I'd do. If you got a bad sample you could sell it on EBAY and get a replacement of the same model that would likely not be as 'injury prone'. Otherwise a couple hundred dollars a year in maintainence isn't that bad (not that good either, but not that bad).

--evan

ONLY 250 rolls in 3 years? That's real low mileage. Don't know how a stuck self timer would require the replacement of the lens mount and focus mode selector. I assume that was done under warranty so don't sweat it. It's very unusual to have that kind of a problem unless the camera sustained some kind of damage. As to the focus area selector, I just had that problem with an F5 with considerably more use than yours. Dirty CCD. Was taken care of under warranty. I don't know how it got dirty or how prevalent that problem is, but it apparently is not just isolated to F100's.

Bad luck is more like it. My F100 is almost 3 years old and has an earlier serial number; it never gives me any problems. However, mine is a 2nd body as a backup to my F5 or holds a different type of film, so it doesn't get used as much. But my much older F5 never gives me any problems either.

 

The problem with Nikon USA repair is that just about any out-of-warranty repair is going to be at least $200.

 

In the last 26 years I have had 8 Nikon bodies starting from a Nikkormat FT3 to the current D100. The only problem I have ever had with a body is that my F4 wouldn't drive any flash any more. I sent it to Nikon and, yes, they wanted $200 to fix it.

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The problem with Nikon USA repair is that just about any out-of-warranty repair is going to be at least $200.

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Imagine how I felt paying that to replace a broken LCD screen on my ($299) coolpix 2500? I thought long and hard about that one, ultimately said 'yes'. Now (2 months later) the camera's are down to about $249; I'd have said 'no' and replaced it with new for that.

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My 'early' F100 had problems with the viewfinder blanking; I sent it in under warranty to have the software upgraded, no worries since. I've heard that the mode dial (that controls self-timer, multi-exposure, single or continuous drive) had some early problems but I haven't experienced them.

The F100 is rated for only 3 years of life or 250 rolls, whichever comes first. However, I am collecting expired F100's for distribution to the photographically needy. Sounds like your's is ripe for collection. Send it along!

"I assume that was done under warranty so don't sweat it."

 

I think he said that both repairs were after the one year waranty period.

 

Since you're only shooting around 83 rolls of film per year I would spend $500-$600 on a used Nikon F100 on ebay.

Correction to the original question: after reviewing my records the camera has been used for approximately 330 rolls of film.

John, an F100 should last a lot more than 250 or 330 rolls of film, so that is a moot point anyway. As far as I can tell the two problems you have with this camera are not related, unless your camera was dropped, has experienced some kind of serious impact, or you have been using it very roughly, which presumably isn't the case.

 

If your camera was indeed dropped, a number of things might have been slightly damaged and they are showing up slowly. Otherwise, these unrelated problems are probably more like "bad luck" type situation. A used F100 in decent shape is well above $500-600. It seems to make sense to get it fixed. You might want to see whether you can get it fixed elsewhere to avoid that "minimum $200" type charges from Nikon USA.

The F100 is rated for 100,000 exposure MTBF (mean time between failures). So yours is a little worse than average, to say the least.

 

The F5, F4, F3, F2 and F are rated for 150,000 and other Nikons, for 50,000.

 

Fix it and use it. If you think it's a jinxed camera, sell it and buy another.

 

My F100 was new in January and has shot probably 50 rolls of film with nary a problem so far.

John,

 

My impression is that you have had some bad luck. I don't know of any equipment that is more reliable than Nikon equipment. I took a workshop taught by the late Galen Rowell and he said a major reason he chose Nikon was reliability. He said he had never seen a Nikon camera fail in a pinch and he used his cameras in the most challenging environments in the world. Having said this a back up is good idea.

I have to agree that you may have a lemon on your hands. I have an F100 that I bought close to a year ago, have shot about 170 rolls of film and haven't encountered any problems at all.

 

In looking at your post though, it doesn't make sense that your self timer was stuck in the on position and the solution was to replace the front bayonet mount and focus mode selector.

 

On your second problem, you could borrow someone elses back and check your focus area selector to see if that is in fact the problem and if so, purchase a new back for the camera and skip the repair shop. At Adorama, the MF-29 data back is only $119.

 

Good luck

 

Michael Scruggs

John

USA F100's come with a three year warranty (well, mine did anyway, it's about 20 months old, too many rolls to keep track of) when you send in the extended coverage papers. Under normal use (ie not dropped, immersed, abused etc.) it should last way beyond what you have used so far. Nikon replaced the flexible circuit board in my F100 under warranty due to a (I believe) faulty voltage sensor that shut the camera down whenever an AFS lens was mounted.

 

Sound like you've had bad luck - if it's purely electronic problems, I'd call over to Nikon and get persistent about having it fixed at no cost. You sometimes reach someone with a heart, or at least is reasonable.

 

Getting rid of it on ebay without disclosing the past about it on EBAY would be less than honest, IMHO.

Maybe I'm just not as moral as some of you :) but if the camera's just been serviced by Nikon, as long as the repair is disclosed I don't think it's immoral to not say more. Nikon is supposed to know what it's doing, and it was aware of the problems, and it has repaired them.