NIKON f90X versus NIKON D100

[bukovsky]

Sorry people, I made a mistake in my previous subject, so I will

correct it now.

 

I am thinking about trading my F90X for a D100. Now I have a dilema

wether to trade it or just buy the body. Does anybody have the

experience with both cameras so I could hear an advice before I trade

in the body of my F90X and find out that I did not do very good

thing, because D100 is not capable of doing something the F90X is?

Most of the time I shoot still, or slow moving objects, but there are

times I use continuos shutter taking pictures of horse racing etc. I

am expecting from the camera a perfect metering, very fast focus in

all modes and with all my lenses like sigma 500-and good ability to

work with my sb-28 in ocasions like weddings.

With other words: in your opinion-should I trade, or should I buy?

Thank you for your help, advice and time.

Peter

[walterh]

because D100 is not capable of doing something the F90X is?

 

Peter,

the D100 cant shoot film. :-)

 

but serious: the question to ask is do you want to shoot film or digital. thats a decision you have to make. take 2 days off and browse this site - no need to start discussion nr. 2034 on the topic. by the way - if you want go digital why not the D70? cheaper and perhaps better in some points. my personal advice : keep the 90X for wide angle and shoot normal+tele with the D70.

 

cheers

walter

[yakim_peled1]

because D100 is not capable of doing something the F90X is?

 

Peter, the D100 can't shoot wide angle.

 

Happy shooting ,

Yakim.

[joseph_smith3]

Peter, make sure your existing lenses will work the way you want to use them on any Nikon digital camera. If you have any non AF nikon lens, make sure you fully understand if it is compatible with the D100 and what compatible means. Just mounting it on the D100 does not mean it is compatible, if you are expecting TTL metering, Program mode, matrix metering, etc. And there is a lot of misinfo on th web on this subject. Make sure you know how flash will work on the d100 and if you have to replace your nikon flash to duplicate what you are now doing with your n90s a and your sb-28. Joe Smith

[hugh_t]

I would take the F90, TKO in the 4th round. Wears the fight being held, Vegas I hope.

[Ed_Ingold]

You should consider keeping the F90x. It's definitely worth while to have a backup for any camera, and you probably won't get much for the F90x.

 

You will have other expenses with a digital camera: memory cards, spare battery, flash unit, and archiving capabilities. Your present lenses may work, but possibly not as well as you would like. You will probably want a photo-quality inkjet and editing software, but it's not absolutely necessary. You can get prints from a CF card at nearly any photo shop.

 

The SB-28 will not work with the D100 in TTL mode. You can only use it in Auto (aperture priority) or Manual (aperture and distance priority). The SB-800DX is a flash of comparable power, and will work with either camera.

 

The D100 will work with nearly any Nikon lens, manual or AF, but the auto-exposure system will only work with "D" or "G" lenses (which have a computer chip inside).

 

The D100 has a significant shutter lag, especially compared to a film camera. This is largely due to the focusing speed, and is comparable to the N80/F80. The performance is much better with AF-S lenses. In problem situations, like dim light, you can set the D100 to manual focus to reduce the shutter lag.

 

I often use manual focus for continuous shooting, because auto focus sometimes hunts at the wrong time, even with an F5 or D1x. Many sports situations occur at relatively fixed distances. It is often faster to make minor adjustments to the focus in manual, rather than risk auto-focus hunting or shutter lag, whether film or digital.

 

I wouldn't describe automatic metering as perfect in any camera, but it is awfully good! The D100 has fuzzy-logic to handle exposure strategy nearly as well as an experience photographer. Digital is prone to blowing highlights, to about the same extend as slide film. The dynamic range is much better than film - about 7 stops in RAW mode, so you can handle underexposures better. The D100 tends to "underexpose" compared to consumer cameras, possibly for that reason.

[bukovsky]

Thank you all for your answer, which just confirmed my feeling to keep my F90X and buy the D100. I am satisfied with the camera, but unfortunatelly it is a pain in the butt to get the pictures into PS without loosing quality by scanning them altough I don't have such a bad scanner. I love to work in the dark room and develop my B&W prints, but when I scan them I am just simply not able to get them on the screen the way they look in reality. That's the main reason I'd like to try digital, but at the same time I feel bad to get rid of the 90X-the camera never let me down and in my opinion it is a very good product.

Once more-thank you all for your time and effort to help me.

[t_fowler]

I have a D100 that I have been using for six months or so. So far I'm happy with it, but would prefer that the effective CCD was 24mmx36mm. A 35-70 mm F2.8 AF nikkor lens becomes ~ 50-100mm. You are only using the central 2/3 of the lens, so edge distortion is less .. I'm not sure how you compare the lenses, but so far I'm happy with the D100. My film camera is F4. I use an SB-28. The SB-28 is not compatible with D-100. The little built-in on the D100 is ok for short lenses in room-sized situations but no good for a long lens.

[photosapien]

I have an N90s (or F90x to you, heh), which I acquired last year. At the beginning of this year I purchased a D100. I still use both cameras, I wouldn't get rid of my N90s for anything - although I don't shoot film anywhere near as often as I did before getting the D100.

 

If I had it to do over again, I'd still keep my N90s and buy a D100 body, rather than trade in my N90s towards the cost.

 

The N90s has a faster motordrive than the D100 can take continuous shots. The D100 will only take a handful of shots before the buffer gets full and you're forced to wait. The D100 can make full use of the G lenses, and the N90s can't (they won't work with the N90s in A or M modes). The D100 can't shoot film (as others have said), and the N90s can only shoot digital with an expensive Kodak back that only does 1024x768 anyway.

 

Like I said, keep the N90s/F90x, and buy the D100 body. Have the best of both worlds :)

[mike_cowan1]

If you haven't already bought anything, consider a Fuji S2Pro, which I have used for a year, and really like. The controls are intuitive and lie very comfortably in the hand (much more so for my hand than the D100) and it takes Nikon D and G lenses.