How to make an F4 act brain dead

[johnw63]

Really.

 

Of course, at the end of this, you may call the user brain dead instead.

 

I packed up the family and our gear and drove up to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park, this week. Of course

the F4 and film came with. I had a roll of print film still in it and I brought some Ektachrome along as well.

When we got to the "General Grant" tree, I tried to fire off some shots. Nothing happened. The finder was dead.

The shutter didn't work. The finder illumination/ lens f-stop light didn't come on. It seemed I had no power at

all. The button on the battery pack ( F4s ) showed two lights, however. I took the grip and pack off and checked

the contacts. ( We took some shots with my wifes Canon P&S camera, in the mean time ). I went to the market at

the Grant Grove visitor center and bought fresh AA batteries. Still nothing. Then my wife asked if I had film in

it. Yes. "See the canister is shown in the window. " The shot counter was on ZERO. Eh ? I Thought I had used

that roll already. I covered the back to make some shade and popped the back open. The film was fully rewound. I

must have done that, and forgotten to REMOVE the FILM the last time I used it ! Simply having a used roll in the

camera made it completely powerless. I don't recall that being in the manual. Simply pulling the film out and

closing the back allowed it to wake up again.

 

So, I'm sure some of you knew about this, and were laughing at me. I figured some poor F4 newbee might find this

post and breath a sigh of relief.

[Jerry_]

The F4 is that way. No film, it is difficult to 'test' the shutter to find out if all is well or not.

[javierlopezcantu]

If you cover the Nikon badge and put an Olympus over it, your F4 will do the same thing even if the film is ready to go! At

first I thought that's what one of your tricky friends had done:)

[johnw63]

I would have expected some signs of life, after a film rewind, but to be totally and competely like it had no power at all, threw me. I wonder

if I could have just opened and closed the back, and it would have come back to life ?

[ellis_vener_photography]

"How to make an F4 act brain dead"

 

A heavy hammer swung by a strong arm works well too.

[james_gallagher2]

If the film speed is set to DX, the F4 cannot be test fired without film. Set the ISO to a different setting and it will fire.

[johnw63]

It was set by manual ISO dial.

 

As I said, it wasn't that the shutter wouldn't fire. It was the entire camera acted totally dead. NOTHING worked. Nothing acted like I even had batteries in it, except the two test LEDs on the extra battery pack.

[jer_r]

Hi John, Interesting bit of information. Thanks!

[SolaresLarrave]

If it makes you feel any better... almost the same thing happened to me. The difference is that I already knew that the F5

goes numb when you just finished a roll of film.

 

All you have to do is open the camera and take a peek. Once you close it, the camera resumes its normal behavior.

Odd... Then, there's a couple of flashing lights that tell you that you need to replace the roll.

[rob_landry]

When the film is rewound, the R1 lever remains in the out position until the camera back is opened so I wonder if this could be the cause of the problem.