Went shopping for an FM2, bought an F3...

[neil_parker]

The F3 seems popular on photonet these days:).

 

My old F2 bodies are getting a bit clunky for the photography I do

(concerts & more), so I thought I would buy a 2nd FM2n + MD12. Then I

noticed on ebay that F3s were going for only a little more.

 

I always used to have a 'thing' against F3s, because of some perceived

shortcomings, mainly the meter is hard to read in low light, and the

flash sync is too slow for fill flash.

 

Anyway I end up with an absolutely mint F3HP, MD4, databack, WL finder

and 3 extra screens for under $500!

 

I think I need a little help with the meter though, I believe that the

80/20 center weighted metering should be helpful when I shoot

concerts, I may even try it on automatic. But the problem still

remains that I probably won't be able to see shutter speeds in the

dark. I wonder if the solution of having the meter illumination light

permanently wired on is viable, or can I expect to go through

batteries rapidly. Will this be a problem if I have the MD4 supplying

the battery power?

 

Operating the little red illumination button is pretty much impossible

unless you have mutant fingers it seems. I do miss the red traffic

light meter on my FM2, very effective in a concert setting (little

light except on stage). I haven't yet had the chance to try the F3 at

a show, so perhaps my fears are ungrounded.<div></div>

[Robert_Lai]

Neil,<p>Where the heck did you get that deal?! I've been looking for a second F3 body. I'd love to get a deal like that.<p>If you look in some previous posts, people have tried wiring up the lamp so that it turns on when the meter turns on. Yes, it drains the batteries in no time. The little button cells last about a year for me. When I had a motor drive that was faulty (would never shut off the meter), a set of 8 AA batteries got drained in under 1 week. So, keeping the camera on all the time or keeping the lamp on frequently is probably a bad idea. I carry a small penlight with me when I'm out at night with my camera. That's probably the easiest and cheapest solution. Just shine it into the LCD illuminator at the front of the pentaprism.

[elaine_w.]

Hello, my husband used F3's for years, he bought one the year they came out and has owned 5 of them over the years. He loved them, but the little lamp inside eventually burned out on all of them! He has since gone digital for his work and has slowly sold off all of them except for one. Low light shooting is not one of this camera's strong points. He did excactly as the other fellow mentioned and carried a very small pen light with him. They are beautiful cameras and very well built. Enjoy!

[lex_jenkins]

Dang good deal, Neil! I think you beat mine - I got my F3HP with MD-4 and 50/2 Nikkor for $500. And mine is a beater, cosmetically.

 

I'd suggest reyling on the AE mode for low light photography and forget about hassling with the hard-to-see LCD meter readout. Once you get the hang of the sorta fat spot pattern it works just fine - took me a couple rolls of slide film to get the hang of it.

 

If you insist, tho', wrapping a rubber band around or taping down the illumination button should do the trick. With the MD-4 and fresh batteries the light shouldn't drain the juice before a shooting session is done. In fact, I'd be more concerned about the illumination lamp burning out before the batteries did.

 

Not to spoil the fun of your new found treasure, but the very reason I prefer my FM2N for low light photography is the bright red LED meter readout. When I do use my F3HP for low light photography, such as live theatre photography, I set it on AE. The camera is in a homebrewed soundproofing blimp box anyway so I couldn't reach the shutter speed dial if I wanted to.

[neil_parker]

I think you're right Lex, AE is probably the way to go in low light, facilitated by the semispot metering. I already carry a penlite to the shows so I can see what frame I'm on, etc. So I will try that in a pinch. I still have my FM2n for fill flash etc, and will sometimes be using both motorized bodies. (If my aging body can stand it :))

 

I got the deal on ebay of course, the camera belonged to a Dental surgeon/author who used it for documentation (if at all judging by condition) and switched to digital, so it probably never went outside. I was patient and set myself a price limit.

 

I do have some questions on screens and viewfinder. It came with C, D and E screens + the standard screen. The E (grid) screen is in it now, I like grid screens (have an 'E' in my FM2n also). The E screens are lacking the split image aid however, which would be useful sometimes, has anyone tried an 'R' screen, which seems similar to the E with a split image aid also. Is it as bright as the E?

 

Also, I am wondering how the non-HP finder compares. I like the HP, except the magnification seems significantly smaller than my F2 or FM2, I don't wear glasses when I shoot, so the HP is overkill in a way. I was reading the incredible info on the MIR site, it suggested that the non HP finder was every bit as bright as the HP, any comparisons?

 

All in all, no regrets on this purchase, the handling and feel of the MD4 alone makes it worthwhile, I can't believe I resisted the F3 as long as I did!

[todd peach seattle, washi]

I don't know the answer to your Q about sucking the MD-4 batteries dry by leaving the light on (or burning out the bulb, for that matter), but if you used the MN-2 NiCad pack and MH-2 charger, you wouldn't much care about battery life.

 

Prices vary quite a bit, but $35 a pack and $25 for the charger is about right. Try and buy them from someplace reputable (preferably with a warranty) as ones from ebay are sometimes 'shot out'. You gain 'smokin' speed (5.5 fps) and good battery life under 'high draw' conditions. The trade off is that the shelf life is awful. The packs will self-discharge in something like a month. In practice, I check my packs the night before a shoot and top off the lowest ones.

[lex_jenkins]

Neil, put an end to your curiosity about the non-HP finder now. The HP finder is so much better there's no need to look any further.

 

Even tho' I don't wear vision correction glasses I appreciate the HP finder for other reasons. For one thing, it helps with action shooting - I don't need to plaster the camera against my face to see the entire frame, so I can use my peripheral vision better from my non-shooting eye. This would be useful for any situation where being more aware of one's surroundings would be advantageous - photojournalism, nighttime photography in urban areas, etc.

 

And, as I mentioned before, I do some theatre photography using a homemade blimp box. The box places the eyepiece some distance from my eye, yet I can still see the entire frame. Can't do that with the FM2N in the box.

 

Finally, I don't have to take off my sunglasses when using the F3HP outdoors.

 

Some folks prefer the higher magnification of the non-HP finder. Makes no difference to me - I switch between the F3HP, FM2N and OM-1 and notice absolutely no difference related to magnification.

 

Dunno 'bout the gridscreen with split-image focusing aid. I switched from the standard focus screen as soon as I could get my hands on an E screen and never looked back. However, the standard focus screen in my FM2N is very resistant to blacking out in low light or from using slow lenses, so chances are you wouldn't sacrifice a thing going with that R screen. There definitely are some situations in dim light where a focusing aid could be useful. I was doing some nighttime photography this weekend and even under a full moon it was difficult to focus with the E screen - I had to use a flashlight a time or two. With a split-image aid I could have focused on anything with an edge or line.

[neil_parker]

Thanks all for good info, I guess I need to actually use it a bit before I start obsessing about changing it :).

 

It was a lot of the good comments I've seen on this forum in the past that got me thinking F3 in the first place.

 

One more quick Q, Todd's battery comments got me wondering if I could use NIMH AAs in the MD4. I keep a pile of these around for my coolpix.

[ajaytyagi]

Thought this may help those looking for a deal or just curious for current prices. This one has a 'Buy-it-now' of $350 with lens and drive!

The item number is 2940898425 on ebay and no Its not mine or anyone I know. The camera looks 'well used' though.

[Robert_Lai]

Lex and I are good internet buddies, but I wish to respectfully disagree with him. I have the non-HP finder, and I do wear eyeglasses. I can see the entire screen without having to mash my face and eyeglasses against the back of the camera. I like the larger magnification that the DE-2 (non-HP) finder offers over the DE-3 (HP finder). In fact, I just bought another mint DE-2 finder off the 'bay auction site in case something ever happened to my DE-2. I do switch finders a lot (for the DW-4), and I never know if one day I'll drop the thing. Since they don't make DE-2s anymore, I'm stocking up now. I got mine for $90.00. The DE-3s were selling at auction for over $150.00.<p>You can use NiMH or NiCd batteries in the standard AA cell holder. You should note that since these batteries put out less than 1.5V per cell, you will get slower performance than with alkalines. To get the full 5.5 fps speed, you need the MN-2 pack, which gives an 18V boost to the works. With the 8 alkaline AA cells, you get 12V, and 4 fps, which is still quite fast.<p>The brightest viewscreen made is the 'M' screen, which is made for microscopy. You need the DW-4 6x finder for this. You focus on an aerial image since there is no groundglass at all on the screen. The MIR site also suggests the H (all microprism screen) as being extremely bright, and useful for night-time photography.

[douglas_green1]

If you DO ever go for another finder, the one to get is the DA-2 Action finder. I have one of these and one HP finder on my 2 F3s. The DA-2 is always mounted to the F3 that I have with an MD4 motor. The DA-2 truly comes in handy for shooting concerts, sports, or any other fast moving subject matter with a motor drive. You can see the whole frame with your eye 2" away from the camera.

 

Figure $200 for a clean one on the major auction site.

[todd peach seattle, washi]

I'm with Robert on preferring the non-HP (I have one HP and one non-HP for my two F3's). I haven't gone so far as to hunt another DE-2 down and pay $90 for one, but if I ever ran across one for a rediculous price (say, $45) I'd snap it up.

 

For whatever reason (maybe that I'm left-eyed?), I'm a known 'face-masher'. It's part of my style for steadying the camera. I have a DA-2 action finder that doesn't get a ton of use, largely because I *have* to hold it away from my face to get a good viewfinder image out of it. This feels odd to me, like using the LCD screen on the back of a digital.

 

Robert already covered the rechargables Q. What's not immediately apparent about the MN-2 is that it contains 14 cells of the '2/3 AA' size crammed in there in a vertical orientation. That's how they get the higher V / frame rate.

[lex_jenkins]

Years from now newbies won't believe all the choices once available to photographers. Increasingly, camera manufacturers' notion of "improving" a camera system is to make it obsolete as rapidly as possible.

 

"Need a better viewfinder for your Nikon D2004 DigiWunder? Buy the *new* D2004a WigiDunder!!! And don't worry about your ancient media cards and lenses because they're no good anymore!!!"

[mskovacs]

I carry a mini mag flashlight in my camera bag at all times. AE is accurate enough for B&W available darkness photography...sometimes I just rely on my incident meter anyhow.

 

Ultimately I went with the MN-2 battery solution after trying AA rechargeables. I bought a charger and a dead, gooey internal mess of a battery from Todd. I cleaned and rebuilt the battery myself since I have the necessary skills. I now have 3 MN-2 packs, all with new Sanyo NiCd cells (the finest you can buy IMO).

 

I doubt I'd ever let one go for $35 though Todd. 14 x 2/3AA Sanyo cells, plus the work, plus the pack ought to fetch a fair bit more to make it worth my while. I am thinking about letting one go if anyone's interested.

[todd peach seattle, washi]

<i>

I doubt I'd ever let one go for $35 though Todd.</i>

<p>

I would tend to agree, after they've been re-built they're worth more (if you trust the guy doing the rebuilding; Mike has the 'chops' for this kind of work). $35 is about right for a KEH 'BGN' MN-2 (warranted for 60 days, but an unknown number of previous 'cycles'). Best deal I ever got was 3 MN-2's and an MH-2 from cameratechs.com for $99.

[vgoklani]

why not just get an F4, which has a built in light and a better meter.

[cd thacker]

<I>why not just get an F4, which has a built in light and a better meter.</I><P>

 

Yes, but Vishal, then it wouldn't be an F3:)