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I just use a simple 6 volt 4.5 amp sealed lead acid battery made by Power Sonic model PS-640 F1($7.00) with a $20.00 Sealed Lead Acid 6 volt charger and an overpriced Quantum cord for the SB 800. I soldered a 6 inch length of 18 Gauge DC wire with a female connector to the battery terminals and converted the end of the Quantum cord to match my chosen male connector. The 4.5 amp battery weighs about 2 lbs. and sits nicely in a small cheap black waistpack. This combo gives me the same clean 6 volt output that I would get from a set of Alkaline batteries with enough power to go over a thousand full power flashes (not in rapid succession or you would melt the flash head). At $7.00 a piece for the batteries, it is easy to buy extar "spares". I have shot an entire graduation ceremony of 2000 students at 1/4 power and still had plenty of juice to do about 200 PR shots without worrying about the battery dropping out on me. Sealed Rechargeable Lead Acid batteries are easily obtainable online or at your local "real" Electronics Store.

Digital cameras have computer controlled circuitry that could be harmed by voltages above 6 to 8 volts across the flash contacts.

Your Metz 60 CT-4 is digital safe as it has a 5-Volt Flash Trigger Voltage. The 45 CT series however is not safe as it runs around 14 to 24 volts. Most of the older flashes were made for the rugged film camera shutter contacts and send anywhere from 24 to 200 volts across he contacts.. The 60 CT-1 and 60 CT-2 are NOT Safe for digital.

As a Camera repairman, I would say the 9 blade aperture that you have pictured above is completely unacceptable. RETURN the lens ASAP.

After examining your photo at a higher magnification in photoshop, it looks like you have chromatic aberration issues with your lens. I do agree with Josh that the shutter speed is extremely important for getting a sharper image with this lens but the wide open aperture is your color killer. The following link will help you understand the color fringing you are experiencing: http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/Glossary/Optical/chromatic_aberration_01.htm

Stopping down can usually help eliminate some of the fringing.

Here is a guy selling the D100 service manual PDF download for 9.99 via this link:

http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/824591-Documents-eBooks

 

For 9.99, you would have the same manual that a Nikon Technician uses to disassemble and reassemble the camera. You wouldn't have the same specialized programming tools , but you would have a safe and cheap way to check for bad solder connections, broken wires and loose or dirty connectors.

In Answer to Frank's information, Nikon does not preserve the ZERO count on a replaced shutter unless specifically asked to. The technicians will usually tell you that they have no idea of the shutter cycle count as it is not part of the Nikon Diagnostic Program that is run on your camera. I always replace the shutter and the Mirrorbox together as they both take the same beating and I feel, should be at the same cycle count.(I am a Camera Reepairman and Professional Photographer) Sooner or later the Mirror assembly will give out if your shutter has already gone. The 150,000 0r 300,000 Tested cycle count does not mena a thing if you have are in the business of shooting for Marathon Foto where I have seen their photographers zip through one 1 Gig card after another, shooting 1800 shots per card on a D2h at 6 frames a second on continuous mode for several hours, racking up 10,000 to 16,000 exposures in one race.

The shutter takes a beating and will only last 50,000 to 80,000 exposures under those brutal conditions. You should always ask what kind of Photography teh camera was used for before buying used.

The terminology for a D2X, D2H, D200, D80, D70, D70S in Opanda Exif is "Total Number of Shutter Releases for Camera" and is located 5 to 8 rows from the bottom on the EXIF tab. I couldn't find that info in EXIF data for the Canon EOS 30D or Nikon D100.

As a camera repaiman, I have to ask what lens are you using and what environment are you having the autofocus problem? Is it just indoors or at night or does it behave the same way outdoors on a sunny day?

I agree with Harvey, I have a D2x which is effectively being replaced by my D300 with no loss in function. I found it funny that Nikon Just released D2X Picture Control emulators for both the D300 and D3. My D3 functions as a Full Frame D2X or a 5 Megapixel D2H or a 5 Megapixel 5:4 crop camera. THREE Cameras in ONE! I can use my 12 to 24 DX Lens at the 18-24 settings in the full frame mode by turning of the Auto DX Crop in camera. Now my 12-24 can be used as fisheye zoom on full frame and get edge to edge coverage from 18 to 24mm. No extra lens needed for TRUE wide angle. The 14 Bit Raw is a BIG step in color tonal quality(beyond the color perception range of the human eye), The 300,000 tested shutter cycles is great insurance for fast paced event photography. The TV-Like LCD screen with the ability to see and adjust my Top Panel display in ANY lighting without having to squint and use reading glasses is a gift.

I will use the D3 to replace our D2H cameras which we use for Event photography such as graduations and races. I can finally have a camera that shows a 5:4 crop for my most popular 8x10 sales, with more megapixels than a D2H and much less noise at the high ISO's that we regularly shoot. The 6 to 9 frames per second comes in great when trying to get the "magic moment" of a Grad smiling at the presenter without a tassel swinging into their face. We usually set the speed around 7 frames per second and set the maximum shots to 3 so that each push of the shutter fires 3 consecutive shots on the Continuous (CH) or (CL) setting. This works great for runners and Bikers too. A swinging arm can block a runner's number which then means we have no ID and a wasted shot.I don't need 11 FPS...Yet! Now the Sweet part, I can now have a D2H and a D2X in the same body! So when it is time to do my LARGE group shots, I turn off the Auto DX Crop and I can use all 12 Megapixels with my 12-24 DX Zoom nikkor set at 18-24mm which covers the whole sensor! If I want a 1.5 Crop Factor, I can turn it back on or choose a crop for my Telephoto Full Frame Zoom lenses to give them that DX-pseudo telephoto effect. Very Versatile!

You can download Opanda Exif Viewer from http://www.opanda.com/en/iexif/index.html

All you have to do is format a CF card in the camera, take a photo, upload it to your computer and start Exif reader. In the Exif Reader you will OPEN your photo you just took. Way down the amazing list of data you will see a Shutter Releases category which will tell you the approximate number of shutter releases this camera has had. It will be innacurate if the shutter has been replaced or the camera has been into Nikon service prior to you recieving it.

I love this lens and have used it for Real Estate Interiors for tight spaces (which are prevalent in most overpriced Southern California pre 1970 homes). This lens is sharp and contrasty. The zoom part is rarely used since I shoot for overkill which allows me to correct and lose some of the scene later in Photoshop. I find that setting my f/stops between f6.3 and f10 gives me superior results. I also have a Nikon 12-24mm zoom which I love and use for the majority of my interior and exterior shots as there is less conversion time in Photoshop. Attached is an original photo taken with the Tokina.<div></div>

I find it humorous that the original question from Bob turned into a sensor size debate. I have been making money with my Nikon cameras for the past 30 years and the sensor size has never been an issue for me when I switched to Digital. When it is, I rent a Digital medium format to address the need. Ninety percent of my sales come from the marketing 8X10s and 11x14s (I have always hated both formats). The DX sensor is perfect for 8 X 12s which look much nicer for portraits or landscapes. I would like to see simple improvements to any Nikon Digital SLR camera that allows you to choose an electronic cropping guide (instead of the electronic "E" screen). You could properly crop in camera for an 8X10 or 11X14 or 5X7 print while looking through the viewfinder. Canon came close to this idea in their new expensive release. FF or DX, I don't care. Just find a better CCD maker than Sony, include noise elimination algorithms in the CPU of the camera better and use technology that already exists to allow all my photographers to crop the same way without having to physically mask off the focusing screens or LCD monitor of our D2H, D2X and D200 cameras. The D3X (or some other name) is inevitable and I just want to put my wish list out before they finalize it. Doesn't anyone else have a dream for better features? Don't you hope someone from Nikon Japan is actually browsing through our threads to help keep his engineering and design job and become a worldwide hero for the incredible camera he designed?