mike hilditch

<p>Hi Tamara, I still have my trusty F3 and have had a similar experience about one year ago, it started to fail after a while and I did as you and used the manual shutter, I obtained eventually new batteries and found that it did not work, in my case after a frustrating hour of wondering and trying everything even taking the batteries in and out suddenly discoverred that I had place they batteries in the wrong way around (seinile in my case) since then it has never stopped working, not saying that this is your case but just make sure they are the correct way in.</p>

<p>Have a 70-300 ED VR and tested both with and without VR on a tripod with speeds og 1/2 to 1/60 sec, from my results VR off is sharper all the time but with VR on about 70 % (approx) have sighs of motion blur. Just out of interest is when I am shouting wildlife in flight (fast flight) and continuous focus at speeds of 1/500 and above I turn off VR as it can effect the autofocus. </p>

<p>Yes I had a dust speck on mine also which finally disapeared after approx 100 shots and restarts/cleaning (bummer ye), battery on both my D300 & D700 do not pop out and never have (did not know they should) have to turn the camera slightly downwards then they come out about 1/4 inch (5cm) then you feel a slight resistance when you pull it out. Rubber covers all tight on front but as you say the external interface covers flops open at the slightest touch although it stays inplace but I never use itso it should not get worse ?. Otherwise a brilliant machine.</p>