agoglanian
Reconnected.
I've been shooting with an F3 for the past 6-8 months or so and I love how smooth that film advance is. It's a joy to work with! I just got myself an FM2n which is a little rough around the edges (though not all that bad really and could stand for a whole lot more brassing!) While it's definitely not as smooth as my F3 it still has some charm and I think it's a fine camera. I use a 24 f2.8 / 50 f2 and 105 f2.5 though I'd like to still get a 50 1.4 sometime soon, the 50 f2 is a surprisingly nice lens for how little it costs.
rkm
Well-known
Hey agphotography, I have a three lens setup also... 50/1.4, 105/2.5, and 35/2.8. I particularly love the 105. I can get nice intimate portraits of my kids, as well as stealth stuff on the street from a distance. I got the 35 because I wanted to try that focal length (seeing as all the Leica guys seen to love 35 or 50), but I haven't used it as much as the others. I've been thinking of selling the 35 to get a 24 or 28, but maybe wide isn't my thing... We'll see.
mfogiel
Veteran
If you want compact, wide to normal manual lenses, than stick to what you have. A medium yellow filter will give better tonality to your shots, and will let you shoot 1 f stop wider. F100 is great primarily with longer autofocus lenses, or when you need to focus wide lenses in dim light. I use it mainly for shooting with the 105 and 135 DC Nikkors:
201214314_15 by mfogiel, on Flickr
201214314_15 by mfogiel, on Flickr
Spicy
Well-known
Another option that hasn't been suggested yet but MIGHT work depending on your situation is the FG-20. It's not fully manual, but it does have AE, and by far the nicest focusing screen I've ever seen (never tried the OM cameras, though, they are also widely lauded) for it's brightness and insane *SNAP* into focus. I've used a lot of Nikon SLRs, and am at a loss for words in how to describe that literally the cheapest SLR they ever made has the nicest focusing screen.
Anyways, IIRC the shutter goes up to 1/2000, has AE, and is madly light -- the lightest and smallest SLR Nikon ever made. Fully manual with AE. It was sort of marketed as a crappy alternative, but it's a peach to shoot with. It definitely does have that not-very-well-put-together feel, as the film wind and shutter clack is a bit..... interesting. It takes a button battery, but I didn't even realize it was used for the shutter after having used it for a few months -- I had mistakenly thought it was fully mechanical.
That being said, you'd be hard pressed to pick a bad camera between the FM2, FM3a, and the F100. I have an FM2, but I prefer shooting with my father's F (he bought it brand new when he was a college student, and I really like having the opportunity to add to its history). If it weren't for that, I'd buy a mint black-paint FM3a in an instant and shoot it until the day I die. Tiny, match-needle meter, precision AE but fully mechanical backup at all speeds. Truly fantastic.
Anyways, IIRC the shutter goes up to 1/2000, has AE, and is madly light -- the lightest and smallest SLR Nikon ever made. Fully manual with AE. It was sort of marketed as a crappy alternative, but it's a peach to shoot with. It definitely does have that not-very-well-put-together feel, as the film wind and shutter clack is a bit..... interesting. It takes a button battery, but I didn't even realize it was used for the shutter after having used it for a few months -- I had mistakenly thought it was fully mechanical.
That being said, you'd be hard pressed to pick a bad camera between the FM2, FM3a, and the F100. I have an FM2, but I prefer shooting with my father's F (he bought it brand new when he was a college student, and I really like having the opportunity to add to its history). If it weren't for that, I'd buy a mint black-paint FM3a in an instant and shoot it until the day I die. Tiny, match-needle meter, precision AE but fully mechanical backup at all speeds. Truly fantastic.
Larry Kellogg
Established
I picked up the FE for $100. The FM3A looks like a great body, especially with the split rangefinder design so that there is no blackout. Still, it is a lot more expensive than the FE.