| Metal
& rubber - the handling in general
The
handling of the F5 is a thrill.
That's the short version. You don't loose the grip of this
baby, all coated with a heavy-duty rubber. If you have sweaty
hands on a warm day, don't panic - the body is in a firm grip.
| |
Annette
kicking a rubber boot. A game invented by bored soldiers
in the 30-year old war. Somewhere in Switzerland,
end of July 1999. Nikon F5, Nikkor AF 80-200/2.8D
at 200mm on Fujichrome Velvia.
|
Most
of the buttons are located where you expect them to be and
close to everything is locked; either mechanically or electronically.
You have two shutter release buttons: one for horizontal and
one for vertical use. The grip of the body is designed so
that you can hold the camera in a single (right) hand for
both horizontal or vertical shots.
Twist
the camera 90 deg CCW and place your hand so that the massive,
protruding right side "handle" now rests on your
long finger with the palm of your hand covering the tripod
socket. The little and ring finger having a nice grip further
down, the index finger on the vertical release button while
your left hand is typically either on the lens barrel or just
supporting the body short (low) side. This is really a steady
version of a vertical hold.
The
vertical release button needs an additional comment
This button has a lock lever which can theoretically be operated
by single a finger, where the lock lever rotates around the
release button. The energy needed to rotate the lock lever
is though pretty high, and I typically must remove the face
from the camera to be able to lock/unlock the button. You
probably want to have this button locked since fat
hands (read: larger hands), likely might trigger the button
in horizontal mode with the cushion below the little finger
gently pressing against the push button.
I
use the vertical-shutter-release-button-lock-lever (what a
word) 50:50. That is, half of all the time I don't have the
vertical shutter release button locked since it's so easy
and fast to twist the camera and press for a vertical shot.
It has though happened that I have by mistake shot off a picture
by the palm of the hand that way. Not a major annoyance, but
worth to be mentioned.
The
horizontal (main) shutter release button is located where
probably all shutter release buttons are located: on the right
top side of the camera (the main control area). It's easy
to operate, has a very distinctive feeling (just as it's cousin
on lower right hand side) and is indirectly locked by - yes,
you guessed it - a rotating (some 80deg) switch. This is the
main power/illumination switch. You can easily operate both
this switch and the shutter release button without removing
your big nose from the body. According to Nikon, you operate
the main power/illumination switch and the shutter release
button with two fingers: the long finger for the power switch
and the index finger for the shutter release button. I do
this too, but sometimes it's just easier to use the index
finger for both operations - I guess it comes down to how
long fingered you are :-) |
