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You
don't break a shoulder
One
of the most popular issues raised against buying an
F5 has been the weight of this camera. There are three important
issues which you should think through before this becomes
an issue for you too:
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The
voluntary fire brigade of the city of Rottweil, southern
Germany August 1999. Nikon F5, Nikkor AF 80-200/2.8D
at some 80mm on Fuji Velvia, flash filled with the
SB-24.
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1.
All included. At some 1200g
(2.2 Lbs), this is not a featherweight champion, true, but
it comes with the batteries and a 8 fps high speed motor drive
included. If you add that to e.g. an F100 you're talking approx.
the same weight.
2.
Balance. It's very well balanced, having the center of
mass fairly low. With smaller lenses (up to 135mm), it most
definitely doesn't dip the nose when worn in a shoulder strap.
It's actually even possible to carry it that way with a 1300g
80-200 AF zoom, though with a clear nose-dipping tendency.
Whenever I have that combo on the shoulder, I wear the lens
pointing downwards as not to bang it against something. Due
to the "serious" weight and great balance of the
F5, you can even shoot handheld in really low light situations
using fairly slow film (let's say ISO 200 or 400).
3.
Don't forget the lens. If you're into glass, i.e. you
want/need fast lenses in the tele area, these lenses are fairly
heavy, typically resulting in that smaller bodies cannot keep
the set stay horizontal while worn in a single strap, nor
is the balance as good as with the F5 whenever handheld using
such bodies.
I
never have had any problems with the weight of the F5. Granted,
I too thought it would maybe cause me physical problems, but
I have been walking around for more than six hours straight
(no pun intended) having the F5 & 80-200 attached to a
shoulder strap without any negative side effects. No, at 170
Lbs./6'2" I'm not an athlete ;-)
Several
people have mentioned that using an elastic shoulder strap,
such as the ones manufactured by OP/TECH makes them feel uncomfortable
whenever attached to a combo as mentioned above - safety wise
that is. I use such a strap the whole time, and, the polyprene
stuff is really good. Maybe that's even the reason why I don't
think the weight is an issue at all.
OK,
let's have a look at the general handling of the F5. |
