Nikon F5 35mm Film Camera

Pros: Speed, custom features, OUTSTANDING metering! Incredibly versatile!

Cons: Weight, initial cost to purchase.

The Bottom Line: When you want the best from your film SLR, the Nikon F5 is the closest thing to perfection available!

Review: The already legendary Nikon F5, the film SLR flagship is a 35 mm film camera without peer. Designed by Nikon engineers to be the standard bearer for the company before digital SLRs became so advanced and prolific, this 35 mm masterpiece is now just a ...

Pros: Built, 3D Color Matrix Meter, Operations, Handling, Performance, FAST!

Cons: Heavy, Expensive?

The Bottom Line: The most comprehensive SLR with intelligent metering system, and an array of features that will bring your photographic skills to a whole new level, is the Nikon F5.

Review: The Nikon F5, as its numeral indicates, is the fifth generation of the legendary Nikon F series, with the first F appeared over 40 years ago (in the summer of 1959). Each of the F series, spanning from manual focus (F, F2, F3) to autofocus (F4, ...)...

Pros: Workhorse, good ergonomics, great photos

Cons: Heavy, expensive, complex

The Bottom Line: The F5 is the patriarch of the Nikon Imaging family that includes the F100, the D1/D1X/D1H, and a collection of the world's highest quality lenses.

Review: The Nikon F5 is the camera that Nikon's engineers created to be the cornerstone of the company's twenty-first century product line. A product line that hopes to blend pro models, amateur models, and digital cameras into a seamless family of imaging...

Pros: a superb machine, built like a tank

Cons: tanks are heavy

Review: NIKON F5—The finest SLR on the planet

Product review by Frank Van Riper
Professional photographer, author, and photography columnist of The Washington Post

Engineered from the ground up to go against its competitors in the...

Pros: Tough, exposure is right on in any condition, comfortable, inexpensive for the features & quality

Cons: Heavy, but it's basically a laptop in a camera for just under 3 lbs!

Review: I'm not going to bother you with the "features", you can read about them elsewhere. Let's get right to my experiences, mainly in ANTARCTICA with this camera that ended up being mostly a NIGHTMARE on equipment. I wanted a camera that could judge...

Pros: Matrix metering, Matrix flash with D lenses, solid as a rock

Cons: Some of the custom settings are confusing to use, some are worthless

The Bottom Line: The best professional camera out there. It's built like a tank. No one has a better metering or focus system, no one.

Review: The Nikon F5 is the king of the hill when it comes to Professional cameras. With a Matrix metering system that is so good I have never, repeat never questioned it and all of my shots are perfect. Using an SB-28 flash with a Nikon D lenses takes all of...

Pros: Build Quality, Weather Proofing, Excellent Metering

Cons: I wish the focus area brackets in the viewfinder illuminated in red

The Bottom Line: The F5 was introduced in 1996 and was a top of the line 35mm camera and in 2004 it still is the top of the line.

Review: I purchased the F5 more than a year ago and this is what I think. I take better pictures with the F5, let me clarify, at an air show, while whale watching and of course all the people shots I would have missed if it were not for the speed of the auto ...

Pros: Superb tool for the professional and serious amateur photographer, a solid performer under any conditions

Cons: It is a heavy lump of metal, particularly when matched to heavy glass

The Bottom Line: If Nikon ever bring out an F6, the F5 will remain one of the best camera bodies ever made. An F6 would probably be computerized overkill!

Review: I've owned an F series camera since 1975, the first being an F2, the second the F5 which I bought over 3 years ago. F Series cameras are built to last and they do indeed last. I seriously doubted that I needed to upgrade the 30+ year old F2 until I...

Pros: Fast, accurate, and reliable

Cons: Black autofocus indicators are bad in low light. Heavy.

Review: ...so I bought two of them!

The first thing I need to say about this camera is that I totally trust the RGB metering system. For my style of shooting (fashion, concerts, sports) it has never let me down. This allows me to shoot faster because...

Pros: Every function possible and more

Cons: Eats batteries

Review: Just a couple of weeks after the F5 was introduced I started my research on it and decided to drop nearly $3,000 for the body. I must say, this was one of the best photographic moves I have made in 35mm.

The camera offers all the bells and...