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Home >> Photography >> Film Equipment Nikon
F90x
As much as I liked my F70, I couldn’t resist my yuppie-materialistic tendencies to own a supposedly better piece of equipment. I fell into the trap of thinking if I bought better equipment, I’ll take better pictures. In some ways that may be true. You receive greater amounts of confidence from knowing that you have a good piece of gear. It also inspires you to learn more and reach further into your creative depths to produce better images. It’s also a double edged sword in that if your images fail to inspire or fall short of what you shot for, you can’t blame the equipment, only yourself. I like the last point the best. I want to know my equipment is a as good as I can afford so that I have nothing to blame, short of equipment failure, but myself for failing to get what I aimed for. My dirty little secret At the time that I was considering upgrading from the F70, the F90x was the best I could afford. I couldn’t even imagine buying an F5 back then and I wouldn’t have even fathomed what I might use such a machine like the F5 for (now I can). I bought the F90x and MB10 combo from my usual source of equipment, Broadway Camera. A bit of negotiating and approval from the store’s owner had Henry pulling the boxes out from under the counter in short order. I was giddy and nervous as well. Giddiness from having new equipment but nervousness from what my wife might do to me when she found out about the purchase. After the debit card was swiped through and the items were mine, I rushed the 25-minute walk from the store to my condo as quickly as my legs could walk. Upon reaching the front door and then slamming it shut once I got in, I threw my jacket off into a heap on the carpet and tore into my packsack for the goods it stored. The F90x and MB10 were unpacked and then put together and the juice from fresh batteries soon flowed through the circuits of my new toy. I caressed it lovingly and remarked at how solid it felt in my hands. Here was a true photographic tool, one that would put me on par with all the pro photographers working for National Geographic. HA! A cannon from a Nikon? After waking up from my wet dream, I proceeded to test out the camera by firing off the shutter a few times. KA-CHUNK! I was in shock after hearing how loud the F90x is. After several months of using the F70 and being use to its relatively smooth and quiet shutter/mirror slap action, the F90x’s noise level was somewhat disconcerting. In hindsight, it’s not so surprising since the F90x was derived from the F90 that was introduced in 1992. The F90x was introduced in 1994, in the same year as the F70, but with refinements to the original F90 platform. The F90 is obviously a descendant of the old F801 and F601 bodies in look and feel. I have heard from other users that the older 801 and 601 bodies are louder then the F90 in shutter/mirror noise (possibly also the motor drive as well contributing to the noise levels). The F601 in particular is suppose to be very loud while the new F100 is quite good in this regard, certainly better then the F5. I got use to the noise level of the F90x and after a while, I even began to warm to it. The louder shutter action of the F90x could be likened to an old, late ‘60s muscle car of the Chevy variety with a full bore V-8 firing at all pistons. The F70 is a smooth and modern European sedan (definitely not a sports car-think Saab here, with its own quirks). The F100 is definitely a Porsche 911 whereas the F5 is a Ferrari F40. Hope you like my car analogies. So, as much as the noise levels from the F90x were a non issue for all of my own shooting needs, there came a time when the noise level gave some cause for concern but more on that later. Tech Talk Other buttons not used often are the Self-timer button, the Flash control button and the Drive button. The self-timer and flash are self-explanatory and Drive simply means motor winding control, whether you want single shot, low continuous or fast continuous shots. I generally use the F90x in Aperture priority, Matrix metering mode, with the fastest drive option. I don’t do much in the way of fancy flash work so I don’t need to change my flash settings on the body. The right side of the top deck has five buttons or controls. The main power switch, control dial, shutter release, rewind button and a plus/minus exposure compensation button that also acts as a recall button. When the two recall buttons are pressed, the camera will default back to factory settings. On the backside of the camera, there are only three controls. On the left side is the LCD illumination button and viewfinder shutter control. On the right side is the Auto-Exposure lock button to lock in your ambient exposure information. The top LCD display shows all the information you would expect meaning more or less everything. The viewfinder LCD shows from left to right, wide or spot focus indicator, focus lock confirmation, shutter speed, aperture value, over/under exposure bar and film counter. A nit-pick about the over/under exposure bar, it’s only good for one stop, which is almost next to useless. Nikon redeemed itself with a two-stop bar in the F5 and F100 but a three-stop bar would be better yet. The frame counter becomes the plus/minus exposure compensation indicator when said feature is used. The film back door is opened via two controls that must be pressed towards one another, which is a bit safer then the F70’s single control. The film back can also be replaced with two databacks, the MF25 and MF26, more on the MF26 later on. Enough tech talk, how does the damn
thing work? If you desire further features not available with the F90x and MB10 combo, you can go whole hog and buy an MF26 data back. An MF25 data back is also available but it is simply a date printer and not much use in my opinion. The MF26 addresses the concerns of many people who feel that an expensive body such as the F90x seems devoid of useful features such as exposure and flash bracketing and multiple exposures. In addition, the MF26 also adds an interval timer, long exposure capability, focus priority, simultaneous AE/AF lock among others. In short the addition of the MF26 to the F90x makes the camera a very feature rich body. The downsides? Well, cost for one thing. In Canada, a fully featured F90x with the MB10, MF26 and type E grid screen (what I have for mine) will set you back close to $2000. Given that the Canon A2E with most of the features of a full F90x combo can be had for much less, it does make you wonder what the Nikon marketing boys have been smoking to conjure up such pricing policies. Today, with the F100 available for a couple of hundred more, a person would be awfully stupid to buy into a full blown F90x system.
Another caveat has to do with the MF26 usability. In a word this data back SUCKS for ease of use. I use the features so infrequently that I can’t remember how to use the damn thing. I do have to admit that this purchase was a bone-headed one on my part. I thought it would be great to have all the features of the data back especially the multiple exposure capability. I honestly have to say I have yet to use any of the major features of the MF26. If I didn’t have it, I wouldn’t miss it. I should have followed Henry’s advice and bought the same priced FM10 body if I wanted multiple exposure capability. At least I would have another body to use even if it isn’t a real Nikon (for those unaware, the FM10 manual body is made by Cosina – the kit zoom lens that come with the FM10 and FE10 are also Cosina products as well, so buyer beware). Nowadays, if I need multiple exposure capabilities, I’ll pull out my Bronica instead, as it is far easier to use. I almost forgot to mention the printing feature of the MF26. I think this is the most useless feature of the data back. The MF26 prints the data (either date or time) onto the picture area of the negative or transparency. It ruins the image if you can’t crop out the portion of the frame with the data. I shot two rolls of slide film with the print feature on one time without being aware of it being on and had a few good images rendered useless because I couldn’t crop out the foreground without destroying the composition. I almost tore the damn back off after getting my slides back and discovering my carelessness. If I want data printing on the negative I’ll buy a point and shoot. The F90x also has another feature that will appeal to the tech minded out there, the ability to connect to a PC or laptop and download information into the computer. Great feature but pretty costly to buy into as the Photo Secretary package of software and MC31 cable is about $350. The software with the rest of the fully realized F90x would definitely put it in the same range as the basic F100. No contest here as which body I would go with for the money, F100 all the way. Those are the faults as I see it for the F90x. If you keep it simple and stick with the either the base F90x or coupled with the MB10 then what you have is a very pure shooting machine as far as autofocus cameras go. As I said earlier, it's no nonsense and gets you the goods with a minimum of fuss. It has a good solid feel and heft to it that won’t leave you wondering if it will survive a trip into the outback. It is by no means as robust as the pro F series bodies or the new F100 but I wouldn’t concern myself over it. The autofocus action is quite fast and sure. Hunting occurs only in the usual tricky situations common to all AF SLRs such as zero contrast scenes like a blank white wall (I don’t know why anyone would shoot a blank white wall but it comes up often as a sure fire way to fool a passive AF system). The AF of the F90x is suppose to be very fast, almost as fast as or even better then the Canon EOS 1n. I’m sure more then a few Canon users will choke on that and dispute it vehemently, but I only state what I have come across elsewhere, as I have no experience with the EOS 1n. I suppose I shouldn’t write down something that I haven’t experienced myself but I’m simply doing my bit to flame the Nikon/Canon war J . With my meager assortment of lenses, I find the F90x up to the task in almost all of my shooting situations. Mind you, I don’t do much in the way of action so I assume that my opinion could be tempered by such experiences. I find the F90x to be good enough even for my older 80-200 2.8 lens. The motor driving the lens is far more robust then the one in the F70 and seems to do well for keeping up with my toddler son rambling about the house. With my smaller lenses like the 50mm and 24mm, the AF is certainly quite adequate and especially with the 24mm, almost redundant. The flash works beautifully with my SB 27 and SB 28. The 3D Matrix fill flash hasn’t let me down yet. If I’m ever disappointed by any of my flash work, it can usually be attributed to user error or not getting the flash off camera with the SC17 TTL cord. It makes life a lot simpler not having to worry about flash calculations. I should add that since I bought the Sekonic 508 meter, I don’t even give a rat’s ass about flash calculations since I just test fire my manual flashes (Vivatar 283s) and then set the proper aperture or adjust the flash power to get the depth of field I want. I love modern technology! All in all the F90x is a fine machine that may be dated and superceded by the F100 but I think it will rightly go down as one of the ‘greats’ in the Nikon lineup, much like the venerable 801. I don’t recommend the MF 26 back unless you absolutely need the features and even then I would want a F100 instead of paying for a F90x/MF26 combo. It’s very durable and gives one a great deal of confidence by its heft and feel in the hands. If not for its little bit of extra noise in winding and focusing, I wouldn’t even think of ever needing an upgrade and that’s only because I do a bit of wedding work. If I wasn’t asked to shoot a few weddings here and there, my left side of the brain would definitely tell me to shelve any ideas of buying a F100 or F5. Instead I would focus (sorry) on lenses like maybe the 16mm fisheye or the 105mm micro or perhaps even a third party 14mm super wide lens.
* I no longer have the F90x in my kit, having sold it to finance the purchase of my F100 body. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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The
Nikon F90x was a camera that caught my imagination when I first heard
about it. It seemed that most everyone that I asked talked of the
F90x in very respectful terms. Even though it was not a true pro calibre
camera in the Nikon line up, it appeared to be a pro favorite. The
fact that my favorite photographer at the time, Galen Rowell, used
one in conjunction with his F4s helped to seal my fate of eventually
owning one. Back then, in mid ’97, I wasn’t aware of just how high
prices could reach when dealing with pro rated bodies and equipment
such as the F5 and EOS 1n and their respective top lenses. The F90x
at about $1250 retail back then was already stratospheric for me.
I thought the F70 was already pricey but to pay almost double for
a body alone? It took me a while to get over the sticker shock, much
like when I first became involved in high end audio, the prices of
Levinson and Krell equipment almost gave me a coronary. 
The F90x is a winner in most respects. The layout is clean and uncluttered
on its top deck. The switches and buttons for the other functions
are where you would expect them to be with the manual/auto/continuos
focus switch in its familiar spot for AF Nikon bodies, at the lowest
left, front side below the lens release button. On the right, front
side there is a depth of field preview button within easy reach of
your middle finger and below that is an AF lock button. This is one
of the few bad ergonomic features of the F90x. The AF lock button
is in a poor place and requires more contortioning of your right hand
then a yoga master when trying to lock focus and exposure at the same
time.The top deck is very straightforward and uncluttered and I have
come across very few criticisms of this type of ergonomic layout.
Those few who have difficulty with it should give up serious shooting
with an SLR and stick with an idiot proof point and shoot. There are
eight buttons on the left, top side, each of them responsible for
a single function except the ISO override button. The ISO button double
duties as one of the two rewind buttons. Of the eight buttons on the
left side, two I never use. These are the auto-program or derisively
known as the idiot modes. I never understood why Nikon bothered to
put such lame program modes into an otherwise excellent body. I would
much rather they used up the circuit board space or EPROM programming
for something more useful such as multiple exposure or a pseudo mirror
lock-up via the timer. I can understand the lack of true mirror lock
up in the F90x due to the difficulty and cost of implementing such
a feature in a body. 
The F90x has been likened to a system camera. You start with the basic
body, which is the size of a standard SLR. If you have large hands
or desire the improved ergonomic handling of a vertical grip, you
can buy the MB10. The MB10 also provides a vertical shutter release
and facilitates faster changing of the AA batteries via a quick change
tray that is similar to what is available with the F4e. The MB10 does
not provide anymore functions or control over the camera’s features.
The MB10 is also somewhat cheap in feel as it is entirely plastic
and doesn’t blend in seamlessly into the better-built body. Also note
that the MB10 is only usable with the F90x/N90s bodies and not the
original F90/N90, although I have heard of modifications to the older
bodies that will allow for the mating of the MB10 with them without
the vertical shutter release being operational. 
The
non-user friendly interface of the MF26 back»
