Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Nikon F100

Nikon · Nikon F mount · 24×36mm on 35mm film · 1998

Also known as: ニコンF100

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
F100 Nikon F 1998–2006 — No figure published
  1. No production figure has been published for the F100, and no serial blocks. Nikon's product archive gives the model a full specification table and no quantities; the public database that carries Nikon serial blocks for the digital bodies still records film cameras as a section to be added.
  2. Where the F100 gives ground to the F5: a brass lens mount, a fixed finder, no mirror lock-up and no eyepiece shutter. What it keeps is the metering, the autofocus geometry and the metal, in a body of 785g.
  3. The body is magnesium alloy, and the maker says so. Nikon's own F100 construction page reads "Some makers rely on plastic for their SLR camera covers. Not Nikon. The F100 features tough-as-nails magnesium-alloy for the front body, top, and bottom covers." camera-wiki's line that the F100 concedes "more plastic in the body" to the F5 is not supported by anything the maker published, and Nathan Jones's independent description — magnesium alloy front, top and bottom — matches Nikon's wording part for part. Stephen Dowling, Jeb Inge and Theo each describe the shell in the same terms. Note the exact scope of Nikon's claim: covers, not chassis. No source examined describes the internal frame.
  4. Nikon's own summary of the autofocus reads "Cross-ranged, five area autofocus system"; Wikipedia's infobox describes it as five zones of which three are cross-type. The two are not the same claim and no source examined reconciles them.
  5. Twenty-two custom settings, DX film speed from ISO 25 to 5000 or manual from 6 to 6400, automatic exposure bracketing, and a choice of two focusing screens.
  6. The US list price at launch was $1,400 for the body, on Stephen Dowling's figure in Kosmo Foto.
  7. Two faults recur in every long-term account. The film rewind fork of early bodies is plastic and snaps; Nikon replaced it with a metal part during the run, and Dowling, whose own early body's fork has partly broken, advises buying a later one. The plastic film-door latch also breaks — his went about five years in — and is repairable with a secondhand door rather than a new body.
  8. The multi-exposure setting does not cancel after a frame, or after a change of film. Left on, it will superimpose an entire roll; Dowling reports doing exactly that with a roll of Tri-X.
  9. Jeb Inge notes that 3D matrix metering needs a D- or G-type lens: with other F-mount glass the ten-segment matrix is unavailable, and Dowling records the further complaint that the matrix reading tends to underexpose print film, the system having been set up for transparency.
  10. Nikon's product-archive pages for this model are no longer served from imaging.nikon.com and were read through the Internet Archive.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Nikon Multi-CAM 1300 autofocus module, five selectable focus areas
  • Ten-segment matrix sensor reading distance off D- and G-type Nikkors
  • Twenty-two custom settings
  • 155 × 113 × 66mm, 785g without batteries

F100:

  • Five focus brackets etched in the finder — the F90X shows one
  • Fixed prism, no mirror lock-up and no eyepiece shutter, all of which the F5 has
  • Chrome-plated brass lens mount, where the F5's is stainless steel
  • Magnesium-alloy front body, top and bottom covers

Specifications

Format
24×36mm on 35mm film
Finder
Fixed eye-level pentaprism, five focus brackets, LCD readout · 0.76× magnification · 96% coverage · no rangefinder image
Shutter
electromagnetically controlled vertical-travel focal plane · 1/8000 – 30s and B; stepless in program and aperture priority, in 1/3 EV steps in shutter priority and manual · flash sync X-contact only, to 1/250 · self-timer
Film advance
integral motor; approximately 4.5 frames a second, approximately 5 with the MB-15 pack, with automatic rewind
Back
hinged; the MF-29 Data Back replaces it
Meter
TTL 3D matrix on a ten-segment sensor, centre-weighted at 75% within a 12mm circle, and spot over about 1% of the frame; EV 0–21 at ISO 100 with an f/1.4 lens, EV 3–21 on spot
Motor drive
Not compatible — Integral. The MB-15 Multi-Power High Speed Battery Pack takes six AA cells or the MN-15 nickel-metal-hydride pack, raises the frame rate from about 4.5 to about 5, and gives the body an F5-like profile and a vertical grip.
Weight
785 g
Dimensions
155 × 113 × 66 mm
Country
Japan
Accessories
MS-12 holder, four AA alkaline or lithium cells (supplied) · MS-13 holder, two CR123A or DL123A lithium cells · MB-15 Multi-Power High Speed Battery Pack with the MS-15 holder or the MN-15 Ni-MH pack · MF-29 Data Back · Two interchangeable focusing screens

Where sources disagree

Year
  • 1998 — Nikon's own product archive, on the F90X page, names the successor as "Nikon F100 (1998)"
  • 1999 — Wikipedia gives 1999 as the date of introduction and 1999–2006 as the production run; camera-wiki calls it released in 1999 and says it replaced the F90X that year

Better supported: Nikon's, being the maker's own dating

An announcement in one year and shipment in the next would reconcile the two, but no source examined states an announcement month, so the reconciliation is a guess rather than a finding. Both dates are recorded here and the entry runs from 1998.

What reviewers say

History

The F100 is what the F5 became when the weight and the price came off it. The metering is the same idea — a ten-segment sensor running 3D matrix, taking subject distance off a D- or G-type Nikkor, with centre-weighted at 75% inside a 12mm circle and a spot reading about 1% of the frame, over EV 0 to 21. The autofocus is the Multi-CAM 1300 module with five selectable areas. The shutter runs 1/8000 to 30 seconds, stepless in the automatic modes and in thirds of a stop in the manual ones, and synchronises flash at 1/250. What it does not have is the F5’s removable prism, its mirror lock-up, or its eyepiece shutter, and the result weighs 785g where the F5 weighs well over a kilogram. What it did not give up is the metal. camera-wiki lists more plastic in the body as one of the concessions, but Nikon’s own construction page for the camera says the opposite in as many words — “Some makers rely on plastic for their SLR camera covers. Not Nikon” — and specifies magnesium alloy for the front body, top and bottom covers, which is exactly what Nathan Jones, Stephen Dowling, Jeb Inge and Theo each found in the hand. The mount is the real concession: chrome-plated brass, where the F5’s is stainless steel.

That trade is the whole argument for the camera, and it worked. The F100 became the second body a professional carried and the first serious one a great many amateurs bought, and it stayed in the catalogue until 2006, when Nikon discontinued nearly its entire film line and kept only the F6.

The date it started is not settled. Nikon’s own archive, on the F90X page, names the successor as the F100 and puts 1998 beside it. Wikipedia and camera-wiki both say 1999 and give 1999 to 2006 as the production run. An announcement in the autumn of one year and shipping in the next would explain both, but no source examined states an announcement month, so that explanation is a guess and not a finding. Both dates are recorded above.

What the long-term accounts add is a list of what breaks. The film rewind fork of an early body is plastic and snaps — Nikon substituted a metal one during the run — and the plastic film-door latch goes too, Dowling’s after about five years, though a secondhand door and a competent repairer settle it. The covering turns sticky with age. And the multi-exposure setting, once switched on, stays on: it does not cancel after a frame or after a change of film, and Dowling superimposed an entire roll of Tri-X before he noticed. Set against those, the praise is close to uniform. Jones puts it at ninety per cent of an F6 for a fraction of the money; Dowling, fifteen years and hundreds of rolls in, says the F6 is hard to justify against it.

There are no variants to record, which is itself worth stating in a family where an F2 divides into five finders and an F3 into four bodies. The F100’s prism is fixed and its meter is one meter; the only choices are which battery holder is in the bottom — four AAs in the MS-12, two CR123As in the MS-13 — and whether the MB-15 pack is fitted, which adds a vertical grip, six cells and about half a frame a second. Wikipedia records one mid-production change, and it is a small one: the film rewind spool was replaced because of a manufacturing defect, the original being tapered and narrower than the part that succeeded it.

Two published descriptions of the autofocus do not agree. Nikon’s own line is “Cross-ranged, five area autofocus system”; Wikipedia’s infobox says five zones of which three are cross-type. Nothing examined reconciles them, and the difference matters to anyone judging how the camera behaves on a subject with only horizontal detail in it.

And nothing numeric has been published at all. Nikon documents this camera more fully than any of its immediate predecessors — a complete specification table where the F-601, the F-801 and the F90 get bullet points — and still gives no quantity; the database that carries Nikon serial blocks for the digital bodies records film cameras as a section yet to be added. The best-documented Nikon film body of the 1990s has no number attached to it.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Nikon F100
Nikon F100 — Rama, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0 fr)
Nikon F100
Nikon F100 with the 50mm f/1.4 — Ivan Santos, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Nikon F100
Bombardier CRJ-200 landing at Santa Barbara — shot on a Nikon F100 (Glenn Beltz) — Glenn Beltz from Goleta, CA, USA, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $440 across 33 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $350–$500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: unchanged from $440.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$440$350–$50033
2026-09-10$440$350–$50033
2026-09-06$440$350–$50033

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Nikon F90 · Nikon F5 · Nikon F6

Lenses for this body: Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8 · Micro-Nikkor 200mm f/4 · AF DC-Nikkor 105mm f/2D · Nikkor 135mm f/2 · Nikkor 20mm f/2.8 · Ai AF Nikkor 28mm f/1.4D

Sources (11)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.