Hi Folks: I have used manual cameras most of my life. Last spring, I purchased a Nikon F5. I have an 80-200mm zoom for action shots and a 35-70mm zoom for static displays.
I shoot in single-frame mode most of the time. This fact separates me from the majority of railroad photographers. In single-frame mode, you depress the release half way, the camera focuses, you depress the release the rest of the way, and the film is exposed. This mode works quite well. Obviously, I didn't buy the F5 for its 8-fps firing rate. OTOH, you would be amazed at how smoothly the transport works in single-shot mode. When shooting "motor-driven clips," there is a complication. You can select single focus or continuous focus. Single focus means that all of the frames will be exposed with the autofocus value of the first frame--not good if the train is coming at you. Continuous focus means that the camera will continuously refocus on the selected spot in the viewfinder (the F5 has five: top, bottom, left, right, center). The shutter will then operate at the motor-driven speed and assume that the camera is always in focus. This mode works fine until you 1) hit a headlight, 2) hit the sky, or 3) hit a large area of Platinum Mist on the side of a Genesis unit. If 1, 2, or 3 happens, you get oodles of really out-of-focus frames. Dave Cohen can be much more specific on the above points. Maybe he will chime in here. My greatest satisfaction with the F5 has been the 3-D color matrix metering. It produces consistently better results than I can do manually, but that's a topic for another time. Later, Warren --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects
