lsk (11/24/82)
I checked with a friend who also has a NIKON F3 about the constant 1/80th second meter reading problem. The moment I was done describing the symptoms, he asked, "You were at the very beginning of the roll, right?" I was! Turns out, this is part of the (you'll pardon the expression) system design. UNTIL the camera frame counter gets to 1, the camera automatically locks into 1/80th second shutter speed! The reasoning, so my friend says, is something like this: Suppose you were loading film, in auto mode, and had the lens cap on. The camera, if it were truly monitoring, would say, "OH MY I MUST KEEP THE LENS APERATURE OPEN A LONG TIME, THERE IS NO LIGHT" and you would go nuts loading your film. He claims it would stay open about a minute and then shut down. THEREFORE, to avoid this, it locks in at 1/80th till frame 1!!!!!!! As MR. Spock would say: FASCINATING. Larry S. Kaufman Western Electric Network Software Center Dept 1225 Lisle, Illinois 60532