"Tony" wrote in message . com...
Actually the MF will be the heavier given similar models. They tend to be
old designs with mechanical linkages and metal bodies. The only advantage to
them is that some equipment snobs will tell you that you'll learn more about
photography from them - they are wrong, and in fact actually don't have the
vaguest idea how wrong they are, but that's the way they are, and no amount
of evidence is gonna change them.
Go for AF - and take a look at Canon and Pentax while you're at it. Nikon
has been running on empty for a while now.

As the late-for-all-intents James Doohan's character, Scotty, said,
"Ye canna change the laws of physics." You don't get something for
nothing. When you have a camera body with more functions, more
subsystems, more complexity and yet it weighs less, and we can safely
bet costs less to make, then, it's like Johnny Mercer
said-"Something's Got To Give". What gets left out is simplicity,
ruggedness, and straightforwardness of operation.

You won't necessarily learn more about photography from the MF
camera, because the AF Nikons go both ways. You can turn the autofocus
off and in fact most of the time you will. But autofocus is something
a lot of people just never will need-I'd say among people who are any
good, more than not.

Unless you are going into a field where autofocus has made a
demonstrable improvement, I'd avoid it. I'd take advantage of the
favorable used market in mechanical manual still-supported SLRs and
their optics, with the idea you can always add an autofocus body and a
couple of lenses to the system if you go Nikon.

Autofocus is just not an improvement _for most people_, and it
presupposes an electronic camera that puts you out of business with a
dead battery or electronic failure. If you can provide evidence that
this isn't so, I'd say you might change us diehards. But it is so, and
as long as it is, we're going to uphold the standard. The vast
majority of M Leicas ever made are still operational and you can
seriously consider an old M3 that isn't mint as a user camera. That
isn't remotely true of the vast majority of cameras made back then,
and the same standard shouls be applied to new purchases today-Is this
thing going to be usable in twenty, thirty, fifty years?

Otherwise, buy a disposable.