I've just got back from the Champ Car race weekend at Portland (where I briefly met Gerald Cermak), which was the first opportunity for me to use my MZ-S. Initial impressions - the focus mode selection switch is a great improvement over the PZ-1p; it's much harder to move it accidentally. Unfortunately the ame is not true of several of the other switches; stuffing the body into a fairly full soft-sided camera bag resulted in (amongst other things) turning the camera on twice, and switching from normal to self-timer mode once. Film loading is different - you have to insert the cartridge the other end first. I don't find the placing of the shutter release button as natural as either the PZ-1p or my M-series bodies (with or without winders). But the button itself feels perfectly natural; the half-push for autofocus gave me no problem. The autofocus operation is very fast when compared to my PZ-1p, and seemed far less prone to hunting. The total exposure time on the MZ-S is noticeable longer than on the PZ-1p; the viewfinder stays blanked out for what feels like a very long time. I presume that's the difference between 4.3fps and 2.5fps. It felt as though the exposure happened quite fast, but it took a long time (relatively speaking) for the camera to be ready for the next shot. Operation is much quieter tnan the PZ-1p, too - the shutter 'snicks' rather than clicking, and the rewind was much, much quieter (although it did cause a very noticeable vibration in the monopod). I've yet to see the finished imges, but several of the shots I attempted would have been impossible for the PZ-1p autofocus to manage - continuous-focus tracking shots with a fast-moving car sweeping across the frame (the PZ-1p would have focussed on the car in the center of the frame, which wasn't necessarily the one I wanted to be sharply in focus). -- John Francis . . . . . . . . . . (650) 429-4427 MyWay.com 444 Castro St. Suite 101, Mt. View, CA 94041 Hello. My name is Darth Vader. I am your Father. Prepare to die. - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
