Hoo boy, even though all of you have probably had quite enough of my prattling on...
see below
At 4:46 PM -06007/15/01, William Robb got all liquored up and shouted:
>So, with much trepidation, I went off to see the MZ-S on Friday.
>Nice camera. It seems really solid, much more so than the
>Mincanniks that it competes with. It wasn't overly large, which
>the Mincanniks most certainly are. They didn't have a battery
>grip for it, so I only got to see it with the lithioids running
>it.
I thought they were Nicanoltax..
>I liked where most of the buttons were, but there seems to be a
>lot of them.
Yes, there are a number of optional controls. I went out yesterday and shot three
rolls of film with my MZ-S, and can tell you that two (2) of the controls saw anything
close to regular use. They were the shutter button and the exposure compensation dial.
hmm. Imagine that. The other controls are there in case you want to use them. That
bears repeating: The other controls are there in case you want to use them. People who
do not use modern cameras, when writing about modern cameras, always insist that they
have a thousand controls, and that EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THEM MUST BE ADDRESSED AND
ADJUSTED BEFORE EACH AND EVERY PHOTO IS MADE.
Horsefeathers. If you want to light up the fucking LCD panel, push the LCD light
button. Otherwise, ignore it.
Having the AF fire up from a separate button is
>kind of cool, though I don't know what purpose it serves.
>Perhaps with the battery grip on, you need it. Choosing an AF
>sensor was pretty easy, though why they put the switch where the
>depth of field preview should be is beyond me. On that note, a
>camera with depth of field preview is really nice in this era of
>mindless photography. Nice touch to have it on this camera, but
>the switch is in the wrong place for me.
>I suspect I could get used to it pretty quickly, but this is one
>of those things that they should try to keep the same from
>camera to camera, and from era to era.
The DOF preview button is, in my opinion, in the perfect place, and I don't know why
nobody thought of putting it there before now. My PZ-1p, LX and MZ-S have the DOFP in
different places, so I don't guess I have the same feeling of continuity you have.
>The camera was very easy to use on manual and aperture preferred
>automatic, which makes me happy, as those are my preferred
>methods of choosing exposure.
>Then I ran into something called PF. PF is the noise a leaky
>tire makes. There seemed to be a lot of PF. I think I counted 20
>of them. Very inscrutable, just PF this and PF that, with no
>clue given as to what they are. Hmmm, this is not good. I recall
>this was why I didn't like the PZ-1 and it's ilk too.
What's the big deal? The PF's let you customize the camera for the way you shoot. You
set them and forget them. How is this difficult?
>The camera seems very quiet, though very high pitched. I think I
>will take Leica to the store next week some time and see if the
>noise it makes bothers her.
It's a distinctive sound, for sure. It sounds, I dunno, =efficient= to me.
<Some stream of consciousness snipped>
>So I won't be buying an MZ-S. It wouldn't make me a better
>photographer. Just a lazier one. It seems an odd beast.
>Everything is there for it to be a great modern camera. It has
>lots of buttons and gizmos. It beeps. It has PF. Lots of PF.
>None of this will make better pictures. The picture is still
>between me and the subject. The camera is something in between.
>I think the less between me and the picture, the better.
I never understand this. Why is it mandatory on this list to insult anything we don't
understand, and by association, those who do bother to understand it?
>Thanks
>William Robb
Doug
--
Douglas Forrest Brewer
Ashwood Lake Photography
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.alphoto.com
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