Remind me again ... what the heck does "RTF" stand for?
I can only speak from the empirical evidence of my experience: I've
owned perhaps 25 cameras with built in flash units in the past 25
years, about 3/4 of them with pop-up mechanisms. I've not had a
single one of them that has had any problems having to do with the
flash unit. I've had several of those cameras' film transport
mechanisms, lens retract mechanisms, and viewfinders go wonky however.
Not to say I disagree with your basic sentiment, however. "Better
made" sells to a select few. "Made well enough" along with a
bazillion features is more marketable to a larger community of
buyers. I'd happily take better made over a bazillion relatively
useless features too.
Happily, I haven't found too many features on the *ist DS that were
useless. Several that are not particularly useful to *my* needs: yes.
I could live without the built-in flash unit but do find it useful
now and then, and less trouble than a clip on mini-flash would be
since I don't have to remember to carry it.
Godfrey
On Oct 30, 2005, at 7:24 AM, graywolf wrote:
Your problem makes me wonder if all the battery related problems
with the istD series haven't to do with that dumb RTF. It is after
all the most unreliable part of modern cameras. The fixed built in
flashs are not as much of a problem, but still I do not like them.
The are fine for casual snapshots, but do nothing much for serious
work (yes, I know many of you like them as handy fill flashs, but I
feel that the problems they cause and battery drain makes a tiny
shoe mount better for that).
I do remember the days when more expensive cameras were better
made, and did not just have more unreliable features.
