Hi, I have finally extensively tested functions of EI-2000 in a friendly shop. Why is it total crap? Read more...
It has slow lens (2.5-4) coupled with unusable 400 iso setting (the noise is too much at iso 400). This calls for flash. But in all digicams, internal flash sucks big time. But EI-2000 has external hotshoe, right? Yes, external flash... the bigest piece of shit in EI-2000! IT IS NOT USABLE. THE X SYNCH HOTSHOE IS SIMPLY FOR LOOKS & MARKETING. IT CAN'T BE USED!!! 1)It is NOT TTL, simply X synch. Meaning you must use autoflash and set an aperture on it, same aperture as on camera. 2)It SYNCHES _ONLY_ IN _MANUAL_ MODE. Not in Av. Why this sucks? In Av mode, you preselect aperture. You could select one aperture on camera, same on flash, then tell camera to underexpose by 1.5 stop, having nice balance between flash and ambient. The choices are limitless, up to auto fill-in flash. This sometimes works better than TTL flash. 3)BUT, even in MANUAL mode, external flash is almost UNUSABLE for any but still-life photos!!! WHY? for AUTO flash, you select aperture on flash, and then same aperture on camera (or both different, if you want fill-in flash). The aperture on camera must stay the same if the flashes' internal light sensor and thyristor is to give good exposure. BUT ON EI-2000, APERTURE DOESN't STAY THE SAME! Yes, in "manual" mode, aperture CHANGES during zooming! Even if I set it to f/11 manually, it changes to f/13 at half zoom range and f/17.5 at full zoom range!!! !!! Ever tried auto thyristor flash on non-ttl camera equipped with one of the cheap 3.5-6.3 zooms? You simply CAN'T GET GOOD FLASH EXPOSURE this way! If you set your flash to aperture f/5.6 at wide end of zoom, and then zoom to long end, camera's aperture is now about 1.3 f/stop smaller. That means your carefully framed and carefully exposed auto-thyristor flash shots (with flash set to 5.6) will turn out underexposed by 1.3 stops... NOT NICE! THIS stupid thinking, stupid engineering, stupid quality control and stupid testing, and may I say, stupid Pentax and HP whole, makes the camera TOTAL CRAP. Even from start when I learned that Pentax made it together with HP, I had doubts - HP products are mostly crap from my experience (their scanners are crap, I used them, then quickly exchanged for older model but much better Microtek). I will stay with Olympus in digital - Pentax obviously doesn't know how to design a digital camera. The Optios are nice toys but that's all. Toys. A digital camera without external flash is simply just a toy. If you can prove me wrong, that EI-2000 IS somehow usable with autoflash, I will be glad. But I bet you can't. I know - you can manually compute flash distance, subject distance, guide number and flash at full power, and select aperture to match flash-subject distance. But try that in reportage or action shots. HP's advertising describes the EI-2000 as "the digital camera with the control, performance and flexibility of an slr". BULSHIT! Frantisek Vlcek - 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 .
