Hi, > The whole idea of the built-in motor drive is to have the > shutter cocked and the film advanced to the next frame *before* > you are ready to shoot the next picture.
this lack of choice about when the winder winds is something I became aware of a couple of years ago when I was shooting in a church in Romania and realised that I'd rather be the one to decide when to advance the film, and it bugs me because it's an unnecessary loss of capability. I'd like to have been able to put the camera inside my jacket, then wind on, to reduce the noise as much as possible. I was shooting with a Contax RX, the 1st real camera I've had which doesn't have provision for manual film advance, so I'd never considered this before. It seems to me to be a major piece of bad design. And it's not as if the capability is difficult to include. After all, the camera has a multiple-exposure facility so the disconnect between shutter closing and film advancing is already there. > You don't walk around > with an un-cocked camera and wait until you want to take a > picture before cocking it and advancing the film, do you? I should think most people don't. But that's not what the proposal, or complaint, is about. What we'd like to do is advance the film at a time that's convenient to the photographer. > Now, if you are a very slow and deliberate photographer or if > you are trying to be a stealthy, sneak shooter, then not even > *having* a motor drive would be the preffered camera. Indeed. But sometimes you can't predict in advance what cameras you're going to need. And the plain fact is that nowadays few if any cameras are being made, or are still available from new, with a separate winder. Those that are may not in fact be quieter than something like the RX. The RX for instance is certainly quieter overall than the LX because of the superb shutter damping, so it's a better 'stealth' camera. However, it does still make a noticeable noise (and it's an electronic noise, which can be more obstrusive than a louder mechanical noise). It's not as if having an independent film advance option is (much of) a trade-off. Again using the RX as an example, another PF could have been used to toggle between manual and autoadvance, and the manual advance could be initiated by half-pressing the shutter release button. This is probably just a matter of twiddling with the firmware, so there's no trade-off as far as I can see. I'm pretty sure that what applies to the RX applies to most of the modern design of cameras, especially those with multi-exposure capabilities. So what we're seeing is poor usability engineering and a missed opportunity for camera marketeers. --- Bob mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] - 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 .
