Hi, [Bruce, see the end:]
I will have a look at it once more in the shop and compare it directly there to the other pentaxes they have there - MZ7 and 30 I think, as well as 5n, I am really interested in the finder similarities/differences. But please remember I have just recently (3 weeks ago) upped my viewfinder standards significantly - from K2DMD and SFXn to LX ;-) so I am not objective at all! YMMV. Ótherwise, the body felt quite small and with well-placed controls, the good thing was ability to control the aperture from the body even in manual mode (with lens on "A"), or aperture-priority in "A" mode by controlling the aperture from the body. The spot metering button (AE-L plus PF #5) is not well thought I think, as it locks the exposure, you have to press it again to unlock it, and press it once more to get another spot reading and lock it, that's just too many presses for me, I would preffer a PF#12... to allow for simple "hold" operation, like on older pre-AF bodies (hold to take reading and lock it, release to clear reading, press and hold again to take second reading/lock,...). The dial is the "christmass tree" type as in MZ-7, but that's IMHO good, as it's easy to see which mode you have set it on in the dark, and not be surprised "why doesn't it shoot" when you have set it to PF mode accidentally. The new bundled 28-90 - lens - it had plenty of barrel distortion at the wide end, although I was not able to tell if it was the viewfinder or the lens or both who caused such distortion. The AF was quick, but I am not AF guy so I have no comparing it to other brands. There was this interesting and strange issue with the MZ-6's AF - when hunting, it stopped at the infinity end with such a loud *CLANK* sound and the entire viewfinder image very visibly shook up and down! The opposite of Image stabilisation, perhaps ;-) ? Speaks lots for the build quality of the lens helicoid, probably... I doubt it is camera issue, more likely lens issue. I am sorry I can't much compare it to the other new bodies, as I wrote I am strictly manual focus guy one happy LXer so I am not objective at all. For casual shooting I would seem to like the body, except the viewfinder (but as I said earlier, I dislike almost all new viewfinders on most new brands bodies) And Bruce wrote: > So tell us how you really feel about it. :) One wonders if it is > meant to compete with the Canon Rebel. Certainly one of the crappiest > feeling cameras around. Have you compared it to that? No, not at all, the Canon Rebel wins all crappy camera contests - it's "miles ahead of the competition" in this regard! (I mean in bakelite cameras competition <g>) Good light, Frantisek - 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 .