> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ken Durling
> Sent: Sunday, September 09, 2001 2:47 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: EOS Decided against an Elan 7e - a/f assist light
> (plusflashassist)
>
> Last I heard you had only tried the Elan 7 in a store. No one will
> deny that AF needs continued development, and I agree that the
> on-board flash as-AF-assist is useless, but as has been pointed out,
> the AF-assist light is *optional.* And as I and others have pointed
> out, it has to be *very* low light - like you would *never* hand-hold
> in - to cause problems with assistless AF that are insurmountable with
> normal focusing technique and selective focus lock.. This is based on
> a lot of shooting with it in a lot of situations. Furthermore I agree
> that something like a microprism or split focusing screen would be a a
> good thing. But there's added cost. You can't have everything. But
> you've already made up your mind - if you don't want to buy an Elan 7,
> for crying out loud don't buy one! But please stop ridiculing people
> whose experience is different from yours.
If I ridiculed anyone it was to posters who ridiculed me. I won't name
names, yours or anyone else's. What I found frustrating was people telling
me I was making something out of nothing, that I should be manly and use
manual focus, and who needs autofocus in low light anyway and I should get
an EOS-3 and be a Real Photographer, and why would anyone want to take
pictures of people in low light, yada yada yada. I didn't ridicule anyone
who claimed different experiences from me. Read my posts. I think you will
find that I took interest in everyone's actual experience which turned out
to be different from mine, but I tend to bristle and shoot barbs back at the
kind of mindless illogic thet sometimes issues from people who don't bother
to think through what it is they are responding to (you of course are not
among them, are you? :)
You are right that I tried it in a store, and also that I mistook the
red-eye reduction light for a/f assist. What I need to do is to try it with
the redeye function turned off. Yet I also read the specs and found that
the a/f sensitivity only goes from ev 1-18 instead of 0-18 as with the Elan
II, and I suppose the difference is in that the II has the i/r a/f assist
light. Yet I still may go ahead and rent one for a day and really walk it
through its paces. I would like nothing more than to discover, in practice,
that the Elan 7 is just as effective as the II in this area.
To be sure, the added features I suggested would make the camera more
expensive, although I am disappointed that they didn't just fail to add the
a/f assist but actually dropped it from the newer version of the Elan. What
I am really looking for, I suppose, is an A2 replacement, which would cost
about $175-200 more than the Elan 7. It would also have, one assumes, spot
metering, PCS socket, and so on. It would have all the advantages of the EOS
autofocus system and lenses, silent operation, and light weight, at
moderately higher cost, but it would also not be a professional tank like
the EOS 3 or the astronomically expensive EOS 1V. It would be, in other
words, Canon's equivalent of the Maxxum 7. And yet, still smarting with the
irritation that many others on both sides of the camera have experienced
with flickering anti-redeye and a/f assist flash, I would really like to see
the technology applied to the lower end cameras themselves.
As for not handholding in low the low light that would cause unassisted a/f
not to work, I am sure that you carefully read the many posts of the
exchange and simply forgot to point out that the problem of flickering light
in people's eyes is just as bad when you are focusing prior to a flash shot
as it is with available light. I don't mean this as ridicule, for you are
indeed an honorable person and an keen observer and thinker, and no doubt a
masterful photographer.
Also, as you are such a reasonable person, undeserving of even the
suggestion of ridicule, I just want to point out that a thread may have two
subjects, even if it started out with only one: for example, it could
concern the practical question whether or not to buy an Elan 7 given its
autofocus limitations and also the general question of autofocus and
possible improvements for it. Perhaps this is dangerous, because some
readers, not yourself of course, may not be able to handle two subjects at
two levels of abstraction at the same time. It is a little like walking and
chewing gum, which we know that even some Presidents of the United States
can't do.
There are also people who get very exercised if you suggest to them that we
do not live in the best of all possible worlds (one level of abstraction)
and on another level of abstraction that if someone criticizes a camera that
they have bought they he is ridiculing them. These people, which again do
not include you, need to be handled with kid gloves. It is very difficult
to see any fault in a new piece of shiny hardware you have bought,
especially if it is expensive.
----------------------------------------------
Gerry Palo
Denver, Colorado
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