Hi all,
when I bought FA* 24/2.0 few days ago the Pentax representative here
in Ljubljana told me that it is possible they will have MZ-S body
(one of four in Europe!) on display on photo exhibiton which takes
place in Ljubljana, from today till saturday. So, today I went to
the fair and, right on the shelf, there it was: black MZ-S with new
FA 3.5-4.5/24-90mm attached. My (Pentax) heart stopped beating
for a sec. ;-) Waauu!! I was able to take it into my hands without
any rush. It looks exactly the same like MZ-S on the latest photos
with MZ-S written on the left upper side of the body. So, here are my
first impressions:
1. It IS small. And I like the design.
2. The body feels solid, much more solid that MZ-3 which I own. Grip
is very good, the camera sits in my hand like a glove (I don't have
very big hands). Upper dials are made of plastic as are some inner
parts in the film chamber, main dial on the right is very easy to
use, right thumb sits directly on it. Inner left dial (used for
bracketing) is a little fiddle to use. All other dials are located
well.
3. Slanted top is great idea! When you want to check top display,
all infos are right there. You just look towards display and you
see it right in front of you. There is no need to rotate the whole
body towards yourself to see what is written on the LCD display.
4. Autofocus points selection: autofocus points are
user selectable. It goes like this: the lever on the right side
of the lens mount must be pushed upwards (from L to SEL position),
than you turn the main dial to left or right to scroll through all
six points until the wanted one is selected. When you release
the lever, it goes back on L (locked) position. No fuzz. It is easy
and reasonably fast. Lower position (marked A for Auto) of the same
lever is for automatic AF point selection by camera itself.
5. I didn't find any way for flash exposure compensation. It might be
hidden in some combination of buttons. If MZ-S really lacks flash
exposure compensation, it is a serious drawback, IMHO.
6. Viewfinder info are much better visible than in MZ-3. It isn't
high eyepoint though. I compared the viewfinder coverage of the MZ-S
and MZ-3. I compared them with FA 77/1.8 attached (whooww, this is a
great lens!) and MZ-S definitely shows more in the viewfinder than
MZ-3. And don't know if it shows 98% (like Paal suggested) but it
shows more, for sure. I've got the impression that the magnification
is a bit lower though. Which explains better coverage with the same
size of the camera prism.
7. Green (or is it blue? I forgot.) button on the front of the
right side is for hyper modes and (I think?!) for selection between
exposure modes. For example, when the aperture is set to 8, than it
is in Manual mode. By pressing green button, it changes to Av. And if
you rotate the main dial, it jumps back to M, starting with the auto
setting of the shutter. (Please note that this is from my memory.
Since I'm not familiar to the hyper modes, take this explanation
with a grain of salt).
8. AF button on the right back side is separate button for
autofocusing.
8. There was nothing new about so far unknown specifications. So
about the frame rate (it felt a bit faster than MZ-3, but can't tell
for how much), weight and other info, there was no new info.
I'd like to repeat that the camera looks just like on all the
pictures we saw so far, so if Paal is correct with his rumour about
the delay because of the specification upgrade, it might happen
that the MZ-S presented at PMA might look a bit different. Let's wait
and see.
Today is a fine day.
Ciao, Matjaz
Matjaz Osojnik, B.Sc.M.E.
Hajdrihova 4, IBE, d.d., 1000 Ljubljana
Slovenia
Europe
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