Re: *ist D

[Cameron Hood]

Finally got to try one out in the shop yesterday.

It IS small; very small. The conservative design was necessary to keep 
things as small as they are. I desperately felt the need for a battery 
grip, but having compared it to the D10 and the D100, I can't really 
see the need for a camera that size, either.

All controls were intuitive and self explanatory. Superb autofocus and 
AF selection, Depth of field preview was fabulous, as was the zoom 
control in playback, allowing you to check your depth of field and 
exposure very closely. Good burst rate, and the memory card problem is 
not a big problem if you tilt the camera and then push the button; just 
be ready to catch the card when it comes out. Pentax kind of blew it 
here, because all CF cards have a ridge or lip on them which would make 
them easy to remove if Pentax had installed them the other way around; 
unfortunately, the lip faces IN on this camera, adding to removal 
inconvenience. A minor gripe, though (and I do have big hands).

The viewfinder is superb; I brought my PZ-1P with the FA* 28-70 2.8 for 
direct comparison. The viewfinder is bigger, much brighter, with higher 
contrast and well laid out info. I only wish that someday, someone in 
the camera building world will make concessions for the fact the a lot 
of people in North America and elsewhere have NOSES on their faces, and 
would extend the viewfinder out from the back of the camera and inch or 
so. This would avoid us all getting snot and boogers and face grease 
all over the LCD screens. Just a thought; I guess they don't have noses 
in Japan.

Magnification (cropping) factor is good/bad. It certainly turns the 
28-70 into a nice portrait lens, but even the 18-35 zoom I tried it 
with wasn't particularly wide. I did a few shots outside with the 18-35 
mounted on my PZ loaded with Velvia 100, which I will post as soon as I 
get them back. It certainly was wide on that camera. But surely to *** 
they could have spent the extra $.50 on the lens and given it a proper 
metal mount; talk about cheap. That would last about 3 months with the 
amount of lens changing I do; I wonder if you could put a metal mount 
on it? And no lens hood of any kind comes with it, even though there 
are bayonette mounts molded into the cheap plastic lens body that make 
it look incomplete without one. Another Pentax design gaffe.

The *ist D certainly looks ridiculous with the FA* series lenses on it; 
I also tried it with the 85mm f=1.4 (now a 130mm f=1.4!). I think the 
days are numbered for the entire FA* line; perhaps they will switch 
them to a limited chassis; powerzoom is already gone, so the 28 - 70, 
80 - 200, and the 250 - 600 zooms have got to be redesigned. I think 
they have a whole new lens line coming out soon, this in addition to 
the D series lenses already announced. I can't see lenses of this size 
sticking around much longer, when you see the size of the cameras and 
lenses (Limited) they have been producing lately.

All in all, I was impressed with the camera, but am very concerned 
about Pentax's lack of vision in their overall design concepts; cameras 
and lenses that don't match, mismatched sizing, the 360 FGZ doesn't 
match the colour of any known camera, and they keep changing the colour 
of their lens bodies slightly; the F is different from the FA, there 
are about four different shades of FA, and the *ist D is now a 
different colour and finish AGAIN from the MZ-S, and none of them have 
lenses which match. And chrome limiteds only in North America, but we 
can only buy the cameras in black. That makes sense. They have got to 
get that together.

Cameron