>From: "frank theriault" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I don't think it ~was~ difficult to make a small pro 35mm slr. Not 20 >years ago.
Why didn't anyone do it? LX isn't small, compared to cameras of its era. Nikons and Canon pro cameras certainly aren't. Leica R series are pretty beefy. Only Olympus produced anything small and pro-minded, except perhaps the MX. Either pro durability and features required the larger size, or pros didn't trust small cameras. My personal experience with M and A series Pentaxes is that they are not very tough, especially compared to the larger Nikon FE and FM series. >It is now. Batteries, motor winds, all that electronics. Batteries. >It all takes up too much space. All this stuff used to be outboard, and bigger too--look at the motor drive plus battery pack on a Canon F1 or Nikon F2/F3, and compare it to the integrated F4/F5 or EOS1 series. Compare PZ-1P to LX plus motor and power source. The Canon T90 wasn't that big, due a lot of integration and some razzle-dazzle with motor drive speed when battery power got low. Electronics is in general smaller than mechanics, I think. A lot of the size of a pro camera I suspect is in more durable components, better (and thus larger) pentaprisms, etc. There are also some counterexamples. The Nikon N90 was pretty capable (roughly PZ-1P, with slower motor) and wasn't very big. The PZ-1P isn't all that big itself, from what I can see. DJE
