After several weeks of newbie lurking, this seems a good moment to drop in.... (and introduce myself to the list while I go along). Anyway:
I'm a complete technophobe who generally refuses to use anything made after ~1980, but last year I caved and bought an MZ-6. My main reason for buying it was the top shutter speed of 1/4000", which, combined with the clear viewfinder, the possibility of manually overruling the DX-code and the backward-compatibility with my old Pentax lenses made it very suitable -on paper- for photographing birds in flight with long telephoto lenses without the use of a tripod. I had been eying up the MZ-3 for exactly those purposes, but when the MZ-6 came out for a fraction of the price of the MZ-3, the decision to buy a "modern monstrosity" became a lot easier to make.
I had never used an autofocus camera before; my equipment until then consisted of an MX (inherited from my dad who bought it new the day it came out) and a host of second (third, fourth, nth) -hand ME/MEsuper/ME-F bodies, which usually crapped out on me after a year-or-so of use. The MX, of course, still works as fine as it did the day my dad bought it.
Now, for all intents and purposes, I'm an extremely bad photographer. Really, I'm complete crap. I don't consider myself a photographer at all, FTM. I'm a biologist with a fascination for certain animals, and the whole reason why I took up photography again is to shoot critter pix. Click away, just hope the eye of the animal is more or less in focus, crop afterwards to correct the "composition" of the image (yeah, I know more advanced people actually do that in the viewfinder BEFORE taking the picture ;-)). However, increased contact with a Nikon-F3-HP-toting semi-professional photographer neighbour recently inspired me to actually go develop my photography skills, which is also a main reason for me to join this list. Apologies for the verbosity, but now you know where I come from...don't expect high-quality technical comments from me, I'll probably be lurking-and-learning mostly ;-).
Right, back to the MZ-6. Overall, I'm severely impressed by this thing. I've had it for slightly over a year now, and it has become my main body. Although I had never heard of the term "pentamirror" before it came up on this list a few weeks ago, for shooting with f=600/8 (or worse) lenses the MZ-6's viewfinder and focusing screen give me a lot of extra clarity compared to the MX (with standard focusing screen, I don't have a clear one) and the ME-F. I find I can actually focus now, where focusing on the matte parts of the M-series screens was a major pain (forget the focusing aids, they just go black). (Of course, when using faster, shorter lenses and slow-moving "targets", nothing beats the focusing aids in the MX's screen + viewfinder, but that's beside the point for my purposes.)
As far as the AF goes...well, we simply don't get along. The MZ-6 was a package deal with a Pentax FA SMC 35-80 1:4-5.6 and a Tamron 80-210 1:4.5-5.6 autofocus zoom. Even when I close the aperture a bit to get an increased depth-of-field, I find that I have a difference of opinion with the AF about what is considered "in focus"... the results are invariably better when I use the camera and those lenses in MF mode (which I do, 90% of the time). This has annoyed me at various instances where the lighting conditions weren't too great (so I can't increase the depth of field without risking motion blur).... take this photo for instance (http://uk.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_dude_in_the_suit/detail?.dir=/e4f3&.dnm=622b.jpg). This shot was taken with the Tamron, at f=210/5.6. The eye of the lizard (Eastern Emerald Lizard, Lacerta viridis, male, in northern Slovenia) is just out-of-focus, while the parasites (ticks, I gather) on his shoulder are IN focus, probably because they are in the center of the frame.
I don't know if this is typical for AF in general or just for the MZ-6 (or my flawed technique, FTM... I took this shot within a month after buying the camera), but these days I wouldn't take a shot like that with AF.
Sometimes the AF does work quite well though, as this pic demonstrates (http://uk.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_dude_in_the_suit/detail?.dir=/e4f3&.dnm=ab1b.jpg)... taken during the same shoot, the female that was living with the male pictured before.
About the other features of the camera.... as said, this is my only AF ever, so I cannot compare it to the MZ-5n or MZ-3. The picture functions work quite well, but to be honest it's just as easy to override them if you have time. Just for quick snapshots (the "share with friends and relatives" type) it's useful. I like the fact that the camera can operate as manually as you want it to ...it does a fair impression of an MX that way (although of course it will never work without a power supply, which I still find the best trait of the MX). It has a number of "Pentax functions" that allow one to customise operation of the camera (e.g., the range of the scale in exposure time correction and the actual exposure steps in auto-bracketing mode, both very useful for photographing birds in flight).
Finally durability... that's where I see some crimson flags going up. I really don't like the fact that the camera is made out of plastic, although that may be unrealistic bias on my part - ample plastics are more durable than aluminium. At least the lens mount is metal. What worries me most is that the specs list ends with "number of exposures: 5000". Now, I REALLY hope that number signifies the number of exposures per set of batteries (it more or less corresponds with the listed number of films per battery set) and not the number of exposures before the shutter wears out. If there's a remote chance it is the latter, that would be something to be cautious about.
Anyway, this concludes my reviewette... I've left out the flash functionality, because I haven't used the flash except for snap shots, so far. I aim to dedicate a film to all that though, as I recently bought the dedicated camera adapter for my Metz flash. Let me know if you want me to look up or try out something.
Later, Zed (33, male, Amsterdam, NL)
(Oh, BTW, just in case a gear list is standard requirement for newbies:)
Bodies in use:
MZ-6, MX (with winder), ME-F (with winder)
Lenses in use:
SMC Pentax-M 1:1.7 50 mm
SMC Pentax-M 1:3.5 28 mm
(I also have SMC-M 135 and 35 mm lenses which have been on permanent loan to someone, as I never use them).
SMC Pentax-FA 1:4-5.6 35-80 mm zoom
Tamron (for Pentax-FA) 1:4.5-5.6 80-210 mm zoom
Novoflex 1:8 600 mm with fast-focusing grip "B" and bellows
Sigma 1:8 600 mm CAT (pretty cool thing, though no match for the Novoflex in image quality)
Soligor 1.7x tele converter for Pentax FA (obscenely good for the price, BTW)
Panagor 2x tele converter (obscenely crap, even for the price).
Flash:
Metz 32 z-2
Main film:
Fuji Provia 400, usually pushed a few stops.
Some photos:
http://uk.photos.yahoo.com/the_dude_in_the_suit
(the "reptiles and amphibians" albums, more later). Everything "corrected" with photoshop, obviously.
At 01:23 22/08/04, you wrote:
From: Toralf Lund <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: MZ-6? Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
John Whittingham wrote:
>Those Penta-mirrors are terrible or so I've been told, > It didn't look that bad inside the shop, but maybe that's not much to go by.
> the MZ-5/5n/3 are >reasonable but not brilliant with the prism. I guess I was spoilt with the >MX. > I've never looked through an MX viewfinder - which from what I hear is just as well when you're stuck with a different one. I have an ME Super, though, and its viewfinder is definitely better, or at least larger (in terms magnification ratio) than the one on PZ-20 (my other camera) - and the MZ-6 on felt similar one to that, but I should really have compared them more closely (I actually had the PZ-20 in my bag when trying the MZ-6.)
> The viewfinder glass on my MZ-3 is positively awfull to view through, I >use manual focus mainly despite having several AF lenses. > Really? I don't mind turning the focus ring manually myself, but I still often rely on the "in-focus" indicator of the AF-system.
> The MZ-6 is one
>very well specified camera but not very intuitive from the reports I've read,
>but I guess you just get used to it.
>
Hopefully. Actually, I rarely care how intuitive an interface is, I
think the most important thing is that it's efficient once you've
learned how to use it.
> I'd have to try one before I buy, I like
>to be able to adjust everything without taking my eye from the viewfinder, I
>can with the MZ-3.
>
>
I would guess that the viewfinder info is the same as on the MZ-3/5n,
but I could be wrong...
>John
