Thanks for the warm welcome, all ;-).
Kostas wrote:
OK, forgive me if stating the obvious here.
By all means. I've always wondered why the Litany of All Saints doesn't contain a Patron Saint of the Obvious (Saint D�h!, for instance). We need one. At least I do, more often than I actually care to admit.
Do you know that you can autofocus, keep the shutter half-pressed and then adjust the composition to your liking; the area that was in focus initially will stay in focus even if not in the centre of the picture anymore.
Yeah, I figured that out later ;-). But thanks anyway, this would typically be something I would miss and just find out when I retire the camera. During that same holiday in Slovenia (where I shot the lizards), I ran into a snake (Coluber viridiflavus carbonarius, the Balkan race of the Yellow-Green Racer, for sake of logic lacking any yellow or green on its jet-black body). A big basking female that had just shed her skin, giving her a nice and shiny appearance (http://uk.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_dude_in_the_suit/detail?.dir=/e4f3&.dnm=534d.jpg). As is obvious from the picture, there was an annoying little piece of grass in my field of vision, and of course the camera kept focusing on it. I realised that by repeatedly depressing the shutter control, the camera went looking for alternatives to focus on, and when I held the thing it stayed in focus. Yay! (Subsequently I learnt why these snakes are called "racers" in English, so it was the only shot I could take. Their Dutch name translates to "wrath snakes", which doesn't really prepare one for a snake darting AWAY from you with lightning speed. Ridiculous name.).
Don't worry, I have since read the camera manual ;-).
[Alternatingly, either Toralf or I wrote something: [snipped and edited for sake of more confusion]
Now, then... The pictures you point to below aren't that bad at all, especially for a non-photographer. (Now, I hope you weren't fishing for compliments here...)
Heheh. You should see the other 99% of my photos. Those would clarify my comments to an extent that would make me want to hide from the world forever.
(Re: viewfiender)
Really? Are you also comfortable with the size of the viewfinder image? I mean, the magnification factor is quite a bit lower than on the MX/ME cameras, as far as I know.
It is indeed, and it's really noticeable in an A/B comparison. I don't find it problematic in any way though (though I have good eyesight, maybe that's an issue). For tripod work, I tend to use a Refconverter with a 2x magnification option, allowing me to focus a bit more critically. However, I rarely use a tripod (boring wader bird shots, mostly), as I'm fairly lazy and don't want to carry around too much stuff.
Anyway, I think it depends a lot on personal taste and requirements. Currently, I mostly do shots of birds in flight, and the low-magnification viewfinder makes it a bit easier to lock on a peregrine falcon dive-bombing a pigeon, so to say ;-).
Also, how about the camera controls? Some say they are somewhat counter-intuitive.
Hmm... hard to say. If I were king of the world, each camera would simply come with three controls: [1] on/off, [2] sunny/cloudy, [3] broken. Obviously, the third button is only for the professional user who knows to leave it alone. Ah..my faithful Agfa Click-y!
But yeah, some controls are in strange places for someone (like me) who has only used M-series bodies before. I rely on exposure overruling a lot (moving small dots in bright blue skies tend to lead to underexposure), and where on the MX I'd simply set the shutter speed "wrong" and on the ME-F I'd turn the correction ring, on the ME-F I have to push a button, then tap on a lever several times and by the time I'm ready the bird is gone. Alternatively, I can just rapidly measure light on a tree, a building or whatever resembles the colors and contrasts of the bird most, push the exposure lock, and then take a picture. That actually works a lot faster and more accurate than overexposing by estimation alone.
But anyway, I don't have any experience with more advanced (i.e., not present on M-series) functions on other cameras, so I can't really make a fair comparison. All I can say is that it took me little time to work and understand them, and when I switch to the MX or ME-F I don't have to do a "mental re-set" to operate their controls intuitively.
Also, how easy (or hard) do you think it is to do various adjustments while looking through the viewfinder?
Because there are so many functions (again, compared to an MX or ME-F), I do find that I prefer to look at the control when I make an initial "big" adjustment. It's perfectly possible to keep looking in the viewfinder while doing this (the settings appear in the viewfinder while one turns the knob), but it just feels a bit silly.
And how about the visibility of the viewfinder (Aperture/Exposure time) display? On my PZ-20, it's hard to read in bright light.
I find this visibility excellent. Often I find myself wielding a 600 mm lens (the old kind, actually 600 mm long) at the sky to capture some %^&* fast-flying falcon or something, and despite the fact that I mostly see bright sky in the viewfinder, all settings are clearly visible.
... and I don't take pictures like that. In fact, a dislike for
wedding/christening/children-learning-to-walk/holiday/take-a-picture-or-you-may-forget-it
type pictures kept me away from photography for years. But I digress...
Sometimes they're fun though. A couple of weeks ago I shot this "household" picture of one of my girlfriend's cats. He had just brought in a mouse he killed in her garden, and was flinging the lifeless little mouse through the air. I just shot away (with the internal flash in operation, actually), and this is one shot that amuses me somehow, although from a technical point of view it's pretty much crapissimo (nasty shadows, cat facing away from the camera): http://uk.f1.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/the_dude_in_the_suit/detail?.dir=/9f0f&.dnm=8e99.jpg
Yes. Thanks... But apart from what I've mentioned already, I can't think of anything.
OK ;-).
Damn, I was hoping to find someone who really hated this camera,
There must be a Minolta forum somewhere ;-).
Glad to be of service, Z.
