Hi, Boris. > Once one of my friends who was witnessing me getting almost mad > trying to figure out what to buy - Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax > told me this: "Whatever camera you choose, it will take excellent > pictures"... Which is not so trivial if you stop for a moment and > think of it.
Good point - <g>. > 1. On DS the viewfinder most likely will be penta-mirror. For me > the D's viewfinder was like a blessing compared to penta-mirror of > my MZ-6. A penta-mirror might not be my ideal (unless it would indeed be as good as a pentaprism), since manual focus ability is important to me (who has a lot of manual focus K-mount lenses). > 2. DS is not going to have shiftable program, a.k.a. hyper modes > (program and manual). I lived without this with my MZ-6, but when, > thanks to Jostein, I could hold Z-1 in my hands, I realized what I > was missing. It is very, very convenient. Well, I can't even remember the last time I ever used anything except Manila exposure or (more frequently) aperture-priority autoexposure. I have never actually used a program mode before (except to try it out on the first "program body" I ever had, the Super Program). I'm not meaning to demean "hyper modes", mind you, but I just have no experience with them, and, therefore, no (yet known) need for them (like you, I guess, before you used them on Jostein's Z-1). > 3. DS has all those scene based modes - portrait, landscape, etc. > What happens, is that mostly judging from the distance reported by > the lens, the camera will decide which sub-program to choose. This > is in a sense a substitute to shiftable program. D has other > choices - Normal, Depth, MTF, Speed. Those are more abstract > programs so to say, but I often find that switching between them > is very convenient. In fact, all three user pre-sets are the same > in my D except the program line. I use Normal, Depth and MTF. I > can shift to speed if I have to. To me it is mighty convenient. I guess as long as I could do what I want (and could change my mind from what the camera "thinks" I want), I'd be OK. I could probably even live with some silly pictograms, too - <g>. > 4. DS is supposed to be more plasticky and it is designed so that > there'll be no grip for it. I lived with plasticky MZ-6 and > couldn't really complain. Nonetheless I like the sturdy feel of D > much better than that of MZ-6. I don't have the grop for D but > have grip for MZ-6. Eventually I hope I would buy the grip for D. > I think it could be benefitial. Ooh - the ability to put a grip on the camera body would likely be very important to me - that'd be a definite consideration. (I use a lot of bulky telephotos, and I think I'd like to use AA's for power.) Hmmm... > Is it worth the money - it is your choice. Part of the problem is that I would not simply be choosing between the *ist DS and the *ist D - the choice might be between the *ist DS ~soon~ and the *ist D ~later~ - <g>. Thanks for your thoughts. Fred
