After a bit of a wait, I finally got my MZ-S this weekend.
It replaces my aging ZX-5N, which had chronic autofocus sensor problems and
more recently the light metering seems to have gotten flaky, underexposing
very badly at random intervals. This provided me with significant incentive
to overcome my price sensitivity to get a better, more capable camera ...
the MZ-S is the ideal replacement.
Anyway, following are some subjective impressions relative to my old ZX-5N.
It's not all that much bigger than the 5N. A bit chunkier around the grip,
but otherwise not too much different. A bit heavier, but not a steroidal,
bulky behemoth that characterizes other makes.
The MZ-S definitely seems a bit louder. It has a much higher, sharper pitch
to it when firing the shutter and advancing the film. To my ear, the sound
is almost like some Hollywood sound effect a la Star Wars. Most unlike
anything I've ever heard from a camera.
The autofocus is much crisper without anywhere near as much hunting. I've
spent some time experimenting with different scenes, mainly playing a game
with myself trying to figure out how the camera chooses a particular sensor
for focusing.
The control arrangement for manually selecting and changing autofocus
sensors seems quite natural to me ... not as awkward as I was expecting.
The DOF preview is absolute genius....
The viewfinder is bright and clear. The display readouts remained bright
and visible while using the camera outside in direct, bright sunlight. I
did not notice any tendency for the displays to disappear or fade as they
are prone to do with the ZX-5N on sunny days.
The eyecup is very similar, but it fits much more snugly and securely
around the eyepiece. I don't think it will need a rubber band to keep this
one from falling off.
For a camera with a metal alloy body (very nice fit and finish), I was
somewhat surprised that the film loading door is polycarbonate. The door
and the sealing around the edges are virtually identical to the 5N,
although the date back makes it seem a bit more robust.
The remote socket cover is a rubber disk that's rather difficult to remove
(it needs a small handle or extension) unless you have long finger nails.
The remote socket is deep and it seems like it might be prone to
accumulating junk inside if you lose the cover or leave it off for long.
So far, I've run 2 rolls of film through the camera. I'm curious to see how
they turn out. I hope mine is lacking the partially overlapping frames
"feature".
-joe
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