> My personal vote for most under-rated Pentax is the Program Plus.
I have to agree with Bruce on this one. I personally own two of them (one is actually an identical Program A), but they're the Rodney Dangerfields of the Pentax lineup here. I use them (mated to a user A 70-210/4, a user A* 300/4, and two Winder ME II's) for my dedicated whale watching camera bodies. They exist here solely to be taken out into the rain and the salt spray, where I simply don't want to take any of my LX's or Super Programs. The "trimode" Program Plus was produced as a stripped-down version of the "multimode" Super Program, which means that it was intentionally and literally underrated by Pentax designers to start with. Back in the mid-70's, many people bought these critters because they were cheaper than the Super Program. Nowadays, where Super Programs are getting cheaper and cheaper on eBay, it takes very little money to "upgrade" from getting a used Program Plus to getting a Super Program. "Can't get no respect..." Used as my whale watch bodies, I personally don't have any problems with the shortage of exposure modes in the Program A (I use aperture-priority autoexposure and manual exposure modes 100% of the time). I don't have any problem with the lack of illumination for the viewfinder's LCD display panel and I don't miss the lack of TTL flash, since I use them only during the day (it's tough to watch whales at night). The loss of the 1/2000 shutter speed is not a problem - with f/4 lenses I can get along without 1/2000 even at mid-day. I can even overlook the lack of the little red-and-black film advance indicator and the lack of a body-top LCD panel as mere niceties that exist in the "fancy" Super Program. There is one Program Plus feature, though, that shows a distinct improvement, in my book, over the Super Program. The shutter mode dial is ~so~ much easier to operate with one hand (heck - even just one finger) in the Program Plus. And, this feature ~does~ come in handy while holding onto a deck rail with one hand and a Program Plus rig with the other. Still, even though I depend on my two Program Pluses for use in lousy conditions, they just don't get much respect around here - <g>. Fred - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
