Mike, Until you got to #9, I thought you were describing the 67II (other than AF). Ok, ok, so it's not that quiet either. Seriously, if you pick one up and play with it, you'd think "why isn't there an equivalent 35mm body just like this for sale?"
Bruce Wednesday, December 18, 2002, 12:07:19 PM, you wrote: >snip< MJ> Now speaking just for myself, I'd say that my tastes and requirements are so MJ> highly evolved that I probably wouldn't be interested in such a camera MJ> unless it had all the main features I'm personally looking for. MJ> Those are: MJ> 1. A 98% or 100% viewfinder with good "snap" for easy manual focusing MJ> 2. Quiet operation MJ> 3. Short shutter lag (i.e., good responsiveness) MJ> 4. Ability to use manual focus as well as AF lenses MJ> 5. Aperture-priority AE MJ> 6. AE lock MJ> 7. Non-resetting ISO MJ> 8. Diopter adjustment or add-on diopters MJ> 9. Moderate size and light to medium weight (say, up to 26 oz. or so) for MJ> decent portability MJ> 10. General straightforwardness of controls and ease of operation, and not MJ> too many extra controls and features confusing everything. MJ> I'd *certainly* be using an LX if only it had #2, and I'd probably be using MJ> an MZ-S if it had #1. MJ> The problem for a camera designer would be that in order to satisfy the "top MJ> ten" features lists of a LARGE number of photographers, they have to have a MJ> great deal of capability and it has to be very see-through, i.e., it MJ> couldn't be very confusing or feature-laden and it couldn't "dictate" the MJ> way it had to be used, but it would have to be able to satisfy ALL of any MJ> particular advanced photographer's wants. This is a very large order, and MJ> it's got to be damnably tough for a camera designer to accommodate. MJ> For instance, one thing I didn't list is flash capability or high sync MJ> speed, because I don't use flash and I don't give a damn about it. But it's MJ> very easy to anticipate that many, if not most, photographers would demand MJ> excellent flash capability. I haven't specified mirror lock-up or low MJ> vibration because I don't do closeup work or astrophotography. But for MJ> someone who did either of those things, those features would be mandatory. MJ> Slide photographers may not give a hoot for a 100% viewfinder; others would MJ> be very concerned with motor drive capability; landscape photographers may MJ> well not care about quiet operation; and the list goes on and on. MJ> What Abe Lincoln said really holds true here. "You can satisfy some of the MJ> people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you MJ> can't satisfy all of the people all of the time." MJ> No matter WHAT an AF LX would look like, there would still be people who MJ> would find fault with it, be disappointed with it, or loudly complain that MJ> it is missing the one essential feature they wanted. Designing cameras must MJ> be a pretty thankless task. MJ> --Mike
