[Picture of an old camera]

I went shutterbugging today, walking along Canal Lachine in Montreal. I exchanged my EOS 20D for a Minolta Dimage Z3 and Nikon F70 (35mm film SLR), for the day. I must say I'm disappointed.

With the Nikon I found two problems. One Nikon, one Sigma:

  • The shutter trigger is too touchy. On the Canon, you half press for exposure and AF measurements. On the Nikon you just touch it. So I shot accidentally on several occasions
  • The zoom ring rotated in the wrong direction. But it was a Sigma lens.

Otherwise, it is convenient and usable. I shot 2 rolls of Black & White.

With the Minolta Dimage Z3, much more problems:

  • The view finder is electronic. You must be blind to appreciate. I just find them inconvenient to not say painfull.
  • The camera is slow: the preview freeze while autofocusing.
  • Electric zooms are slow.
  • Auto-white balance seems to be clumsy as sometime I was not getting the right tone, like pale yellow for a yellow road sign. The 20D software is much more accurate.
  • 400 ISO has a lot of noise. More than at 1600 ISO on the Canon. This size of the sensor is probably part of the reason.
  • The JPEG files don't have the picture orientation encoded. I don't know if it is the camera or that they are encoded in a proprietary way, but this is what is delaying publishing my gallery.

I shot a grand total of 257 pictures. I missed some shots because of the slow zoom and the slow auto-focus.