ddb@mrvax.DEC (DAVID DYER-BENNET MRO1-2/L14 DTN 231-4076) (05/01/85)
>DIODES IN THE FINDER??? I mean, LITTLE RED PLUSES AND MINUSES??? Absolutely. Needles are too delicate for serious work, when there is a good alternative. >The biggest deal in match needle exposure reading for me is that you >not only know whether you are under or over exposure, but BY HOW MUCH. >And not the paltry 1 stop or so those plus and minus signs give you. I haven't used an FE or FE-2 (I bought FM and FM-2, because I didn't want little needles waggling around in my viewfinder :-), but on my Miranda and Pentax cameras (old, no longer with me) the match-needle setup didn't give me anything except "right on" and +/- half stop. Same as the lights in my FM[-2] > The >only FM owner I know of went to LED's because she couldn't see the needle >through her glasses. I went to FM because of increased ruggedness (partly on the recommendation of some professional friends of mine). > Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.) > {pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr}!wjvax!ron > "What do you mean you backed it up the wrong direction???" -- David Dyer-Bennet UUCP: ...!{allegra|decvax|ihnp4|purdue|shasta|utcsrgv}! decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-mrvax!ddb Arpa: ddb%mrvax.DEC@decwrl.ARPA DEC ENET: Dyer-Bennet@KL2102, mrvax::ddb Compuserve: 74756,723 AT&T/NYNEX: (617) 467-4076 (work) (617) 562-2130 (home)
ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (05/02/85)
Me: >>The biggest deal in match needle exposure reading for me is that you >>not only know whether you are under or over exposure, but BY HOW MUCH. >>And not the paltry 1 stop or so those plus and minus signs give you. David: >I haven't used an FE or FE-2 (I bought FM and FM-2, because I didn't >want little needles waggling around in my viewfinder :-), but on my >Miranda and Pentax cameras (old, no longer with me) the match-needle >setup didn't give me anything except "right on" and +/- half stop. >Same as the lights in my FM[-2] *** I think you are confused. The display in the FE[-2] shows the entire shutter speed range. The needle can be anywhere in that range. You adjust exposure by matching a little green flag over the needle with the shutter speed knob, or adjusting the aperture until the needle matches the green flag. This is 'match needle'. I think you are referring to the little needle that you have to keep between a '+' and a '-' in some of the older cameras. (Like my grandfather's Mamiya, and the Nikkormat and F2.) David again: >I went to FM because of increased ruggedness (partly on the recommendation of >some professional friends of mine). > -- David Dyer-Bennet Well, I guess one could make a case for diodes being more rugged than needles. (Grumble grumble.) But the important thing here is, is your camera rugged *enough*? I'm very hard on cameras, and I've yet to have the slightest problem with the metering on my FE. (Hey, it just had a birthday!) The shutter has stuck exactly twice, but I'm told this happens when your battery is losing it's grunt. For that matter, my old Pentax auto 110 has been around the world twice, and it, uh, doesn't workanymore.... Never mind. I should confess that my original article was more than a little tongue- -in-cheek. It really doesn't matter what equipment you use, as long as you're out there taking pictures. The poor FE *has* taken some abuse in this newsgroup which I feel is undeserved. But hell, it's all a matter of preference. I wouldn't be caught dead with a rich man's toy like the FA, for instance. Or any of those plastic do-everything cameras. But friends of mine have them, and I try to be tolerant. (:-)) -- __ Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.) {pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix,vecpyr,certes}!wjvax!ron "What do you mean you backed it up the wrong direction???"
hkr4627@acf4.UUCP (Hedley K. J. Rainnie) (05/02/85)
Whoops. I'm sorry to have started this needle vs. led thing. Actually, I've always thought that the FG had a nice readout, 11 led's simulating a match needle setup. The blinking one is the correct exposure and the constant is your setting. Another comment about Nikon viewfinders. Why is it that the FM2 has its information on three sides of the viewfinder? Seems a trifle hard to get that all in one eyeful. -r-