bennison@futbal.DEC (09/16/84)
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First of all, a Nikon FG is hardly bottom of the line, there are at least
three Nikons below it in terms feature set. Secondly, if you paid 350-400
for an FG and SB-15, you paid too much, unless you opted for the F1.4 lens.
Otherwise, I very much agree with your suggestion. I loved my FG, and when
I could afford it I upgraded to my current FA, keeping all the lenses I had
acquired for the FG. I have been waiting for an excuse to talk about the FA,
so here comes a mini-review:
I LOVE MY FA! The automatic mode of my FG was fooled by many lighting
situations. If I had time to think about it, or realized there was a problem,
I could compensate for it, but I missed many shots and many were ruined.
Cloudy skys, backlighting, and snow were the worst. The FA is very hard to
fool. It divides the image into 5 regions, measures each region and then
sends the readings off to an on-board computer which compares the readings
against a database somehow derived from 10,000 "correctly" exposed photos.
It calculates the F-stop and Aperture and there you are. I believe it also
does some compensation for lens length, i.e., the longer the lens the faster
speed it will pick, or something like that. It lets you know if it doesn't
think it can take the picture, but does its best if you push the button
anyway. By flipping a switch you can get the FG center-weighted metering
system, and in either metering mode you can go full automatic, shutter
preferred, aperture preferred, or manual. I've taken about 15 rolls of
film this summer, and have averaged less than one badly exposed shot per roll,
way better than I ever did with my FG. It also has assorted other features
missing on the FG, like a provision for making multiple exposures. It's only
a smidgeon heavier and bigger than the FG. It has a titanium shutter that
allows you to shoot at 1/4000 second.
Vick Bennison
...decvax!decwrl!rhea!futbal!bennison
(603) 881-2156