Newsgroups: rec.photo
From: acs@csri.toronto.edu (Alvin Chia-Hua Shih)
Subject: Re: Canon 10s Vs Nikon N90, Which one?
Date: 29 Dec 92 02:07:52 GMT

In <1992Dec28.192848.1682@porthos.cc.bellcore.com> ditch@prefect.cc.bellcore.com (ditch,r l) writes:

>At the great risk of giving Alvin C. Shih an excuse to post another
>100+ articles, I find that I can no longer sit back quietly while he
>continues to make statements that don't agree with my own experiences.

Your posting was quite level-headed being based upon your experiences.

Sorry my numerous postings have offended you so.  Between Nikon's
overhyping of the F90 and the harping of Nikon owners that Nikon is
"the" professional's camera, I got a bit hot under the collar.

I have seen posted, and heard via email, that Nikon has done some
pretty unkind things to its "amateur" customers (usually over AF
bodies, like the N8008s and the F4).  So, it doesn't seem reasonable to
argue for Nikon based on "Nikon Professional Services".  (Indeed, I
think there are problems buying an F4 from anyone but an "Nikon
Advanced Systems" dealer.)


However, you are using an N8008s as a manual focus body.  The context
in which I was arguing assumes the N8008s and N90 are to be used as
autofocus bodies.  Thus, arguments over the AF, AF-D, and AF-I lenses
become relevant.

One poster has already stated that he would like a split screen for
his N8008s and that using the electronic rangefinder is a problem
because one has to remove one's eye from the subject.  I also find
that with my eyesight, I cannot critically focus, even at 300/5.6,
with the plain matte screen.  At wider angles, it's even worse.

With a manual focusing aid, I can focus to the satisfaction of the AF
confirmation light.  Even with the manual focusing aid, I find AF does
its job much faster than I can.  I only have the screen for times when
the AF system cannot cope (and yes, just to make sure it's working as
advertised).  You raise an interesting point about composition, but
there's no objective way to argue over that.


You seem to agree that all of this new metering technology is not
significantly better than centre-weighted metering.  I certainly
wouldn't miss mult-segment metering if, in the middle of the night,
elves were to replace it with centre-weighted.  So, I believe we are in
agreement here.  (Indeed, it's harder to figure out when to hit the
exposure compensation control in case the camera tried to "outthink"
you.)  So cries of a "revolution" in metering in the F90 offend me.


Compatibility is one of those things one trades for progress.
Certainly, my IBM PC isn't compatible with the Apple ][+ I had so very
long ago (though many say that the IBM PC isn't progress at all :-).
Again, since you are satisfied with MF, and use your body as an MF
body, you do not reap the benefits of a new mount.  I wouldn't mind
being able to mount other kinds of lenses, but since AF is important to
me, I'm willing to live with lack of backward compatibility.  The
problem is that this backwards compatibility is not important to
*new buyers* shopping for an *AF* camera--which was what the original
post as asking about (so very long ago :-).


That being said, I still think lens-integral motors are a great thing.
AF performance is optimized, and with USM, I get near-silent operation
and the ability to manually override focus.  Again, probably not
important to someone who uses MF most of the time, but still a
worthwhile consideration for others.


So, to close this all out, I'm happy that you are satisfied with your
Nikon equipment.  However, by virtue of the way in which you use your
equipment your experience is not entirely relevant to those shopping
for a *new* *AF* camera.

(Besides, I intentionally stayed with the old subject line so that
you could easily kill the subject thread...)

ACS
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