I ordered three used Stylus Epic zooms of various kinds from KEH
recently and am busy running some test film through them. Why? There's
some history involved.
I bought a Stylus Epic 35-70 zoom for my wife around 1993. She couldn't
master the focus lock, so she got a lot of shots of two out-of-focus
people with lovely sharp background items in the distance. So she
didn't think the camera was very good and I bought her a N*Kon P&S which
was technically OK but the ugliest thing in a cheap motel room for
looks. I used the Stylus Epic and discovered it takes wonderful
pictures. The N*kon broke where they always do (rewind feature), so my
wife took the Stylus back and I taught her how to lock focus and she
discovered it was a good camera. I have since tried to get her using
other cameras (OM-2S, OMPC, IS-50) but she won't change. Now my
daughter wants to use this camera too.
So I picked up two used ones from KEH, one to give to my daughter for
her b-day in May and another as a backup for my wife. I picked up a
Stylus Epic 80 for myself to carry in my briefcase.
I noticed a surprising difference between the 80 and the 70 zooms. On
the 70 when you push the remote and flash buttons simultaneously, you
get "spot mode". It's not quite as good as a spot meter because it
links both focus and exposure to the same spot. This is based on a
reasonable assumption, but one which limits the use of the spot function
somewhat in my estimation. The 80 doesn't have the spot function when
you push the remote and flash buttons simultaneously. Instead, you get
an automatic exposure compensation of +1.5 stops. But at least you can
focus on anything you want. Seems to be a throwback to the XA.
I'll have to see how the experiments on the slide film come out, but
theoretically neither method seems altogether precise enough for slide
film. I don't expect to shoot a lot of slide film in these cameras, but
I want to shoot enough to figure out how they are really dealing with
focus and exposure.
Has anyone been down this road?
Joel W.
The olympus mailinglist olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe: mailto:olympus-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe
To contact the list admins: mailto:olympusadmin@xxxxxxxxxx?subject="Olympus
List Problem"
|