Zoom Point & Shoots

Spavinaw said:
Some have a Schneider Variogon lens. Others have a Rollei Phototechnic VarioApogon lens. I have no idea which lens might be better.
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They might be the same - Rollei and its associates often changed hands, and with each owner, different branding rules applied. IIRC the Prego 90 was made (or at any rate distributed) by Samsung (then owner of Rollei), and the lens was made (or branded) by the then Korean Samsung-Schneider joint venture, which eventually reverted to Samsung only, along with Samsung divesting itself of Rollei as well. At any rate, after that point, Rollei and Schneider had separate owners, which may have prompted a renaming from Schneider to Rollei (a renaming to Samsung on a camera touted with vague hints of a German origin would have been damaging to its sales).
 
Years, I heard nothing but raves for the huge Olympus IS-3. I had a boss 15 years ago that had one and loved it. I don't own one, so I have no direct experience with it... only hearsay.

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Hmmm... I wonder how much they are on eBay?

Scott
 
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skucera said:
Years, I heard nothing but raves for the huge Olympus IS-3. I had a boss 15 years ago that had one and loved it. I don't own one, so I have no direct experience with it... only hearsay.

Camera%20Search_004.jpg


Hmmm... I wonder how much they are on eBay?

Scott
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Hi,

I think that is what we call an iS-000 over here; if it is them I picked one up a few years ago and was very impressed. I use it regularly, just a couple of weeks ago, f'instance.

I'd be quite happy to own just two cameras and this would be one of them and the other a small P&S with some over rides and a prime lens.

The ED lens is very good, covers a usable range (and there's a wide angle supplementary if you need it). Although it's a film SLR it is very simple to use as it's like a good digital SLR with a wide choice of modes (M, P, A and S) with spot metering, a pop-up flash and a separate dedicated flash and so on. In other words, Olympus's usual practical design.

Also the manual that came with it is brilliant; almost a book about photography.

As for prices, they are almost giving them away over here as it's an oddball by most idiots' standards. Say £10 for a good one and £20 for one with all the trimmings on ebay.

Regards, David

PS (EDIT) I would have called this a SLR not a P&S.
 
Hi,

Not really bumping this but here's a long article about the iS series:-

http://esif.world-traveller.org/om-sif/is-series/is-series.htm

BTW, I mentioned being happy with two cameras and this being one of them. The other would be the Contax Tix which (alas) is APS but is almost perfect as small pocket cameras with prime lenses go, and one or two of them go the extra mile.

And, yes, I realise they are both film.

Regards, David
 
BillBingham2 said:
I remember a P&S that had a manual zoom that looked really interesting way back than. Can't remember if it was Nikon or Vivitar Series-1. Everyone went power-zoom so it didn't last long if I remember right. I still don't feel comfortable with a power zoom, but that's me.

B2 (;->
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Vivitar Tec 155.

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skucera said:
Years, I heard nothing but raves for the huge Olympus IS-3. I had a boss 15 years ago that had one and loved it. I don't own one, so I have no direct experience with it... only hearsay.

Camera%20Search_004.jpg


Hmmm... I wonder how much they are on eBay?

Scott
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David Hughes said:
Hi,

I think that is what we call an iS-000 over here; if it is them I picked one up a few years ago and was very impressed. I use it regularly, just a couple of weeks ago, f'instance.

I'd be quite happy to own just two cameras and this would be one of them and the other a small P&S with some over rides and a prime lens.

The ED lens is very good, covers a usable range (and there's a wide angle supplementary if you need it). Although it's a film SLR it is very simple to use as it's like a good digital SLR with a wide choice of modes (M, P, A and S) with spot metering, a pop-up flash and a separate dedicated flash and so on. In other words, Olympus's usual practical design.

Also the manual that came with it is brilliant; almost a book about photography.

As for prices, they are almost giving them away over here as it's an oddball by most idiots' standards. Say £10 for a good one and £20 for one with all the trimmings on ebay.

Regards, David

PS (EDIT) I would have called this a SLR not a P&S.
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Just now resurrecting our specimen (birthday present for wife in 1999(?). First roll in progress...
 
I ended up getting an IS-3dlx off of eBay, and it arrived today. It's clean, and came to life with new batteries. I loaded a roll of film, so we'll see what it does.

David is right... this thing is an SLR. It's also much bigger than I remember. My boss may have had one of the smaller but similar models that Olympus sold back in the late Nineties. It also offers full manual operation, though the controls are utterly unique to do it. I've got to RTFM now....

[Edit: Oh, it was $10 + s&h.]

Scott
 
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Oh dear, this is proving to be an expensive thread for others. Apologies for that but - if it's any consolation - the Fuji X100 etc threads turned out to be expensive for me...

Anyway, I hope you are happy with them. It's an easy beast to master; once you've RTFM.

EDIT:- Having RTFM, what did you think of it? I like it very much as it gives you a lot more detail and so on than other manuals.

Regards, David
 
skucera said:
I ended up getting an IS-3dlx off of eBay, and it arrived today. It's clean, and came to life with new batteries. I loaded a roll of film, so we'll see what it does.

David is right... this thing is an SLR. It's also much bigger than I remember. My boss may have had one of the smaller but similar models that Olympus sold back in the late Nineties. It also offers full manual operation, though the controls are utterly unique to do it. I've got to RTFM now....

[Edit: Oh, it was $10 + s&h.]

Scott
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That reminds me of the Chinon Genesis, which I loved!
Chinon-Chinon-Genesis.jpg
 
I've had very good luck with the Olympus Stylus Zoom. I literally wore one out and bought another before they discontinued it.
 
David Hughes said:
Anyway, I hope you are happy with them. It's an easy beast to master; once you've RTFM.

EDIT:- Having RTFM, what did you think of it? I like it very much as it gives you a lot more detail and so on than other manuals.

Regards, David
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I "skimmed" through its 96 pages last night, and it impressed me with the thoughtfulness they designed the camera. It has capabilities I've never seen on a point-and-shoot. It's as if they were competing with Canon EOS cameras, and were swinging for the fences.

I've got a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX55 that handles much like this monster. There was a Leica version of that camera too, back in the day. Both used the excellent Leica zoom lens. Funny, but I dug it out of the back of the closet and charged its battery too. I used that camera for years, and loved it.

Scott
 
skucera said:
I "skimmed" through its 96 pages last night, and it impressed me with the thoughtfulness they designed the camera. It has capabilities I've never seen on a point-and-shoot. It's as if they were competing with Canon EOS cameras, and were swinging for the fences.

I've got a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX55 that handles much like this monster. There was a Leica version of that camera too, back in the day. Both used the excellent Leica zoom lens. Funny, but I dug it out of the back of the closet and charged its battery too. I used that camera for years, and loved it.

Scott
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Hi,

It's interesting the way Olympus often seem to go out on a limb and then you realise that they were right and all the others were wrong. They've done it time and time again; it's quite an achievement.

Regards, David
 
The nice thing about the Contax TVS (version I) is that you can get filters for it. I think they are 30.5mm or something, but you can find them on Ebay or filterfind.net. It's a nice camera. I don't remember off hand if the flash is auto or not but I think it can be turned off before taking the photo (don't have it with me at the moment sorry). I do like the wide to normal zoom length.
 
The main problem w/ P&S zooms is that by their very nature they have slow lenses. Since these cameras use AE, if you have a slow zoom you are going to have a slow shutter speed at long focal lengths, which will cause shaky pics. As you need more exposure as you go up in focal length, there is really no way around this problem unless you either put the camera on a tripod (which defeats the whole purpose of owning a P&S camera), or use really fast film. That will cause over exposure on the shorter focal lengths because the P&S cameras usually do not have a high top shutter speed, but at least you can mitigate that w/ filters. And the trouble there is that P&S cameras often do not have threads that you can screw a filter on to, and if they do, you won't be able to retract the lens w/ one on it.

I had an Olympus zoom for a while, and the image quality was not nearly as good as the fixed lens camera. My take on this is to buy the camera that has the best fixed lens you can find and crop the shots rather than use a zoom that will degrade your pics. If you want high quality zoom shots, you need an SLR.
 
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