Re: Leica point and shoots.

[Jeff Moore <jbm@instinet.com>]

Duane Birkey <dbirkey@hcjb.org.ec> wrote:
> Wall Street Camera has a bunch of the Mini, Mini II and now Mini III 
> cameras.  Does anyone have a recommendation between the three quality 
> wise or reasons why I should buy the Mini III over the Mini or Mini II. 
> I don't need a zoom and a Minilux would take away from buying other M 
> EQ.  

Well...  I've seen snaps taken with a Minilux, and they really look good.  It 
might just be worth re-prioritizing the budget.

It's not clear to me that there's any particular advantage to buying a 
Leica-logoed plastic point-and-shoot like the Minis;  in that realm, at least 
consider the $150 Yashica T4 Super with its Zeiss-designed Tessar, its modicum 
of weather resistance, its auxiliary right-angle `sneaky' finder, and its 
half-meter close focus.  Downsides: point-and-shoot oriented controls, 
including an easy-to-pass-accidentally transition between lock-the-focus and 
take-the-picture shutter depressions;  and some difficulty guesstimating 
parallax adjustment (because the close-focus framing lines fall so far into 
the frame, in turn because the camera focuses to 0.5M instead of 0.7).

I *do* applaud your choice to avoid the zooms in favor of a prime lens.

 -Jeff