Re: [Leica]Konica Hexar...It ain't no Leica..

[Gaifana@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/14/00 11:54:53 AM, dstate1@hotmail.com opined:
(and Dante, who passed over an M6TTL for the RF this week, replies, having 
blown through sixteen rolls of film testing the RF over the weekend, in 
temperatures from 75 degrees F down to 15:)

<< I had my first opportunity to fondle the new Konica Hexar RF over the 
weekend.  A camera that was described by the dealer as the Konica M6...what 
a load of hooey that is..

You're right. It's not an M6. The finish and materials are nicer than a black 
chrome M6. The styling is cleaner. The controls are better. The on/off switch 
is better. The loading is easier, with one hand. You can see the 28mm frames. 
You can shoot wide-open with high-speed film. The shutter is stepless and 
quartz-timed. You can synch at twice the speed and shoot at twice the speed. 
The metering pattern is more usable. No, it's not better.

>>>Sadly the camera looks a lot better on the net than it does in your hands. 
 
The squared frame makes is look like a plank of wood, and it feels a bit 
like one in your hands.

If it's a plank of wood, then planks of wood have much better natural grip 
surfaces than do the M6. I think that it's pretty tough to hold onto 
something as small as the right end of an M6 - they're not designed for 
bigger hands. 

>>>The lens mounted in a very un-Leica way...Sticky!  It felt like I was 
jamming a chisel into a block of wood..

Zzzzz. I have one in front of me, and it's pretty hard to duplicate your 
negative experience with this. And it's irrelevant to any performance 
measure. 

>>>The viewfinder was bright and clear, with only a hint of pincussion 
distortion of the 28mm frames.  The rangefinder was a little antsy.  It may 
be the shorter base line, but it was easy to overshoot your target of focus. 
  The biggest flaw with the finder to me was the lack of contrast in the 
focusing patch. Focusing an M6 is really easier in low contrast situations.

This is a nice rationalization, but the M6 patch is neither as bright nor as 
flare resistant. I have tried for about a week to flare out the RF on the 
Hexar, and it so far hasn't worked. When I compared it to an M6 directly, the 
M6 came out quite poorly in the flare department. There is nothing lacking 
about the RF, and if you can see, you can focus.

>>>My biggest gripe is with the shutter speed dial placement. It is a thumb 
wheel and it is very difficult to work the dial while keeping your index 
finger on the shutter button.  Clearly Konica expects users to keep this 
thing in Aperture Priority most of the time.  The meter is a bit hard to get 
used to, with shutter speed numbers dancing up and down on the left side of 
the veiwfinder.

Three responses to that:
(1) Shutter speed numbers dancing in the margin shouldn't be hard to get used 
to for anyone who has bought a camera in the past twenty years. And if you 
compare that to an M6, I'd rather have numbers in the margin, which I can 
ignore, rather than 3 LEDs right in my field of vision. In addition, since 
you know what speed the shutter is at, you can tell just how low it is going. 

(2) The shutter speed wheel is fine and so is the EV comp dial. In fact, the 
key advantage of the placement of the controls is that you can switch the 
camera on and off by feel, which is not possible with the M6TTL.

(3) And if you have AE with exposure lock and a thumbwheel for compensation, 
why does it matter if you never take it out of AE? If you're going to pull 
out a handheld meter, it is easy enough to set the shutter speed by hand.

The shutter and motor were about as quiet as the Contax G's, and
the quality of materials was similar but without the beautiful shape and 
color.

The G2's color is a liability. And it's materials simply aren't as nice. And, 
frankly, it's pretty ugly compared to the Hexar. 

>>>I know this sounds pretty negative, but I really expected more considering 
the hype and the price of this camera (1950.00 with 50mm F2).  The handling 
really leaves something to be desired, especially considering the fact that 
all they had to do was match a camera that has been on the market since the 
50's.

I would expect, for $2200, more than a camera body made in the 1950s. If it's 
not a match, I would have to ask you where the waiting list for M6s is.

If you have bigger hands, the handling is superior to the M6, which I suspect 
was a continuation of the design of the M3, which in turn is a lot like the 
screwmounts, which are TOO DAMN SMALL TO HOLD. 

>>>The excitment over this fairly average camera really points out the void 
in 
the market for an Aperture Priority M...Leica, are you listening?  Contax 
should also be looking at this market.  I'll wager that a manual focus G 
would out-sell the auto be a large margin..

Which is why Contax is making it? Leica is probably not listening.

Cheers
Dante