Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/16

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Subject: [Leica] [OT] A2 quick comments and pics
From: richard-lists at imagecraft.com (Richard F. Man)
Date: Fri Apr 16 00:12:48 2004

<Delete if not interested>

Some people might be interested in this. I promise I will not talk any more 
about the A2 (unless asked etc.) though.

Overall comments - it's "my wife's camera," but I got to play with it a 
bit. The anti-shake is pretty amazing, this is a 1/2 sec indoor shot: 
http://www.dragonsgate.net/karisusama/LJpics/NewMinolta/Silkworms.jpg It's 
sharp enough for web and for 4x6 for sure. The color is fairly nice and 
accurate. I don't see much of the "plastic" look on skin that I detest from 
some of the digital cameras (e.g. just look at the ads from Sigma, or even 
Nikon dSLR, eek): 
http://www.dragonsgate.net/karisusama/LJpics/NewMinolta/SleepyAndBunny.jpg 
The macro mode with the flash compensation work fine together: 
http://www.dragonsgate.net/karisusama/LJpics/NewMinolta/SilkwormCalligraphy.jpg 
Finally, just to show other things that we do: 
http://www.dragonsgate.net/karisusama/LJpics/NewMinolta/ChenForm.jpg 
http://www.dragonsgate.net/karisusama/LJpics/NewMinolta/TaiChiPushHands.jpg

Pluses: Anti shake. Manual focus works fine. It's really nice to be in 
Quickview mode and get back to shooting by lightly pressing the shutter. 
The EVF/LCD is very nice. the auto switching between the EVF and LCD is a 
great feature. Manual zoom. Can't stand electronic zoom. Nice control layout.

Minuses: slow shutter lag. Not that it is really slow, it's probably as 
good as most digicam, but it is no OM, let alone Leica. After pre-focusing, 
the lag time is probably still in the order of .2 to .4 seconds. The OM is 
around .12 and the Leica is in the order of .014. You really get spoiled 
with lag time like that. Image write time also takes, I don't know, may be 
a second or so. Just long enough to be noticeable. I didn't try any of the 
quick burst mode. I bought the WA card even though I am 99% certain that it 
doesn't do anything more on the A2. The grip is a bit weird shaped for my 
small hand.

Haven't shot enough to comment on image quality or noise or white balance 
etc. Overall it is a good camera. For the time being, I will still be using 
my OM and Leica, my trusty Jobo processor and Nikon 4000 scanner to have a 
semi-digital workflow.


// richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, please 
use richard@imagecraft.com)