Originally posted by wasser I made a similar move. Years ago my dad gave me his old Spotmatic and lenses. Transitioning to a DSLR has been really easy. The hardest part has been simply adapting to all the technology in the DSLR; it was really odd adjusting the apeture from the body.
Glad to hear your reassurances. I didn't learn on the spotmatic, but using it was quite simple. On other non-dslr type cameras, such as my wife's fuji s7000, all of the controls are on the camera and i like to shoot that in manual mode most of the time. i like to think of myself as a student of photography and shooting that camera in manual mode has forced me to learn some things.
Originally posted by wasser However, the Spotmatic was designed for manual focus so it has a focusing screen to assist. Scroll to the bottom of this page and you'll see some comparisons of different focusing screens. DSLRs have nothing to assist manual focusing; the screen is basically as clear as the beautiful images you posted.
i've got to get out the spotmatic. i don't remember which of those images you so kindly pointed me at was representative of what i remember seeing through the spotmatic. i found the design for focusing the spotmatic very intuitive. i must've been doing it wrong, or it was just that intuitive, cuz i don't remember that circle being as significant to my composition as maybe what i am being relayed to right now as it's significance in digital camera bodies. maybe i am just misreading.
seeing as how i want to go down the manual route, do you suggest i get one of these focusing screens installed on whatever body i end up purchasing? is there a suggested/better screen?
thanks everyone for all of this useful info. it might take me months of reading and still not come up with all the info packed into this forum.
az