[raymeedc]

I've been a devoted Pentaxian for almost four decades. Over the course of time, I've owned Olympus, Nikon, & Contax SLRs, but have always returned to Pentax. Consequently, I am quite fortunate to have done so, as the backwards compatibility factor allows me to take advantage of my Takumar prime lens arsenal. Such being the case, I would like very much to extend my loyalty to Prosumer compacts, but unfortunately, Pentax's model lineup won't allow this. For some reason, they have never taken this market segment seriously. My non-DSLR cameras are all Canons (Powershot G6, Powershot Pro 1, & Powershot S70, all 2004 models). All of these allow shooting in RAW & full manual control, absolute necessities for me. Two of these have zooms that start at 28mm. The third has a 2.0 maximum aperture. There isn't one camera in Pentax's history that even competes with models like these..... too bad.

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Last edited by raymeedc; 06-19-2009 at 09:33 AM.

[asdf]

There isn't one camera in Pentax's history that even competes with models like these..... too bad.

That's probably why some forum members own lx3's.

[raymeedc]

That's probably why some forum members own lx3's.

Excellent camera in most respects, with a couple of caveats (no camera, unfortunately, is perfect)..... the telephoto end could have a little more reach, to a portrait lens level of about 85mm or so (although it's easy to forgive this, as you're given a magnificent 24mm on the wide end), and, more importantly, a personal irritation of mine, common to way too many otherwise potentially feasible modern compact cameras..... NO OPTICAL FINDER! And then they have the gall to charge you an additional $200 for an inferior hotshoe mounted uncoupled optional optical finder! Each of my cameras cost me less than this optical finder alone (All purchased used on Ebay with judicious bidding). This was done on some of the earliest, cheapest 35mm compacts before logically incorporating them into the cameras body..... a huge step backwards in time, in my estimation. Call me old-fashioned, but this is practically an essential tool for me..... I hope this is just a passing fad.

[Andi Lo]

Excellent camera in most respects, with a couple of caveats (no camera, unfortunately, is perfect)..... the telephoto end could have a little more reach, to a portrait lens level of about 85mm or so (although it's easy to forgive this, as you're given a magnificent 24mm on the wide end), and, more importantly, a personal irritation of mine, common to way too many otherwise potentially feasible modern compact cameras..... NO OPTICAL FINDER! And then they have the gall to charge you an additional $200 for an inferior hotshoe mounted uncoupled optional optical finder! Each of my cameras cost me less than this optical finder alone (All purchased used on Ebay with judicious bidding). This was done on some of the earliest, cheapest 35mm compacts before logically incorporating them into the cameras body..... a huge step backwards in time, in my estimation. Call me old-fashioned, but this is practically an essential tool for me..... I hope this is just a passing fad.

For a point-and shoot, I'll be honest and say I've never used the optical VF because they're very hard to use... they shutter lag does not allow for precise timing anyway (but I guess it depends on your model). Either way I do think that optical viewfinders will be sooner or later disappear from the lower P&S models. Not sure about bridge cameras...

[nostatic]

NO OPTICAL FINDER!

Call me old-fashioned, but this is practically an essential tool for me..... I hope this is just a passing fad.

Umm, good luck with that. But it probably is a passing fad, like the internet

Different strokes. For p&s I prefer to frame away from my face. It is a different style of shooting, and for street photography I find is much better than using an OVF. Plus, the OVFs on p&s cameras are so small I'd rather jam long steel spikes into my eyes.

For p&s I have a Leica DLux4, roughly the same as the Panny LX3). This is far superior to any p&s I've used in the past, and the 24-60 2.0/2.8 lens is quite good. There is no Pentax equivalent...but they're going for a different niche.

There are a couple of "serious" p&s cameras. The DLux4/LX3, Ricoh GRD2/GX200, Sigma DP-1/DP-2 (though that is APS sensor) and now Oly EP1 (that being u4/3). None of them have OVFs, but you can use a hot shoe mounted OVF on some.

[raymeedc]

You're correct, of course. Very few compacts offer an optical viewfinder any more. Such being the case, I'm going to start shooting more with my screen. If most everyone else is doing it, I'm sure I can become accustomed to shooting in this fashion too. It's probably just a matter of old habits dying hard (I've been shooting for 4 decades). I'm missing out on too many excellent cameras that I don't even consider because of this (the LX3 being one at the top of the list). I do wish, however, that more cameras had a swiveling lcd screen to make this type of shooting a lot easier & more flexible.