[Lord Lucan]

The camera will use 1/1000 for the first couple of wound frames until it gets to "1".The reason was because it has a 30s maximum shutter speed, so if you had left the camera in "auto" and left the lens cap on, you might end up with having to wait over a minute before getting past the first couple of frames..

They could have made it 1/125 second instead of 1/1000 which would have been more useful, although getting to Frame No 1 would have taken 7/1000 second (x2) longer in that scenario

Pentax must have been catering for a very small and slightly dumb minority. Everyone I knew in film SLR days knew how to squeeze a shot or two before the official Frame No 1 (if the camera allowed it - I don't think autowinders did). I loaded in the darkroom if I could and started taking pictures straight away, and we also knew that if the camera seemed to be taking a long time in auto then take the lens cap off : the manual even told you that.

[Autonerd]

The Super A (and Super Program) are very different from the M-Series cameras in this respect. The camera will use 1/1000 for the first couple of wound frames until it gets to "1".
The reason was because it has a 30s maximum shutter speed, so if you had left the camera in "auto" and left the lens cap on, you might end up with having to wait over a minute before getting past the first couple of frames... which would be accompanied by a lot of profanity and a promise to buy Nikon next time...

I had no idea! Thank you for straightening me out. Yes, I can see why that would be seen as a "convenience"... having run into that same situation with my auto Ms.

Aaron

[ChrisPlatt]

I was never interested in getting Super A/Super Program body due to the meter display.
FWIW I sold my Canon A-1 and never bought a Nikon F3 for their similarly poor displays.

Chris

[Wheatfield]

They could have made it 1/125 second instead of 1/1000 which would have been more useful, although getting to Frame No 1 would have taken 7/1000 second (x2) longer in that scenario

Pentax must have been catering for a very small and slightly dumb minority. Everyone I knew in film SLR days knew how to squeeze a shot or two before the official Frame No 1 (if the camera allowed it - I don't think autowinders did). I loaded in the darkroom if I could and started taking pictures straight away, and we also knew that if the camera seemed to be taking a long time in auto then take the lens cap off : the manual even told you that.

Many of those users who tried to squeeze off a couple of extra shots prior to frame one were the same ones who complained that their first picture was missing and the second one was only half there because the machinery used for processing their film had taken it from them.
Cameras like the Super Program solved that problem by forcing users to give the lab enough film to work with, while still giving them their advertised number if frames.

[andrewd]

I was never interested in getting Super A/Super Program body due to the meter display.
FWIW I sold my Canon A-1 and never bought a Nikon F3 for their similarly poor displays.

Chris

The meter display for the F3 certainly polarises opinion. I personally love it. So clear to read and right next to the aperture display. Perhaps not so good in manual mode, but I find the F3 great to shoot in auto. I have never had any need to use the dinky illuminator - if that is needed there is barely enough light for a decent photo anyway.

[lotech]

....One of the weaknesses of the LX was it's refusal to use flash if the subject was backlit by more than 1/2 stop. I got caught out on that once, and learned after that to pull the batteries out of the camera and let it run on mechanical when I wanted reliable flash operation. I wasn't using a TTL flash at the time, my Metz 60 CT-2 was capable of TTL, but it was so accurate on it's own that it wasn't necessary.
Fill flash was not the LX'x strongest suit.

Thanks for the tip I don't know about that on the LX, and I also find the Metz flashgun was very accurate even non TTL, I got the 45CT-3 without TTL and it worked great. Not only that, I compared the Metz with a Nissin flashgun with similar GN in manual mode, guess what, the Nissin was near a stop understand than claimed when measured with my Minolta flash meter at 1m/ISO100 with a grey card, where the Metz near 1 stop over that ! German did not cheat on the spec but quite messy at the electronics, if you open your Metz (be careful don't get electric shock !) you will see what I mean.


One thing I don't feel right about is that, in the 'old days' flashguns are rated at 35mm (wide angle in 35mm format), so that we can easily tell which one is stronger, but now most flashguns are rated at 50mm even longer, we can't cheat there is a limit in Physic. The power output of the flashguns governed by 2 things, one is the size of the capacitor the other is the volume (of gas) of the flash tube, even we can use ultracap that's smaller size, the flash tube can't be smaller, as far as I know studio strobe can do long duration flash as slow as 1/700sec, but I don't think hand flashgun can do longer that 1/1000sec.