Your favorite Cult/Posh Point 'n Shoot?

Yashica T5:
the one that actually gets carried everywhere, because it's that good. My choice for "auto everything".

Konica Hexar AF:
much more than a P&S. For me it's the ultimate tool for street photography!
 
ideal

ideal

Hello:

My ideal P&Ss, I do not own either, are the Contax T2 and the Stylus Epic. I've given the latter to others.

My cult but not posh P&S is a Leica 111b with CV 25mm.

yours
Frank
 
I just love the Ricoh GR1v with that sharp 28mm lens. It´s always in my pocket or in my backpack for a everyday-always ready camera.
 
Bootsy said:
I just love the Ricoh GR1v with that sharp 28mm lens. It´s always in my pocket or in my backpack for a everyday-always ready camera.
Click to expand...

There is a cheaper version for the GR1-v, the Ricoh GR-10, same GR 28mm 2.8 lens w less features, sub $300.
I have too many cameras now, but that black Fujifilm Silvi F2.8 w 24-50 is really really tempting...
 
I have tried and used many nice P&Shoots...Currently I'm using a GR1s, and I love it...By the way I still find funny to use my MJU II, and leave the full controls to bigger cameras...
Even cheaper P&S can be very nice to use, expecially when money becomes a problem..and they can stay in jeans pockets without pain...
 
The Minolta TC-1 was in many ways the coolest camera I ever owned. Great 28mm lens with manually set apertures, good flash and titanium body that reaked of "posh". Unfortunately, I dragged it through a rapid in the Grand Canyon and it didnt survive electronically.
Too expensive to rationalize buying 2, so Im back to the stylus epic.
 
had a rollei 35 (singapore version, black) and really loved it until it fell apart. replaced it with an olympus 35RC which is starting to go on me. I'm kinda hard on the things in my pockets... but I'm looking at another rollei when the oly quits. I can't imagine trying to take pictures and not being in control of the camera, which is a problem with a lot of the point-and-shoots I've used.
 
Suedgar: Ditto Richard's opinion of the T4 Super. I've had one for nine years. Lens is a joy. This camera's taken abnormal abuse (packed in toolkit on Suzuki DR 350SE dual sport motorcycle ridden on cow trails in the desert; gone backpacking, bicycling, etc.) and, though it looks a bit doggy, it still works perfectly.

And, it has the unique second, top-plate-mounted viewfinder that allows you to take pictures when people think you're just looking down at your cheapy little P&S.

But cheap they're not. It's become sort of a cult camera and many pros and semi-pros carry one in a jacket pocket just for that special moment.

Ted
 
Anyone out there know the Samsung AF-Slim?

I just picked up a Samsung AF-Slim. It is very small, like a Leica Mini or a Konica Big mini whatchamacallit. It has a 4 element 3,5 35mm lens that opens out and retracts (noisily) in a motor-driven rectangular housing. The lens is either really a Schneider Xenar or a Samsung copy, and supposedly outpeformed a similar Schneider-lensed compact AF in lens tests.

Now I need to load it up and test it out.
 
My experience of point and shoots involves:

- Konica Auto S3
- Minox GT
- Olympus XA2
- Konica Hexar
- Leica Minilux

KONICA AUTO S3

I owned this in the mid-70s and took many of my best photos with it. It was
a small, unobtrusive black box that featured shutter priority auto and a
wonderfully accurate flash system, when used with the dedicated flash.

It surprises me that shutter-priority has never caught on to the extent that
it should. When you're working with available light the crucial point is
to have to be shooting at a fast enough speed -- the aperture is of
secondary importance. This was always the view of Konica, who
introduced the first shutter-priority SLRs.

If you'd like to see a photo I took with this camera, please visit
www.rockarchive.com and take a look at my photo of Debbie Harry. The
Rock Archive recently sold an A0 one of these for £900.

The Konica eventually developed a fault with the winding on so I got rid of
it, though I've since discovered that this could probably have been cured
quite easily by lubricating the rewind shaft and knob.

MINOX GT

A very unobtrusive camera but this also developed a problem with the
winding. Also, I never really liked the way the lens flipped down and
the controls were a bit too small to be used easily.

OLYMPUS XA2

I preferred this to the Minox but perhaps I should have paid a bit more
and got the classic XA, which features a rangefinder and a better lens
(although the lens on the XA2 was pretty sharp).

KONICA HEXAR

Talk about weird! This camera is in some ways extremely nice and in
others rather frustrating. The good points are the excellent build
quality (much more solid than the old Auto S3) and usual superb Hexar
lens. The bad points are that it is just a bit too big to be truly
pocketable and featured an incomprehensible exposure system,
complete with fiddly little buttons. Eventually I got rid of it because
it developed a lag between the moment of pressing the button and the
moment of taking the photo.

LEICA MINILUX

My latest acquisition, for which I paid $300 on eBay, the Minilux is both
small enough to fit into the back pocket of my jeans and large enough to
be comfortable to hold. Like the Hexar it has its good and bad points.
The retractable lens is a definite plus although I would nickname this
camera 'the brick', since that's what it looks like with the lens
retracted. The autofocus is accurate enough but where this camera
scores over both the Konicas is the surprisingly powerful built-in
flash. This is more convenient than having to carry an external flash.
Another plus is the accuracy of the exposure metering.

On the down side is the rather silly placement of some of the manual controls,
particularly the manual focus which can easily be engaged by mistake
when switching the camera on. Another problem is that the film is fed
from right to left instead of the traditional left to right, which means
that portraits scanned in my Coolscan IV have to be rotated 180 degrees.

There is no indication of shutter-speed or aperture when shooting in
program mode and it isn't possible to leave the film tongue out of the
cassette when you rewind (you can do this with the Hexar). Finally,
the self-time sometimes decides that it's not going to work properly and
there is too much delay when releasing the shutter. Having said all this,
I like the Minilux because it's very quiet, generally well-built and offers
a good compromise between portability and holdability.


My favourite of all of these p&s cameras? The Konica Auto S3, of course!
 
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