On An Outing With A Konica Z-up 28W

Analog Diary - Five frames on an outing with a Konica Z-up 28W AF Zoom, not a true compact, but easy and fun to use.

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The autofocus Konica Z-up 28W is oversized for your pants pocket but will fit in your camera bag. It has a very useful 28-56mm F3.5~6.6 zoom lens which is protected by a built-in UV filter, a very quiet shutter, and is one the fastest autofocus that I have used recently.

The zoom functions through a push button on the top panel of the camera, with one push of the button, the lens zooms out, and at its end of it, zooms back in. While exposure is automatic, I do not even have an idea of the shutter speed range or the aperture range of the lens is.

Konica Z-up 28W

Camera mode selection, for Auto Flash, Flash On, Flash Off, Self-Timer with Flash On, Infinity Focus with Flash Off, and Macro Mode with Flash On is via a Mode selector button, and the setting is displayed on the LCD panel of the shutter release button cluster.

Konica Z-up 28W

A nice feature of the camera is the Snap mode, which sets the camera to a focal length of 28mm and a focal distance of 2.75 meters, and the film advances to two frames per second. When the Snap mode is coupled with the Self-Timer with Flash On mode, the Z-up 28W will set the shutter off twice, first after a ten-second delay, and the next three seconds later.

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E.Zuiko 100mm F3.5, A Lightweight Compact

Vintage Lens Test - Five frames with an E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F3.5, handheld tele shots.

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The Zuiko FT 100mm F3.5, or officially the E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F3.5, another lens from the series produced for the Olympus Pen F/FT half-frame Camera Systems of the 1960s, is an outstanding lens as portrayed on a series of web pages including an image series by kuuan on Flickr, a discussion of MFlenses, a showcase thread on Mu-43.com, and a discussion thread on Fuji-X forum.

My well-used and slightly battered copy of the E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F3.5 is, however, far from perfect. It has a thin layer of fungal infection across one of its inner elements, and although the aperture ring is soft and smooth, the focusing ring is rather stiff.

Olympus E-P5, E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F3.5

At 100mm focal length, the lens will be the equivalent of a 200mm lens on the 2x crop-sensor Olympus E-P5, long enough to put the lens into the medium telephoto category, good for closed sports or action shorts. Bright ambient light should give you the shutter speed you need, recommended at 1/200 second minimum, to shoot with the lens handheld.

Olympus E-P5, E.Zuiko Auto-T 100mm F3.5

An advantage you have with these cute and compact Olympus Pen F/FT lenses is the need for a lens adapter that is very shallow. On the E-P5, the whole extension, including the lens hood is only 115mm long.

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Nokia Asha 300, City Edge Sunrise

Mobile Photography - Five frames with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, sunrise on the city's edge.

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Following where I left off with A Morning Walk, City Edge Sunrise is just a few steps up the exit path to where the park is located. This is not the normal route I took, but as the quiet morning air and the glorious sunlit morning beckons me to the sights which I would normally shy away from, space is all mine.

Nokia Asha 300

It is all there, the stately stance of the apartment blocks glowing in the morning light, the rumble of a single service transporter on the way to an assignment, the sputter of the exhaust from a lone biker on his way out of the after a fill-up, and the glow of the sun as it floods over the horizon.

I only had the Nokia Asha 300 in my hands, and the ability to capture these scenes is the delight of the day. Images are sharp and crisp, colors are mid-tone neutral with a slight contrast, with morning color casts which are more bluish than the orange and red of evening colors. Without the aid of white balance adjustments on the camera, the images were glorious just as they are.

There is nothing to fault the camera with really. Learn to live with the idiosyncrasies of a 5MP camera that take ages to save its maximum resolution of 2592x1999 pixels, a 2.4-inch screen that you hardly see in bright outside light, arm forward composition and shooting style, saves up to 112 JPEG images, and you are in for a good and fun time.

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Canon Autoboy 3, Crisp and Clear Images

Analog Diary - Film photography favorites, five frames with a Canon Autoboy 3 35mm AF film camera, fun and easy-to-use, superb images.

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With its sculptured shape and well-rounded ergonomic body design, the Canon Autoboy 3 (Sure Shot Supreme, Prima Top Shot), voted the European Camera of the Year 1986, is surely a sight to see and fun to use. The camera is even fitted with a tilting foot on the bottom plate which allows you to place the camera on a flat surface and tilt the camera upward to a maximum of 18 degrees upward.

The camera is an autofocus compact. In use, Autoboy 3 takes care of focusing and exposure setting without you having to worry about anything, forwards the film frame, and rewinds the film back into the canister at the end of the roll automatically.

Canon Autoboy 3

The images captured were fantastic, and what I like most about them are the mid-tone neutral colors and good color correction. There is also the tinge of pseudo diorama effect with long focus images that have strong lines in the composition.

The Autoboy 3 does have its quirks too, one which I was not able to use was the Flash Off button which has to be pressed simultaneously as you are pressing the shutter release each and every time you want the flash not to fire. The tiny rubber button is recessed into a cutout on the bottom plate of the camera, and pressing it with other than your fingernail may seem futile.

Canon Autoboy 3

Replacing the C235 Lithium battery pack, which is placed in a chamber with a micro-screwed flap cover, located where the finger grip is, could also be a hassle. If you are not confident enough about changing the battery yourself, take the camera with you next time you are out to purchase a new battery and have the shop technician do it for you. As claimed in the instruction manual, the battery pack should last you about 5 years or 50 rolls of 24 exposure film.

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