I am considering a T3 and a Leica Minilux Zoom. I intend to use the camera for travel, shooting architecture, inside and out, often in low light, landscapes and, most important, people, mostly in casual, on the fly scenes. I have almost eliminated the MiniLux due to slow shutter limitation. My question is will the T3 be a good people camera? I know it will be superb for LS and architeture.

-- gene mclaughlin (mclaughlin@infostrat.net), November 13, 2001

Answers

I have the T3 and find it quite useful for the sort of "on the fly" shots that you are considering. It is certainly small enough that I take it with me all the time. I have set the custom functions so that the lens moves to the focus point when you prefocus (to cut out shutter lag) and the camera's ability to set the aperture and the focus distance allows you to get the hyperfocal distance of the lens for even quicker shots. Now, it is a 35mm lens and you would probably not use that focal length as a portrait lens but it would do for most other point and shoot capabilities. I think this is a fantastic "available light" camera since you can set the flash off by default; it has a nice long shutter speed and it is small enough that you can hand hold it much more securely than a larger camera. It is also small enough to use once of those pocket tripods which isn't much of a burden to carry if necessary. The Zeiss lens has good colour and contrast and you don't get the vignetting you see with slower lenses. All in all, it is a great camera but you pay for that up front! As I have said in other places, if you are going to leave the camera in 'P' mode all the time them you should probably get the little Yashica T4 Super and have a 35mm Zeiss lens (f3.5 though) for 1/3 the price.

-- Meryl Arbing (marbing@sympatico.ca), December 04, 2001.