Elan 7e Metering/Lens Question

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Hello-

I've got a question about my Elan 7e. Being a newspaper photographer who works with Nikon D1s quite a bit (and loathes them, but that's another story...), I'm really starting to miss spot metering. Unfortunately, an EOS 3 or 1V isn't in the budget in the near future. I'm wondering if I could possibly game the system... Though I prefer primes, if I were to get a whiz-bang 28-300mm hyperzoom, how well would a partial meter reading at 300mm serve as a spot for smaller focal lengths? There might be some mismatch at the top and bottom of the aperture range, but I usually shoot in metered manual mode anyway. How quickly can you cover the entire range of focal lengths with one of these lenses? Are they sharp? Do they make reasonably fast (< f 3.0) ones? Are they worth the money? Thanks!

--Dan

-- Dan (drb@mit.edu), May 18, 2002

Answers

Sure you can zoom to get a tighter reading. THe 10 percent are a on the ELan is not all that bad. Decades ago you would not even ahve that, and you'd have to use your brain. Just as now. So, somethigns are not as limiting as they look.

As for hyper-zoomx. Working with any of this stuff, you will knwo that quality and price chase each other around. If you are looking at canon stuff, consider hte 28-105 or the 35-28-135 IS for zooms and a reasonable price. Anythign else is over a grand or a bit soft on image wuality, if you are hyper critical or shooting for a living.

-- Chris Gillis (chris@photogenica.net), May 19, 2002.


Canon makes a decent 35-350 (L series) zoom for about $1500. It's f/5.6 on the long end. The only 28-300mm zoom have an f/6.3 (or there abouts) aperture at the long end. Image quality with these is moderately poor.

The Elan 7's 10 percent partial meter turns into a 2 degree spot meter with a 300mm lens.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), May 19, 2002.


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