HI,I'VE RECENTLY PURCHASED A LEICA MINILUX AS MY FIRST CAMERA DUE TO MANY RAVED REVIEWS. I CAN USE THE AUTOFOCUS MODE W/ NO PROBLEM. BUT I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THE APERTURE PRIORITY AND THE OTHER MANUAL PROGRAMS SUCH AS SETTING THE APERTURE TO MATCH THE SURROUNDING CONDITION FOR A GOOD SHOT. I THINK I UNDERSTAND SETTING THE DISTANT MANUALLY. PLEASE HELP.

CHRIS

-- CHRIS NGUYEN (BILOXIBOYZ@HOTMAIL.COM), May 26, 2001

Answers

I say this very kindly. Please stop shouting. Thank you.

-- Mike Foster (mike567@acgecorp.com), May 26, 2001.

Chris, the minilux is undoubtedly a first-class point-and-shoot camera with an excellent lens, and although it lacks the classic feel of an M or screwmount camera, it is compact and unobtrusive enough to take anywhere, which is a big plus. Most times, you will find the P setting fine. Infinity mode is great for landscapes or shooting through windows. Remember to reset it! Setting the distance scale manually is not really that useful, since it relies on guesswork. For portraits, set to f/2.4 and the background will blur - but not that much because 40mm is still relatively wideangle. It does activate a higher shutter speed though (1/400 - look on the LCD) - good for action shots. It is interesting that Leica dropped the aperture priority control on the minilux zoom but kept the manual distance setting - a shame in my opinion since it is a useful feature. One more thing: to get the best out of your minilux, try blowing up a favourite picture to 8 x 10 or even 16 x 20 (use 100 ISO or slower film). You can't really get the best out of a Leica lens with postcard machine pr

-- David Killick (Dalex@inet.net.nz), May 26, 2001.

David,

40mm is technically a wide-angle but... only by 3 degrees.

-- Eric Laurence (Edgar1976@hotmail.com), May 27, 2001.

Sorry about the caps. Thanks for the advice David. I'm still learning how to set the aperature priority. Any advice about this camera is appreciated.

-- CHRIS NGUYEN (BILOXIBOYZ@HOTMAIL.COM), May 27, 2001.

P mode is "program mode", the computer in the camea selects the aperture and shutter speed. You can and should use this P mode most of the time.

Only when you have a specific reason to choose your own aperture all you have to do is move away from P, and select an aperture of your choice, for example at outdoor, sunny days, you may select F8 or F11 depending on the film, the camera will select appropriate shutter speed. If at inddor, you still use f8 or f11, then the shutter speed may be lower than 1/30 sec, camera shake may occur, and you should select f4 or f2.4---

Select aperture yourself also allows you to control the depth of field

The best way to learn about your camera is to take pictures, for example, load a roll of film, go out and shoot the same scene, a) under P mode, b) select f8, c) select f2.4, d) f16; make a note of the counter numbers. Then go indoor, repeat the same. AFter the film is processed and printed, compare the prints, and see what differences they have.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), May 27, 2001.

Chris,

Strongly recommend you to visit the following site. You can learn a lot from it.

http://www.kikuyashoji.co.jp/miniluxclub/index_e.html

Have fun with Minilux.

KC

-- KC (ykchoi@mail.com), June 27, 2001.

KC,

I believe the club has been discontinued as the link leads to a still page.

Roberto

-- Roberto M Junqueira Jr (rjunqueira@exin.com.br), November 15, 2001.

The Minilux is an awesome portable camera. The lens is absolutely superb. You should learn to appreciate this engineering masterpiece you've purchased. My only complaint is that it doesn't also allow me to adjust shutter speed, but there are some ways around that (especially when using Bulb mode). Anyway to answer your question you must understand WHY you would need to adjust aperture. Once you understand that (mainly to control depth-of-field, or the blurring effect, not to be confused with out of focus areas though) you will be in control. I ALWAYS use my Minilux in manual mode (semi-manual, since I can't adjust shutter speed). Setting the distance manually allows you to NOT depend on the center-weighted automatic range measurement, which doesn't work if the subject is off-center. So I set both Aperture and Distance manually. If you want to freeze action, use the larger apertures (i.e., smaller numbers). To blur motion (such as a waterfall) use the smaller apertures (i.e., larger numbers such as 11). I always debated whether or not to take the Nikon SLR or the Minilux on trips. Most of the time I take the minilux simply because it's MUCH easier to carry. This camera is a winner and Leica please come out with Shutter control! :-)

-- Angus Wong (angus@post1.com), April 12, 2002.