What’s Tech Got to Do with It?

Image: Today's camera tech opens up some amazing photo ops that would have been near impossible before and makes us think less about how we make the image than why we might be making it. This shot of Taos Plaza at Christmas time was made at an ISO of 12,800 with a handheld camera at 1/10 sec using a VR (vibration reduction) lens. Copyright George Schaub

Do today’s SLRs: A) help us make better pictures; B) change the way we see; C) all of the above; D) none of the above

There’s no question that modern SLR cameras represent the height of photographic technology and in many ways echo the ingeniousness and at times presumptuousness of all machines today. The speed at which these cameras make and apply judgments about focusing and light reading is incredible, at times following focus and adjusting to changing light at 10 frames per second. Considering that we are often still dealing with a mirror assembly (though this may change with Sony’s new “translucent” technology) that must raise and lower while the camera simultaneously changes light settings and focusing distance, the coordination of calculation and mechanical application is fairly mind boggling.

Many people have mixed feelings about just what this technology offers. They question whether it helps or hinders the photographer in becoming more expressive and spontaneous, yet have little doubt that it allows him or her to more productive in their work.

The obvious response to all this is that it’s the eye and not the camera that makes pictures. But there are other factors involved. In some instances the capabilities of today’s picture machine demands that the photographer think beyond what their eye can see and that presumed limitations on the kind of images that can be made no longer hold true. It is becoming evident that photographers should consider changing their thinking and go beyond what he or she might have created with a standard bred 20th century 35mm SLR. The new technology is challenging in and of itself, in that photography must be relearned in the context of how it is now applied. The challenge necessarily extends to considerations of just what kind of images the new technology allows us to make.

Recent advances have a lot to do with speed, both in operating and capture times. There are now super-fast shutter speeds (such as 1/8000 second is typical) and super fast framing rates (8 frames per second is not uncommon). We can also now use longer lenses at faster shutter speeds with vibration reduction technology. Along with speed comes increased exposure and focus automation. One of the most exciting fields is in flash exposure automation and multiple wireless flash with TTL automatic exposure.

The old school still insists that photographic principals haven’t changed for 150 years and that we should continue to teach photography in the same way we did in the middle of the 20th century. Where I teach some of my colleagues still insist that students go out and buy a manual exposure SLR, take manual exposure readings and set them by hand. The thinking is that this is the only way to understand light and equivalent exposure, learn depth of field, and so forth. This might have been true twenty years ago but to me it’s like considering the divine spirit as some sort of thirteenth century robed patriarch with a beard sitting on a throne up in heaven.

It also misses the point of just what the modern SLR offers. True, there is certainly merit to the thinking that much of the new technology is technology for its own sake, a competition between rival engineers who sit up at night gnashing their teeth over how to shave microseconds from mirror bounce effects. But there is also merit in considering just what this new technology means to a photographer’s view of the world and how he or she can express it.

To me the changes in camera technology, which I have reported on for the past thirty years, have as profound effect on photography as the affordability and accessibility of digital imaging techniques. Anyone who has worked for any amount of time with images in the computer know how it changes your relationship with your work. It has freed photographers from the old limitations of the chemical darkroom and made imaging more available to more people than ever before. I am of the school that the creative cycle is not complete until you make your print from the image you captured. Anyone who has done so knows how it closes the circle and how essential it can be to the photographic process.

Today’s SLR technology might seem quite shocking to anyone who hasn’t played with a new camera even in the last three years. Autoexposure is one clear example. Today’s systems are a far cry from past light measuring cells that sent out current to a meter that converted the light energy to aperture and shutter speed values. Evaluative or Matrix metering systems now analyze the image by dissecting it into a number of zones. The system then calculates exposure by performing complex calculations. This compares the distribution and intensity of light in those zones to a large set of stored exposure solutions in its microprocessor. Only then is the exposure value sent to a system that holds one factor constant (aperture or shutter speed depending on the photographer’s chosen metering mode) while calculating and setting the other to match the light intensity at hand. Add built-in tone compensation, built-in “HDR” and more and exposure, and even consideration of light, is a far cry from the work done even in the late 20th century.

With this automation comes the recognition that overrides are needed to sometimes correct the camera-recommended exposure. This is especially true should the photographer work in any of the spot metering modes, where tonal placement must often be adjusted for the classic metering failures such as bright and dark dominance within the frame. We can take for granted that these overrides will allow us to finesse the automation. We also have autoexposure bracketing, autoflash bracketing and easy exposure compensation inputs. We can even control which variable will be affected by choosing aperture priority when we want to compensate via shutter speed and shutter-priority should we want to have aperture change in our bracketing sequence.

Autofocusing has come a long way since it’s first awkward attempts at hands free distance settings. I remember the amazement that met the Minolta Maxxum camera when it first hit. But I also remember going out on a field test with Sports Illustrated photographer Richard Mackson with one of the early AF cameras (not the Maxxum). About ten minutes into the basketball game Mackson asked me to hold the camera between toe and finger so he could make a field goal kick of it into the stands. It couldn’t follow any action and often jumped from player to player just as he was about to take the picture.

Now we have follow focus, dynamic focus and multiple focusing targets within the viewfinder. AF lock stays with a subject even if another one momentarily blocks the view. Subjects are passed from one focusing target to another through the viewfinder frame. We can select single or multiple AF sites and even link or separate metering from those sites. True, autofocusing still has its foibles, but ask nature and sports photographers how AF has affected their work.

Advances in flash exposure, especially when coordinated with ambient readings and fill flash techniques have been particularly impressive. Those who grew up with guide number calculations and chart reading on the back of flash units and who haven’t experienced a modern dedicated flash can only guess at the convenience they afford.

Tricky daylight fill flash, night slow sync techniques and off-camera and wireless, three unit flash exposure is now through the lens automatic. Even close-up flash techniques, which in the past required bellows extension factors and all sorts of angling and reflectors, are now pushbutton automatic and multi-flash capable. Flash overrides and compensation can now be coordinated with ambient light exposure compensation to give the photographer more control over light and its manipulation than ever before.

You can now also customize SLRs to operate in ways that you feel fit your personal style or shooting needs. These custom function settings arrange or re-arrange the camera’s default operating procedures. You can change the buttons and dials you use for exposure compensation and autoexposure and autofocus lock, change the degree of compensation, change the focusing patterns and spots, link or disengage autofocus and spot metering coordination, change the coverage of the center-weighted meter, add or eliminate a grid screen display in your viewfinder or LCD, etc.

All in all, it’s fairly easy to scoff at automation as a crutch for the less photographically gifted. Sure it’s easy to figure out flash exposure if you have the guide number and know distance and aperture, or to even gain an instinct for it. And one could say that it is best to learn enough hand/eye coordination to release the shutter to catch the peak of the action rather than bang away at 10 frames per second knowing that the peak will probably not fall between the cracks.

But to me that misses the point. No one has to prove themselves to work with a camera. There is no test you have to pass to make images. There is no gauntlet you must run to prove yourself worthy of the name “photographer”. Life is too short for that sort of nonsense.

But there is some added responsibility with this new tech. First there’s the need to understand the new terminology and how it translates from the old. Following that there’s the need to consider what a shutter speed of 1/8000 second or a ten frames per second framing rate might teach us about how we can image time and motion. Or how multiple flash automation might change the way we think about light manipulation in the field.
Consider the new tech as a springboard to new ways of making images.

If you could be fairly well assured that 90 percent of the time exposure and focus will be on the mark, how would that free up your “seeing”? Perhaps this automation allows us to dwell on what we want to say rather than how we need to make settings to go about saying it. Perhaps we can waste less time making settings and more time looking.

In essence it raises the question of what’s more important--the how or the why. Today’s automation diminishes the worry and time taken with the how and gets you closer to the perhaps more essential issue of the WHY.

Weighty issues those, considerations of time and motivation. And, perhaps, pretentious ponderings as well. But if we are to take our photography seriously, and I contend that it is one of those things we should take seriously only because it often tells the story of our life, then we should perceive automation not as a deterrent to learning about photography but as a way towards gaining a newfound freedom of expression. Of course we should know what increases and decreases the zone of sharpness and how shutter speed settings affect how thinly we slice the arc of time, but let’s leave it at that and let the machine handle the rest. The more transparent the machine the more we can think about where it can take us. Perhaps we will have less control over camera operation. But letting that go might just allow us to create images that we might not have imagined possible before.

Hyperfocal Distance & Zone Focusing

This entry is aimed at those who want critical focusing control in their work. The techniques apply to working with a fixed focal length lens and working in manual focus.

Image: To make sure that focus was sharp from the foreground of this old truck to the facing truck in the background I worked in manual focus mode with a 24mm lens and used the hyperfocal distance technique described in the text. Copyright: George Schaub

Focus on an object very far away and take a moment to look at the distance scale on the lens; you might see that the distance setting is beyond the last numerical value on the distance scale (usually that's 30 feet on a 50mm lens) and is marked with an infinity sign. Now check the parameters of the f/16 notation on the depth of field scale-this shows that your zone of focus stretches from about 15 feet (the distance on the border of the f/16 mark on the left side of the depth of field scale) to well beyond any marking on the distance scale. As there is no distance beyond this infinity, this setting tells you that you are in focus from 15 feet to, well, the moon and beyond.
But what about the fact that you have the right side of the f/16 depth of field hash mark well beyond any footage indicator-does this mean you are "wasting" depth of field potential? In a word, yes; but there's an easy way to get it back. (Note, in some lenses the footage markers within the depth of field scale work in reverse to how we're describing it here. If your camera works in this fashion, just reverse left and right as you read on, Actually, the direction in which the distances move is much less important than the idea of manipulating distance settings on your lens to maximize depth of field.)
If you're shooting from the rim of the Grand Canyon out into the distance, your depth of field setting is unimportant, as long as the infinity setting is enclosed within the hash marks of the aperture in use. But if you have subjects in the scene that sit closer than 15 feet, you can set the lens so that you still have focus at infinity and include a focused item in the foreground as well.
The technique you use to do this is called using hyperfocal distance. The first step here is to turn off autofocus. Then you align the infinity marker with the right-side hash mark on the depth of field scale with the aperture number in use, then take note at what distance the left side aperture number falls. The left side number is the minimum distance at which you will have focus, when your furthest point of focus is at infinity.
For example, if we set hyperfocal distance on a 50mm lens at f/16, we find that our zone of sharpness is about eight feet to infinity. This is a pickup of seven feet from our previous setting; we don't lose anything by setting hyperfocal distance, we just gain a bit more foreground sharpness.
You can also manipulate the zone of focus when the farthest shooting distance is less than infinity. Called zone focusing, it's based on the same idea as hyperfocal distance; you manipulate the depth of field scale so that aperture settings enclose certain distances-these distance settings become your zone of sharpness.
For example, let's say that our farthest subject is ten feet away; by setting the number 10 next to the f/16 hashmark on right side of the depth of field scale, we see that we know have a zone of sharpness from about 4&1/2 to 10 feet. Likewise, setting at the 30 foot mark shows a near-focus of seven feet. Keep in mind that these settings are estimates of the actual depth of field; however, the settings certainly will be close enough for most of your shooting needs.
Pre-setting zone of focus can be a real help when you're doing spontaneous candids, or when you just don't have time to focus each shot. By pre-setting your zone of focus so that you can shoot without worrying about focus from, say, four to fifteen feet, you can photograph without bringing the camera to your eye, and still get almost every shot you take in focus. Of course, your composition may be a bit off, but "shooting from the hip" is an old tradition with candid street photographers.
Of course, there are times when you can be more deliberate about what you want to bring into focus. By using the depth of field scale you can make fairly precise settings to get the most out of the available zone of sharpness. For example, let's say you're shooting a statue in front of a building and want to include both the statue and building in focus. Without using or being aware or depth of field manipulations you might not get the effect you wanted; with them you can play some amazing visual tricks. It's safe to say that depth of field manipulations are underused by most photographers, especially those with autofocusing cameras; get a handle on them so you don't lose out on their amazing potential to make the most out of every shot.
The depth of field preview button is an important player in this game as it stops the lens down to its taking aperture, thus allows you to see the effect the lens setting has on focus. At some apertures, such as f/16, the viewing screen becomes quite dark; so dark, in fact, that you may have trouble seeing what's going on. If this happens, open up another stop so you can see focus on the viewfinder better, then stop down to your selected aperture when you take the shot. This won't give you an exact idea of the depth of field at your taking aperture, but it will certainly give you a better idea of final picture focus than will looking through the lens at maximum aperture. If your camera does not have a preview button, get another camera and in the meantime use the depth of field scale on the lens.

Online Photo Storage: A Cautionary Tale

The following I guess could be thought of as what's known as a cautionary tale, one that you might like to read to get an idea of the ethereal nature of this medium, especially for items you might treasure like family photos. This was written in late 1999 and while admittedly things were in their "infancy" at that point, in terms of photo sharing the models and concepts remain the same. The game here is to find how many of these photo services are still around and guess what might have happened to all the images stored on them. It also shows just how naive the writer (me) was about all that at the time.

Online Finishing: The Growth of a New Industry


With the growth of digital camera sales and especially the increase in film images being digitized, the photofinishing industry is gearing up for a new way to receive and print your images. The idea of photofinishing on line has become a reality. Everywhere you turn—from radio to TV to newspaper ads—there are photo related sites touting the ability to hold onto the family album, send and share pictures between distant relative and friends and offer prints from uploaded or pre-loaded images that come from virtually every source. While the digital minilab and the walk-up kiosk may still handle the walk-in trade of the future, it’s becoming clear that many people think that the Internet will be a major venue for photofinishing services as well.

According to Media Metrix, the use of home PC photography programs has grown from 3.8 million users in 1997 to over 16.7 million users in late 1999. That means that just about 1 in 5 of every home PC is using digital photography in some fashion or other. While that growth is impressive, so is the future potential.

A host of innovative companies have fueled the rapid development of online digital services. Many of these Internet sharing sites are brand spanking new. In a touch of graceful irony one such firm, established in 1998, claims to have a “well-established track record.” But that’s what’s old in this new age.

If you’d like to check out what these sites are like you might try two of the most successful, Shutterfly.com and ActiveShare.com. In fact the two sites are linked in a partnership that brings the best of both worlds—the photofinishing expertise of Shutterfly and the muscle of ActiveShare’s parent, Adobe software—to the table.

Shutterfly.com is a sharing site, printing site and photo enhancement site all in one. Just what is a sharing site? It’s a place where you can either upload your images from your digital camera or those film images you have had digitized via Picture CD and share them with family and friends. You are assigned an album space, actually memory on a server, that you fill up with images. Your album has an address that is accessed only through a password you choose and that you share with those you want to see the images.

Once you have an album account established you can order and send prints, enhance the photos with borders, cropping and other special effects and then have them printed and add to or create new albums as you go.

So let’s say you take some photos on vacation and want to show them off to your family and friends in different parts of the country. Or you’ve met new friends on your travels and want to send them images you took of the times you spent together. All you need is their e-mail and your album password.

You use Shutterfly's Smart Download software to get your digital images from your camera or hard drive and send them over the line. Or if you’ve shot film you can send them the roll and..guess what? You get free film processing and posting of your images online. It seems like a win/win situation all the way down the line. You get free film processing, free sharing and free access to your album while Shutterfly gets the chance to sell you prints for yourself and your family and friends.

Adobe’s ActiveShare site works with Shutterfly. If you enter their site at ActiveShare.com you can also get prints through Shutterfly, plus you can create a sharing circle of friends. The service is called e.Circles and it’s a way to create an instant community of photo sharers. What you do is identify friends as interested parties in certain types of your photos. Some might like to see your vacation shots while others are for closer family and friends. You can limit pictures of the kids to grandparents and siblings while sharing your hobby with another group of eCircle folks. It’s like a broadcast service built into a sharing site.

You can also use ActiveShare.com’s AmazingMail.com for creating postcards using any of your images. You upload images and order the postcard, and the company will create and mail them for you.

Of course the best way to get the most from the site is via Adobe’s PhotoDeluxe software, which comes with ActiveShare as part of the package. That way you can make all sorts of changes and do lots of creative work on your images and then send them or order prints.

Another active e-finishing business is PhotoPoint, which claims to be the world’s largest photo sharing website. Recently, PhotoPoint signed an agreement with Kodak making Print@Kodak available to PhotoPoint folks. The company is also very promotion minded, recently awarding a photographer a million bucks for winning a contest. The company also announced that it recently received their 10 millionth image.

Zing and Sony
At Zing they claim to be the most trafficked online photo community. The site, zing.com, provides free photo storage, album and sharing services, content and mail order photo printing. The company claims that their open architecture allows them to provide a customized, co-branded photo center that can be integrated easily with partner website activities.

Recently, Zing announced a partnership with Sony to help strengthen Sony’s online digital imaging presence, dubbed ImageStation. The company also is offering PictureIQ, an online photo editing and manipulation application. The company also works with HP and their new “scan to web” technology. This takes images scanned on HP scanners right into a Zing sharing site.


Talking Pictures
At dotPhoto they claim to be the first web site that integrates photo sharing with voice and sound capability plus digital finishing. The company offers, for $4.99, a first time membership that includes printing of 36 uploaded images, free shipping and a free personal computer microphone, required for the voice-to-picture technology.

The Kodak/AOL partnership has been getting some press, so the logical next step was for Yahoo! to get involved. They have done so with Yahoo! Photos, with printing and services provided by Shutterfly. As an intro, the company is offering first time users 15 free prints. At Yahoo! Photo you can create albums, add photos, share and send and order prints. There’s also one click access to club and auction sites.

So photofinishing has become e-photofinishing and now labs are web-based application service providers for both consumers and other imaging partners. The jargon is amazing, but so are the ideas and changes ahead. Has e-finishing taken the world by storm? Not yet. In fact, regular film processing increased over 10% in the last year. But digital camera users now have a photofinishing service that is almost as convenient as bringing the film down to the corner store. But the only highway they have to drive on to get there is the Internet.

Minolta Maxxum 9

Occasionally I will post some older reviews of cameras for the purposes of saving these archives for future searchers and researchers. Some of these were published prior to content being saved on the Internet; most are fairly arcane and I trust of some historical interest.
Here's a review of the Minolta Maxxum 9, one of the last full featured camera 35mms from that company and indeed in its class. This was written in August, 2000.

The Minolta Maxxum 9

by George Schaub

Every time you turn around another 35mm SLR manufacturer plays "top this" with its competitors and perhaps with the electronic imaging medium as well. This is great news for photographers and has resulted in some rather amazing photographic instruments of late. We've seen cameras with 10 frames per second framing rates, metering systems that measure both light intensity and color influence on exposure and now, with the Minolta Maxxum 9, a top shutter speed of 1/12,000 second and truly easy wireless remote flash. It makes you wonder just what SLR makers might have up their sleeves next.

The Minolta Maxxum 9 is one of those instinctive cameras that feels right at home the moment you take it up in your hands. It weighs lighter than it looks, which is quite sturdy, and apparently can take some punishment, due to its stainless steel and zinc body. Like some of its recent competitors, the Maxxum 9 has a decidedly analog look, although the insides are hardly driven by springs and wind up gears. Virtually every override and extra control is done via these "analogish" dials, while the basic choices of aperture and shutter speed and some custom functions are the work of the front or rear control dials.

While thinking that there is logical placement of controls may be the work of a rationalizing mind, the Minolta Maxxum 9 does seem to have been designed by, and for, people who actually take pictures. After a ten minute drill there's little confusion how to work the camera. The really good thing about it is that controls that are too often buried inside submenus or require near-impossible feats of dexterity on some cameras are right up front on the Maxxum 9. And these are the controls that most experienced photographers will use every day in their work.

Let's talk flash and exposure compensation controls. Both are located on stacked analog dials on the photographer's left side of the camera body. You first unlock the dial and then turn plus or minus 3 EV. The flash exposure dial is on the bottom of the stack, placed there because it probably will be used less than the ambient exposure compensation dial on top. The flash exposure compensation dial can be moved in half EV steps. The ambient exposure dial can be twirled so that it can compensate in either 1/3 or 1/2 EV steps. That right, no custom function to apply, just a manual changeover in how the dial functions. And yes, the dials do lock well into place. In a week of trials I had no misfires there.

There's an equally ingenious and stacked dial on the right side of the body for changing exposure mode (the usual suspects of manual, aperture- and shutter-priority and program) and for setting up an autobracketing sequence. You know about these exposure modes. One thing you might be used to is a Program shift mode, but the shift here is actually in manual mode. You get the exposure you want, hold in the AEL (autoexposure lock) button and then turn the control dial to get equivalent exposure while changing aperture and shutter speed relationships.

The dial beneath the exposure mode dial handles a number of functions including multiple exposure, drives (continuous and single shot, with 5.5 frames per second in single AF or manual focus and 4.5 fps in continuous AF) and autobracketing in both single and continuous drive modes, as well as a self timer. This may seem like a lot of controls on one dial but it's really easier and more efficient than it may sound. There's no lock per se on either of these dials and once I did move the exposure mode dial accidentally while setting up a bracketing sequence. I did that because I grasped the dials somewhat clumsily. When you get used to how they move, as I did quickly, you'll probably not make the same mistake twice.

I kind of glossed over the 1/12,000-second top shutter speed, and it is worthy of extra note. While I'm not certain what I would have to photograph at that speed I know it's certainly a bragging right for this camera. You may have great use for that speed and if you do the Maxxum 9 is for you. Just remember to pack some fast film. (Using the sunny 16 rule with ISO 400 film you'd get 1/12,000 second at f/2.8.) A few pro cameras do have higher framing rates, and for those who do sports having more than 5.5 fps available might be necessary. For those of us who photograph more sedentary subjects the 5.5 fps is sufficient.

On the back of the camera are the flash controls for the built in flash (more on that shortly), the metering pattern selector (14 segment honeycomb for ambient, 4 segment for flash, center-weighted and spot), the slow sync selector (actually the AE lock), the AF lock and the AE lock. You also get a rear control dial and a little switch that allows you to light up the very basic LED. The LED gives you frames shot, aperture and shutter speed. It also helps you set up bracketing sequences and change Custom Functions. That's it, and that's okay. For more info gaze into the viewfinder, where the information should be anyway, and you get a meter index, indications of flash status and mode, a focus signal, aperture and shutter speed, an AEL indicator and a countdown when less than ten frames remain on the roll. Of course you also get the AF indicators and spot metering circle. By the way, a nice and rare treat is that the viewfinder gives you 100% coverage.

These indicators and controls are for those who know their way around a camera and who understand the cause and effect of it all. In other words, readers of this magazine. There are no pictographic modes like people running or little flowers to guide you on you way, or to get in the way of your work. Please join me in a round of polite applause for this return to sanity. But Minolta still has kept "eye start" on the 9, a feature I am at a loss to appreciate. It certainly doesn't get in the way and can be turned off when desired. For those who haven't experienced it the camera powers up when eye start is on and you move the camera to your eye, saving you the great effort of having to flip the on/off switch.

Camera makers have increasingly added built-in flash to their upper end camera models, which I think is a great idea. The Minolta Maxxum 9 does not insult the user by automatically flipping the flash up in low light, like lesser models, but allows you to raise the head manually when you want the extra burst of fill. For some assignments and social events the built in flash might be all you need. It has a nice little GN of 40, which at 6 feet with ISO 100 film gets you between f/5.6 and f/8. The little flash also allows you to shoot with slow sync, red-eye reduction, rear curtain sync and to use the very neat flash exposure compensation and flash bracketing feature that's built into the analog controls. Sync speed is 1/300 second, by the way.

The flash capabilities of the system are truly exploited, however, when you get the Minolta 5400HS shoe-mount flash. The GN varies with film and focal length, but at 50mm with ISO 100 film at a 1/1 power level the GN in meters is 42, 140 in feet. That's enough to get you between f/11 and f/16 at ten feet. You get direct TTL OTF metering in all exposure modes, the ability to set power ratios controls (or levels) from 1/1 to 1/32, an AF assist illuminator for low contrast or plain old low light and power zoom head coverage between 24mm and 105mm. The HS in the moniker stands for High-speed sync, which means you can get flash sync without loss of edge information at shutter speeds up to that incredible 1/12,000 second. This is great for fill flash in bright light when you want to work with a shallow depth of field.

The multi-flash capabilities are easy to apply. You mount the 5400 HS on the camera and turn on the camera and flash. You then slide a lever on the camera to "wireless" and do the same by advancing the mode button on the flash unit. You then disengage the 5400 HS from the camera (leaving it powered up) and raise the built in flash. Because you have it set on wireless the built in flash does not fire but acts as a signal device to fire the flash. You can work with any exposure mode as well as manual where you can set power ratio controls. You can also activate the built in flash to fire along with the 5400 HS to provide a 1:2 fill, the built in flash delivering the lesser output of the two.

This multi-flash capability with wireless worked well in just about every situation I tried it. The trick is to rotate the AF illuminator on the 5400HS toward the built in flash. When you see a double blip from the AF illuminator you know you have communication. If in doubt you can do a test fire before the actual exposure. The 5400HS must be within peripheral "vision" of the built in or the signal will not work.

There are Custom Functions that you can use to customize the camera to your liking. There's the usual film rewind options (leader in or out) but there's also something very neat called Mid Reload. Here you reload a film you've shot to, say, frame 18. You load it as usual, then you use CF 3-3 to put in the frame number to which you want it advanced and the camera does so automatically. Other useful CFs include one that allows you to select the local focus area with the AF button and another that lengthens the display on the selected focus area. You can also make Program exposure mode make action or depth priorities and have flash metering be the default 4-segment, averaged or spot according to the focusing area selected.

The Maxxum 9 fits right in with the extensive line of lenses and accessories that make up the Minolta SLR family. The AF lenses include everything from a 17-35mm f/3.5 G zoom to a AF 600mm f/4 APO G and a AF 200mm F/4 macro APO G. The G lens group, by the way, is Minolta's large aperture, high performance series. You can also interchange focusing screens and use a data memory back.

The Maxxum 9 proved to be an excellent field shooting and travel companion. The flash setup is intriguing, and should be considered by those doing wedding candids with 35mm SLRs. All in all, the design offered many meat and potatoes functions and creative options while basically getting out of the way when pictures were being made. To me, that's the mark of a good camera.