Hi WJ Bons,

Interesting post

I pressume you're referring to the MZ-S? If so, I'll comment on some of the points you have highlighted:

"- It uses a lot of battery. I do not use flash ( have a metz attached) "

I'm not sure how fast is fast, but I've shot a typical Chinese wedding ceremony with the MZ-S which lasted the whole day (that's from 7:30am to 10:30pm) with only 4 AA Alkaline batteries in the battery pack. That's a total of 16 rolls of film in all. The MZ-S just refused to die . I didn't use built-in flash as I used the AF500FTZ.

"-The on/off switch always irritates me when in the backpack. Often
it turns itself on. Please Pentax CHANGE THIS!!! "

Never been an issue to me. I also use a Lowepro Street&Field backpack and a Lowepro Reporter 300. Could it be the fitting in your backpack that doesn't fit right with the body? Just a hunch

"- the extra autofocus spots could for my sake be disposed. I always
use the center one, and than choose the composition. "

I partially agree with you here, as I almost always use the centre point and recompose. But at times you need the camera to be sturdily fixed on the tripod on some macro work, so it is handy to use other focusing points in such situations where you don't want to pan/tilt the camera. This is what I'm thankful with the 11 focus points of the *ist-D. I do macro work on some industrial electronic/neomatic panels as a sideline and I find this very useful

"- also the date imprint is something i will never use. "

Well, I think you can always disable it if you need to

In my case, I have been using the MZ-S for about 3 years now and so far it didn't fail me.


Just my 2 cents here, no offense


Cheers,

Shotgun

Correction to my earlier post....

I've used this camera for more than 3 years already!!!! (not 2 years)

cheers.

I have been using MZ-S since the day it came out here in Singapore, i think for almost 2 years now. My previous bodies were MZ-50 and MZ5n.

I find this camera to be a joy to use!! It seems to fit nicely with my smaller hands. The buttons were laid out exactly where I like them to be, except maybe the AF-Point selection. With the battery grip, the handling is even more improved!! Like many others, I prefer my camera to be a bit heavier .

I use it mostly for people, portraits, occasional weddings, and occasional product photography.

For all these while I would say it has been a great camera for my applications.

Now I'm looking forward of getting it's digital sibling - the *ist-D. It is romoured to be shipped in 2-3 weeks here in Singapore!

Cheers!