The mju showed a lot of use, but it had a battery and it lit up when I opened the sliding front door -- which I suppose accounted for its higher price. The mju2 looked nice; a new battery started it up too.
I loaded a roll in the Stylus Epic the next morning and managed to get through all 36 exposures on a roll of Fuji 200. The camera seemed to be working nearly perfectly, though the shutter button was a little over-sensitive. When I scanned the negatives the pictures looked good except for small light leaks in some of the images. A bit of black tape near the viewfinder will likely solve the leak problem.
The mju2 commands ridiculous prices these days, so I was pleased to have found one that only needed a little attention to work. On closely examining the pictures, though, I am not convinced that the camera makes pictures that are significantly superior to what I get from the mju that I have been shooting for the past ten years. To test that idea, I finished up another roll of Fuji 200 in the older mju on a walk in the neighborhood. I shot several of the same scenes as the day before and the light was quite similar.
The f/2.8, 35mm lens on the Stylus Epic is clearly a more sophisticated design than that of the f/3.5 lens on the older Inifity Stylus. However, a search on the web about the newer camera turned up some support for my judgment based on my informal test. What I found was that complaints about light leaks in the newer model are very common. It appears that the rubber ring light seal in the Stylus Epic is not as robust as the seals in the older camera. Additionally, I found a couple references to the idea that the auto-focusing algorithm for the Stylus Epic leaned toward wide open exposures. So, even though the Stylus Epic has a lot of present day enthusiasts, I think there is good reason to be skeptical of any real superiority to the older Infinity Stylus.
5 comments:
Your mju2 shots have a more interesting color rendition than the mju shots. At least to me. To what do you attribute the differences in the colors rendered?
Also: remarkable to find an early Mustang with a vinyl top. So many of those got parted out or were converted to fire-breathing hi-po models and thus had the vinyl removed.
I think the differences are mostly photoshop artifacts; I just didn't pay attention to treating the images the same way. I'm thinking I should run some black and white film through both cameras and process them together in the same developer. Of course, there may be differences in the images from the two cameras, but I've been happy with the results from the first mju and it will take a lot for me to switch to something else.
The Mustang shot was kind of an accident. I was trying to get a picture of the Basket Shop when the car came by, so I just decided to record the event.
Thank you Mike, this makes me feel better about the fact that I con't afford that camera. I do have the original mju and will have to try it and see if it still works. I was always happy enough with the results.
I've used my mju more than any other camera except for my Spotmatic that I bought in 1970.
I put another roll through my mju2 today with some black tape on the back, so we'll see if the light leaks go away. It may still make me some pictures, but even without light leaks I think the going price of several hundred dollars would be a bit over the top.
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