Toshiba PDR-M70

Author's Product Rating

Ease of Use:		¬Ý
Durability:		¬Ý
Battery Life:		¬Ý
Photo Quality:		¬Ý
Shutter Lag		¬Ý

Cons

The Bottom Line

Mostly well done, zooms in for focusing, but requires two handed operation.

Apature and Shutter speed are adjustable independently.

However, the camera still tires to nudge the exposure with adjustments to the exposure compensation (which is not manually overrideable at that point.) Short exposure reciprocity failure shifts towards blue.

Would recommend using neutral density filters when the depth-of-field is critical, rather than trimming the strobe power too much. Although this could be because when the modeling light is proportional to the strobe power, at these low power settings, it is very yellow. This could cause the camera to enable significantly blue white point compensation to correct for the yellow.

Then, when the camera and strobes fire, giving white light, the camera doesn't have time to retract the blueing from the white point compensation. (Investigate white point compensation override) Does not appear to have any long exposure reciprocity failure.

There is no way to get a depth of field preview. The camera LCD always displays with the camera wide open. F-stop range too small f2..f8: would prefer f32, f22 or at least f16 Very sensitive to infrared illumination (example of IR & visible images.)

Funky tube filter adapter places filters father from lense adding the possibility of noise from unclean filters It takes time to get used to the digital camera method of working.

There are no expensive poloroids, no rush developing. Minimal bracketing. But the main thing is that the little cash-register in your head needs to be recalibrated.

Instead of each shot ringing in at $45, $12, or $8 per shot minimum (for 4x5, 2 1/4 and 35mm, resp.), you're looking at the costs for model, light burnage, backdrop replacement, etc. alone. The digital camera cost nearly zero to shoot.

You leave the shot 100% certain of what was done there. You can creat as many back-ups as you have smartMedia cards (or zip disks, or hard drives, etc.) No remote shutter release. In basic point-and-shoot mode, the camera works superlativly. I especially like the slow syncro mode. If the external flash (strobe) is being used, the camera is stuck on 1/250th shutter speed. This eliminates multi-pop shots as well as anything that will be augmented with natural light, such as shots with candles, lamps, available-light augmented archetectural interiors, etc.

Recommended
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 560
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Solid Enough for a Professional