Re: Light, portable camera, Rollei Prego?

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@apple.com>]

This thread is getting to be a bit of a reach for the Leica Users Group
list. Hmm. Brian Reid, are you out there? It seems there's enough interest
for a "Compact 35 and Minox 9.5" mailing list. I would be willing to 
admin such a list.

Since this has to do with Rollei's latest offerings in the high quality
Point'n'Shoot world, I'll cross post to the Rollei list too. Sorry 
to all those who are not interested in this discussion and will 
perhaps have to suffer through it twice.

>>discussion of compact 35mm cameras, Rollei 35s/Minox 35/etc
>Michael Volow:
>I entered this thread a bit late. I apologize it has already been
>discussed. Does anyone hava any experience with the Rollei Prego? How does
>it compare to the others? 

After I bought my Leica Minizoom, I had the chance to use a friend's 
Prego Zoom for a day's picture taking (she wanted me to take pictures
on her camera because she claims my pictures are always better than 
hers... ah, flattery *will* get you nearly everywhere ... :). I found
the ergonomics of the Prego Zoom's finder and controls to be just a 
little less comfortable for me than the Leica Minizoom, but the camera
has more features, some of which are very nice, and the quality of 
the lens and images was superb. It's about the only PnS I've tried 
that has been comparable to the Minizoom. The Schneider lens is 
excellent and the Prego Zoom has a very convenient Snapshot setting which 
speeds up the focus and such by using the hyperfocal. It's less 
expensive than the Leica Minizoom by about $90 (street price).

Since that time, Rollei released the Prego Zoom 90, which I've only
had the moment to handle at the store. They relocated the viewfinder
and improved the ergonomics a lot ... the lens is now a 28-90mm
and there are even more features. It's a bit bigger than the Minizoom
is, but handling it I found the new viewfinder location and control
ergonomics to be very nice. It's about the same money as the Minizoom
is and has more features. 

A friend in NY just bought a Prego Zoom 90 on my recommendation. 
He's a very good photographer so I'm looking forward to seeing what 
the results from his work with the camera look like. It certainly 
looks to be an excellent instrument. I'll get to take some pictures 
with it when we meet in North Carolina for next week's holiday.

Godfrey