This post is to show the Pentax MZ-3 sample photographs I took from the first film I ran through my Pentax MZ-3 camera last week. Because I was taking some pictures of bluebells in a close by wood, I used a roll of Agfa Superia 800 ISO film in order to enable me to use handheld shutter speeds in quite a low light situation.
Pentax MZ-3 sample photographs
I tried both Aperture Priority and Program mode on the MZ-3 while I took these pictures, and switched the Panorama mode on for three images as well. I also turned on the date back for a couple of images, but I don't think it worked, as I can't see a date stamp on any of the pictures.
My observations from the results of this test film are
- There are some quite bad drying marks on the film. For some reason (probably because I developed two films and so felt rushed) I didn't wipe the film when I removed it from the developing tank and this has left some nasty marks. They are not too important for a test film, but it does rather draw the eye to them.
- The camera has done a good job with the exposure, getting the majority of them pretty much spot on. During post-processing, I did a small amount of tweaking, but not more than 1/2 stop in any case.
- I was surprised that the Fuji Superia 800 film had such low grain. I assumed because it was 2 stops faster than Kodak ColourPlus 200 it would be much more grainy, but I can hardly tell the difference.
- I don't think I'm getting the best from my scanner. Although the V550 is at the bottom of Epson's range, if I look on Flickr for film scans using this scanner there are some excellent examples which I'm just not emulating. I'm going to try a trial of SilverFast again to see if I can get better results.
I think the MZ-3 is an impressive camera and I suspect that on occasions when I would otherwise have taken my Z-1p, I might very well now pack the MZ-3 because of the reduced weight and size.
