wesrichmond

Last year I bought a used iS-20 and so much enjoyed shooting it that i bought an iS-3 DLX. I have been reading what I can find about the iS system lately. Yesterday I came across an iS-31, which I had not heard of. In researching all I can find (which is extremely little) it seems this was an European model. At first I thought this might be related to the iS-30 but the design is much newer and the lens is different. It looks closer in design to the iS-50. Anyway, I was just wondering if anyone has heard of this model or might know its production year(s), and if there is a US and/or Japanese version of it. The seller said it was in great working shape and I bought it for a good price....cheaper than my other 2 iS models.

Last month I picked up a Sony A390 (with kit 18-55mm), mainly to use my little collection of A-Mount lenses from my Maxxum gear. I thought it would be a good thing to test the lenses out before I load the Maxxum bodies with film. I really like the A390, it is easy to use, probably all I would ever need and the JPGs look very nice to me. However, just like many other older Sony bodies, the IS is broken. I am trying to decide if I want to work with it as-is, buy another A body and/or open this A390 up and attempt to repair, as I have seen some other users do with success. This photo took about 6 attempts to get. I had to frame the tree trunk at the ground almost completely out in order to get it in with the IS issue. Perhaps zooming back a little and cropping is a better solution. But, honestly, I'm not much on cropping, unless the images stays at the same ratio.

Thanks for the warning, John.

The manual for the N4004 shows a Nikkor 35-70/3.3-4.5 as a kit lens. I guess to stay on the safe side I should pick up a Nikkor lens. If the N4004 is bad I can use the lens on the N75. I guess it will also work on both of my Proneas. Oddly, when I look at used N4004 with lenses it is usually a Quantaray that is attached. Maybe they got it right back then. ;)

Mmmm....I wouldn't say worrying about it, just being curious. When it comes to AF film cameras I'm pretty much a Minolta shooter. From my Maxxum 7000 to my Maxxum 50 and many A-Mount lenses from Minolta and others I have yet to experience an issue. That's why I'm saying it's probably a defect with the N4004 and/or the Sigma. I'm guessing if I got another N4004 and an AF Nikkor things would be fine. But honestly, I rather like the N75 and will keep my focus (pun intended) there with Nikon.

I don't have a Samurai currently (might need to change that) but I do have an Oly Super Zoom 330 from 1990. Other than the zoom/VF locking feature the lens cap/IR controller was a pretty slick idea. I haven't ran film through it yet, though. I also have an Oly iS-20. I really like this design. I'm sure it helped define the way future digital bridge cameras looked. I've shot 1 roll with it but it was during the grey days of winter.

You might find this interesting: Is there a film scanner that can read the data from APS films and include it in the EXIF metadata? I do agree, there probably are extremely few labs on this planet that can read the data. I'm sure there is equipment stored away somewhere with very little desire to bring it back to life. I just started getting into APS recently when I discovered my local lab could still process it. I have been doing a lot of reading on the various cameras that were offered. Something that interested me was how weird some of them looked. Yashica Profile 4000IX, anyone? My curiosity did result in 2 very good hard lessons: (1) In purchasing old film it is vital to either get unopened packages or really trust the seller. It is all about that tab to the right of the #3 on the cartridge. These days it is all too easy for someone to tamper with the cartridge to make it look like a new never shot roll. I didn't know this and bought 3 rolls of someone's vacation shots of France! The indicator was on #1 but the tab was broken. Which led to lesson (2) Film can get stuck in a camera. Either the companies wanted to repair stuck cameras or they never got around to implementing a way to manually retrieve stuck film. Which brings me to one more thing.... While slightly entertaining, I really didn't want to have to open up my just purchased Canon EOS IX to get that France vacation film out. No less than 8 ribbons to disconnect before the back film plate could be removed! And while on the subject of the magnetic data write feature, the IX looks like a big cassette tape head.

Thanks for your thoughts, Andrew. I cleaned the contacts and that didn't change anything. I just got back from my usual camera shop. My friend there tried several lenses with the N4004 and got problems. Also, he tried the Sigma on several bodies and got problems. However, maybe all is not lost. The Sigma has a smooth manual focus and the aperture ring works, so it looks like it will be OK to use as a manual lens. So I am going to put the N4004 way back in the closet and pick up an FG, FM or maybe FE body in the near future.

Last year I picked up an N4004 with a Sigma Epsilon 28-70mm F3.5-4.5. With the body in A mode and the lens aperture ring on the orange F22 everything seems fine. If I move the aperture ring off of F22 I get the +/- blinking in the viewfinder, as it's supposed to be. A couple months later I picked up an N75 body. I can use both of my AF-S DX G kit lenses from my D60 with no problem on the N75. However, when I mount the Sigma on it sometimes I get an F-- in the viewfinder and sometimes the viewfinder info goes crazy, no matter what mode the body is set at. The manual says that F-- will occur IF the lens is a non-CPU lens. I have searched many, many pages online concerning this lens and all I can find is other people trying to find info themselves. If this IS a non-CPU lens how can I tell? The lens mount looks like an AI-S AF mount with ****_* pins and the dip cut out near the lock pin hole. Both N4004 and N75 body mount look identical. I have also heard that certain type lenses with some bodies can damage the meter so I haven't tried to mount my DX lenses on the N4004.