Re: Destroying your Nishika (longish)

[P3D Gregory J. Wageman <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Wier writes:

>The only thing the batteries do is to run a little
>"low light" LED indicator in the viewfinder (which is basically
>worthless because it comes on at the same light level regardless
>of the aperture setting).

I disagree somewhat that it's "basically worthless".  Assuming that the
sensor is adjusted to come on when the light level is too low for the
widest of the aperture settings (though I haven't verified this with
my exposure meter), it tells you that you need to use flash to get a
decent exposure.  I never expected it to act like a psuedo exposure
meter.

>Consistent with some other things on the Nishika (like the LCD
>display :-) ...

Not to mention the original $700 price tag via the Nishika pyramid
sales scheme...

>...although there appear
>to be 4 contacts (3 on the shoe, one connected to the shoe frame),
>only 2 of those actually have wires connected to them! [...]
>The two smaller contacts (which don't match any standard pattern as
>best as I can tell) are dummys.

It appears Nishika did everything they could to make the camera look
and feel (e.g. your 1/2 pound lead weight) like an expensive high-end
electronic camera, which it most certainly isn't.  Can you say "Consumer
fraud", boys and girls?

I had been wondering if those extra contacts operated a "flash ready"
light in the viewfinder, but I wasn't wondering enough to open it up to
find out.  I thought it strange, though, that the Nishika Twinlight flash
didn't actually use those contacts, since it was made for the camera.
Thanks for saving me the trouble!

	-Greg



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