Don't get me wrong. I really like my Nikon F5 -- it's a pro camera. It's fast, responsive, and does everything I tell it to. Problem is, I can't learn enough to be able to tell it what it needs to do what I want. Or, as I told an ex or two, it's not you -- it's me. So Monday after work, I'm going to go look at an F4. Where the F5 is controlled through spin wheels and buttons on the back, the F4 still has knobs and buttons and levers (oh my) and blessedly, no custom functions to forget. One AF point, but I grew up shooting with a split-image so the focus-and-move to compose is very natural for me.

In the perfect world, I'd just shoot a Leica and get it over with. But I hate hate hate having multiple framelines in my viewfinder. A Contax G2 would be great except a) damn, are they expensive and b) the viewfinder is very small and squinty. I tried the Zeiss Ikon M and couldn't even see the meter in the viewfinder. Which sucks because I love that long rangefinder base and Zeiss lenses.

Plus, at its best and most modern, M-mounts still don't have shutter priority which is how I shoot about 80% of the time (the other 20% being full manual). Crap, my freakin Canonet has shutter priority. You're telling me Leica can't figure it out?

Anyway. Reasonably sized (F5 is a beast, even with lithium batteries in it), matrix/evaluative metering (so old rangefinders are out), good autofocus (so a Canon T90 is out) and tough (so a Canon G2 is out). That's what I want. Something I can throw in my 15 year old manpurse along with my books, 2 rolls of Tri-X and a roll of Portra NC160 and my noise-cancelling headphones.

Somedays convenience does win. Other days, I bring my Hasselblad or Bronica GS-1 and get big negatives.

But for the most part, I like convenience. And the F4 seems to hit the peaks of the better/faster/cheaper curves for me.

Monday, I'll know for sure.