Oh ... fountain pens. I love them !!! I also had a Parker pen about 30 years ago. It was a wonderful fountain pen ... slim, simple design, stylish and just silver. I lost it ... and never found such a pen ever again

But just two weeks ago, I told my wife, that I want to have a fountain pen again ... and I finally found one, which I liked. Not like my old Parker, but still ... similar. The thing is, that the handwriting is completely different if using a fountain pen ... and much more beautiful ... at least mine.

I like zoom lenses on P&S cameras, but I prefer prime lenses on film cameras.

Some cameras also had an interesting design "inbetween" ( like an old Minolta AUTO Tele, I have ). You could switch between two prime lenses instead of having a real zoom lens ( 38 mm and 60 mm on this Minolta for example ). Actually an interesting concept, because I would say, people are mostly fine with 38 mm for land-/cityscapes and 60 mm for portraits/close ups on a full frame camera ... for daily life purposes or as a walk around camera. Nobody really needs all the fine graduations inbetween and special purposes need special lenses anyway ... or as I said, a zoom on a P&S can come handy, covering everything from macros to super telephoto ... within certain quality limits of course ... but a large zoom lens on a bulky SLR/DSLR wouldn't be my choice

I never used this lens in particular, but Soligor has been a pretty common lens maker in Japan, producing lenses with different mounts ( this seems to be a M42 ? ).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soligor

They also made a lot of different telephoto lenses. I own a Soligor 400 mm and I am very happy with it.

Do NEX cameras not have an APS-C sensor ? ( because the original thread was about micro four thirds cameras ). I used a GH1 ( this is a MFT camera ) for a while, with different classic lenses and adapters, but mostly for video and have been very happy with it. For still pictures, I still prefer real film for several reasons.

Extending the choice to bigger sensored APS-C cameras ( like the NEX ), if I would need to buy a digital camera now, my personal choice would be a Fuji XE-1 ( best, coming with a 35 mm/f1.4 prime ). I used digital Fuji cameras in the past ( a Finepix S6500fd for example, which I still love ) and the colors have been always best.

I still use digital cameras, but mostly for snapshots along the way ( that's where they can be very powerful in difficult light situations and the compactness is appreciated as well ). But then, I don't walk around with a tripod and exchangeable lenses anymore ( getting old ? ). A simple Casio Exilim is the portable weapon of my choice. Unfortunately still having a tiny P&S sensor, but the capabilities in difficult ( or almost impossible ) light situations are simply amazing. Night shots hand held, no tripod, no motion blur, no picture noise ... simply crazy. The trick is a technology called "high speed shooting". Casio Exilim cameras of the ZR series are capable of shooting several pictures in a very short time and merge them to a final and surprising good looking picture. Super zoom, anti shake, night shots, ( a very natural or ART like looking ) HDR or even an artificial bokeh is possible. I tried this camera at really impossible conditions and it worked. I am not a big fan of all those electronic gadgets and like analog film photography most, but I had to admit, that I could have never taken pictures at those conditions with any other camera yet.

Another good recommendation for all digital stuff: If you can wait a little bit, you can save a lot of money. Sometimes, technology makes a huge step forward ( the GH1 for example as the first mirror less camera with exchangeable lenses and Full HD video capabilities ), but most of the time, the differences between one model and the next are just cosmetic.
I paid app. 1.500 USD for my first GH1 and just 200 USD for a second ( actually new ) body one year later. The new Casio Exilim ZR1000 costs app. 400 USD while I got the older ZR200 model for just 150 USD ( New ) last month. The actually only ( technical ) difference between both models is. that the ZR1000 can shoot HDR movies at 30fps, while mine can just do 15fps. The rest is all the same. Just the design is a little bit different here and there.

I think, the relatively low ASA in the past had also something good - people have been forced to use a decent lighting. If I look at especially TV-productions of today ( at least here in Japan ), they can and do work mostly with natural light, because digital cameras can easily be used at 800-1600 ISO nowadays. But ... the purpose of light is not only "causing brightness", I think. It's also a very important element of dramaturgy IMHO. I would like to call it the "depth of exposure", similar to the depth of field for the focus ... if somebody can imagine, what I mean

I am not really happy with my one I took a test film, but all pictures have been out of focus ( at all distances ). I disassembled the lens, which is a very simple construction on this camera, but I couldn't find anything wrong
It seemed to me, that the lens must be screwed more in for reaching the point of infinity but that is impossible by the design of this camera.


Bencini Comet S by bokuwanihongasuki, on Flickr

Here are two useful links, I think:
www.fotoua.com/1cameraAlltip.php?st=7&rd=4&usl=3&usl1=2&seek1=&seek2=2
www.sovietcams.com/index.php?1073574902
I usually use those, if I need to classify a certain FED model.