>>3011762It's insanely easy to focus. The focus ring has almost no resistance and a very short throw, you can flick it from MFD to infinity in less than a 1/4 turn. And if you've ever used a rangefinder, it uses a standard split-focus screen, which is great and reasonably well-lit.
To be honest though, and you can probably gather this by looking at the pictures I've taken with it, I don't really concern myself with focusing this camera all that often. Most of my work with this guy has been on a tripod at night or handheld during day/dusk with 400 speed film, so it basically lives at f/8-11 with the focus set to hyperfocal distance. It's not a camera for thin DOF or handheld night shots. I usually pair this camera up with my Minolta SLR and 50 f/1.2 when traveling for that very reason.
Also, yes, utilizing manual shutter control for long exposures on this camera is an exercise in frustration. At least until you get used to it. It requires you to have some sort of tiny, thin, rigid object, like a house/car key, with which to hit the super annoying recessed button on the side of lens. Since there is no 'bulb' setting on the shutter dial, anything longer than 1 second and you have to trip the shutter manually using this button, and then close it with the normal shutter release button.
As far as posting more pictures from the camera beyond what I have on flickr, my travel blog Photosomnia I linked above has a bunch more, although they're organized by location, not camera, so you'll have to sift through mostly Minolta SLR shots to find them. I almost never crop my shots though, so you should be able to tell which are which by the aspect ratio (3:4 as opposed to 2:3). All my posts from Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and both of the Japan posts will have pictures from this camera on there. I didn't really use it much in SEA though.
