Yes!
The traditional-for-Sony button-lock of exposure - which can
then be modified in 1/2 stop steps using the nearby control
wheel. No need to enter menus, let alone ones that are hard
to see on that touch-screen in bright light, find up/down
arrows on, etc.... By the time you open the LCD panel on the
PC9, touch to open menus, touch to select exposure, touch to
select "manual", touch arrows to select level, touch to
close menus, close the LCD panel to use the better eyepiece
finder, whatever it was you were about to shoot had better
be pretty stationary (and not bothered by the plethora of
"beeps" emitted in the process...;-).

On 28 May 2002 11:03:52 -0700, tm55@usa.com (tom) wrote:
>
>david --
>
>do the trv17/18 have a more convenient method of manipulating exposure
>than the touch screen arrangement of hte pc9?
>
>thanks!

>> ??????????
>> As I have pointed out before, true spotmetering is the
>> quickest way to poor exposure... If you enable the
>> touch-screen spot metering, you are locking the exposure
>> to a most-often-incorrect overall value. Better exposure
>> is likely if you remain in autoexposure mode. If the
>> camera permitted this (the 3-chip Sonys do), even better
>> would be biasing the auto exposure control, as needed.
>> Short this, it used to be easy with "button-and-wheel"
>> camera controls to lock the overall exposure (as the
>> spot metering mode does) and modify it as needed with
>> the handy wheel (instead of using the cumbersome
>> touch-screen controls for manual exposure and shifting,
>> or for trying to keep up with spot metering needs).
>> Alternatively, you can try the "spotlight" program mode,
>> if your subject lighting requires it... (this also
>> biases the exposure towards a slightly darker picture,
>> often useful).
>> David Ruether