Tried a Maxxum 7D and 20D - my first impressions

Desmond Lim · Oct 20, 2004

Hi LQ and thyll,

Lockup.. haaa..

Yes, I've experienced lockup with film 7 before, but it is probably user fault during lens changing (oh... its me), I suspect its because I didn't switch off the camera while changing and the contact points of lens and body touched. All I need to do is quickly switch off and on again to reset. But if it lockup during shooting, that's another story.

Cheers!
Des

thyll said:
After all, we all heard about DSLR are locking up once in a while,
regarding of a brand, don't we?

C.

Legacys_quest said:

Desmond,

good points here. I'm not going to base my opinion on this. The
best way is like someone stated about the guy (I forgot his name?)
who does the reports on the camera. Also, we'll have to wait for
Phils point if view. I'm not saying that the guy's not sincere, but
we or least, I, have to stay away from posters camera vs camera
opinion. This is due to the bashing that's been going on for
sometime now. I was going to leave it that the opinion was an
honest one, but what made me question this is something that
Desmond pointed out. All of the people who has had the opportunity
to test the camera out never mentioned the issue of the camera
locking up. Not that this isn't a possibility, but I find it odd
that this has taken place suddenly. I'd hope and expect that if
this were the case, Minolta would checked all of this out for 1699
camera. Anyways, time will tell.

Click to expand...

--
Des

'Charter Member - 7D Adoption Society'

Desmond Lim · Oct 20, 2004

thyll said:
You comments about the memory setting is absolutely true. However,
those settings are meant to use as 'panic' modes. You should switch
to thos setting when unexpected things happen, and switch back to
your normal setting (for me, my normal setting is single AF, single
shot, AF priority mode, and I have the mem1 set as continuous AF,
multiple shot, shutter priority, in case something fast goes by).

thyll, nice tips for me. I've never used the custom setup before. I like your 'panic' mode setup :-D. But I think I will stay with focus priority. Unless I set it as manual focus, well let me try out first.

thyll said:
If AF camera can't focus correctly, then there must be a problem.
KM should not release the camera with AF problem. If they do, 7D
is deserved to fail. Having said that, we should keep in mind that
7D applies less in-camera sharpen filter to the images, they might
appear softer on the lcd than that of 20D. Canon might also
sharpen images before show them on the LCD. After all, Canon is
known to applies a (weak)shapening filter on raw data.

I agree here about the low light AF performance.

thyll said:
The lack of spot meter in 20D turns me off. I spent a lot of time
learning and perfecting my zone-system skill, and zone system is
useless without spot meter. BTW, KM has a very nice feature: the
meter is still active when you press the AEL button so you can see
the different between the locked value and the current value.
Perfect for zone-system Olympus OM-4T and Canon EOS 3 also has
similar features but KM's is nicer because it's always available.
You have to turn on this feature on 4Ti and EOS 3.

I agree again.. oh my.. it is difficult to live without spot metering.

Cheers!
--
Des

'Charter Member - 7D Adoption Society'

Desmond Lim · Oct 20, 2004

Hi Jeremy,

Don't worry about it. You've done well in your review as far as the manufacturers have offered at the show. Thanks.

Cheers!
Des

digicam_fetish said:
Cheers,
Jeremy
Edmonton, Canada

bentonton said:

thyll said:

28-100mm is a cheapo lens you can get for $99 at bhphoto. 17-85IS
is a $600 lens.

Click to expand...

Exactly my concern about this "unbiased" comparison. Unbiased it
may be but unequal it is as well. Let's compare apples and apples,
please. I definitely expect image quality, AF performance,
viewfinder brightness and the "contrast" of the display to be
affected by this.

As far as Minolta AF goes, those of us that have used Minolta kit
understand from experience that the difference between AF speed on
a cheap lens and on a high end lens can be significant. Yes, a
cheap lens forces a Minolta film body to "seek" back and forth to
achieve focus. It seems that your comparison weighs heavily on this
difference.

Click to expand...

--
Des

'Charter Member - 7D Adoption Society'

Desmond Lim · Oct 20, 2004

LOL!

thyll, please forgive KM also, like you said, "Guess it's first time they sell DSLR..." :-D

thyll said:
digicam_fetish said:

Cheers,
Jeremy
Edmonton, Canada

bentonton said:

thyll said:

28-100mm is a cheapo lens you can get for $99 at bhphoto. 17-85IS
is a $600 lens.

Click to expand...

Exactly my concern about this "unbiased" comparison. Unbiased it
may be but unequal it is as well. Let's compare apples and apples,
please. I definitely expect image quality, AF performance,
viewfinder brightness and the "contrast" of the display to be
affected by this.

As far as Minolta AF goes, those of us that have used Minolta kit
understand from experience that the difference between AF speed on
a cheap lens and on a high end lens can be significant. Yes, a
cheap lens forces a Minolta film body to "seek" back and forth to
achieve focus. It seems that your comparison weighs heavily on this
difference.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

--
Des

'Charter Member - 7D Adoption Society'

thyll · Oct 20, 2004

hi Jeremy ,

it's not your fault, at all! If there is anyone to point a finger at, it's KM that put the funky lens on the show in the first place... I mean, what are they thinking? If they want the camera to have good impression on people, at least put a decent lens on it. Guess it's first time they sell DSLR...
C.

digicam_fetish said:
Cheers,
Jeremy
Edmonton, Canada

bentonton said:

thyll said:

28-100mm is a cheapo lens you can get for $99 at bhphoto. 17-85IS
is a $600 lens.

Click to expand...

Exactly my concern about this "unbiased" comparison. Unbiased it
may be but unequal it is as well. Let's compare apples and apples,
please. I definitely expect image quality, AF performance,
viewfinder brightness and the "contrast" of the display to be
affected by this.

As far as Minolta AF goes, those of us that have used Minolta kit
understand from experience that the difference between AF speed on
a cheap lens and on a high end lens can be significant. Yes, a
cheap lens forces a Minolta film body to "seek" back and forth to
achieve focus. It seems that your comparison weighs heavily on this
difference.

Click to expand...

alex904 · Oct 21, 2004

Hm... You comments about focus speed and quality makes me think that you have little experience with different lenses. Focus speed really depends on lens.

alex904 · Oct 21, 2004

Yonghui said:
Thanks a lot for the review! I think it's a fair comparison without
bias. Really helps, esp. the part regarding 7D's responsiveness.

It's very biased review actually. Good comparative revies don't use "win by big margin" and comparative words like that.

For me, both 20D and 7D have similarly tangled user interface and both of them are not intuitively easy to use for first time users. So comments about UI are very biased. Not sure about rest, I never tested startup time for 7D and never seen tech charachterstics.

alex904 · Oct 21, 2004

And judging picture quality by ISO3200 shots? You gotta be kidding me!

alex904 · Oct 21, 2004

JackRiley said:
Surprising info about the viewfinder. I expected it to be much
better than the 20D, based on what everyone here has written about
the film version.

According to reviews that were publised in internet so far, everybody loved 7D viewfinder and all of them said that it's as good as original 7. Canon has a good viewfinder as well, but nothing really special. For my bad vision I would prefer to use Minolta viewfinder for manual focusing, but Canon is pretty much ok for me as well.

OzRay · Oct 21, 2004

I'm not really a KM owner anymore, but I'm still keeping in touch; however, I'm begining to wonder lately if my move elsewhere was in fact a very good decision.

The extemely friendly and balanced atmosphere that exists in the MTF (except for the ocassional troll) seems to be missing here of late. There appears to be more and more angry and spiteful people taking every opportunity to act like the worst of the Canon thugs, completely unable to carry out a reasoned discussion under any circumstances.

Support for a product you like is fine, but there have probably been more messengers shot lately than in all of the Roman conquests. One moron seems to have been weeded out in the last day or so. Maybe a few more should follow.

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

Terry Davidson · Oct 21, 2004

Thanks for what I see as a very balanced report, Jeremy, the good,
the bad, but nothing ugly.

The camera crash incident was reported in French magazine Reponses Photo in September. They also gave a direct comparison with the
20D and it reflects your report - in fact their conclusion positioned the
7D more in the D70, 10D camp in terms of image quality.

I'm surprised by some of the posts that many seem to only want to
look at the 7D through rose coloured viewfinders. Get real guys.

I suspect that some things will ilmprove as , like the camera I played
with in Photokina, many show models were still proto's and Minolta
are still fine tuning the firmware.

Cheers

Terry Davidson

OzRay said:
I'm not really a KM owner anymore, but I'm still keeping in touch;
however, I'm begining to wonder lately if my move elsewhere was in
fact a very good decision.

The extemely friendly and balanced atmosphere that exists in the
MTF (except for the ocassional troll) seems to be missing here of
late. There appears to be more and more angry and spiteful people
taking every opportunity to act like the worst of the Canon thugs,
completely unable to carry out a reasoned discussion under any
circumstances.

Support for a product you like is fine, but there have probably
been more messengers shot lately than in all of the Roman
conquests. One moron seems to have been weeded out in the last day
or so. Maybe a few more should follow.

Cheers

Ray

--
There are no limits, only challenges - me (unless someone else said
it first).

http://www.rkp.com.au/PhotoGallery/

splugnut · Oct 21, 2004

Canon 20D has one massive flaw IMHO, it doesn't work with any of my minolta glass, so therefore in my equation it's useless. For this release of this DSLR KM are primarily looking for purchases from existing customers, if they wanted new cutomers they'd get plenty more by releasing a budget 300D competitor and I'm sure they are well aware of that. Like most of KMs intended target audience, I have little interest in what the competition can do. All I am interested in is how well, in comparison to my ideals, the D7D does its job. So far, thankfully, it looks like its going to be as much of a joy to use as my Dynax7 and is capable of providing images at a quality way above the existing bounds of acceptability. The only gripe I have with it is that mine hasn't arrived yet. As for the cost, well I spend rather more than that each year on film and processing at present and I dont believe that the price is particularly inconsistent with market trends anyway. The adage that the photographer takes the shot and not the camera is the most significant thing of all, KM are providing the tool, what we do with it is up to us, but I'm sure that the capabilities of this camera far exceed the abilities of most photographers (myself included). The fundamental principle behind the design of minolta cameras has never been to make photography easy, it has always been simply to remove the obstacles, i.e. ensure all controls are easily accessible and intuitive, all the features normally required are available and to minimise unnecessary annoyances (like the little clip on the strap to prevent the remote release cable flapping in the breeze - simple, but nice). the photography is then left to us. If the end result is a mess, we can only blame ourselves. As for the continual comparisons with other products, this is generally a moot point, ask any photographer what is his/her favourite out of all of the shots they've taken, chances are that shot was not taken with the "best" equipment on the market or even the best they own. In my case, for all of the other camera gear I own, my favourite shot was taken with a DImage 7i and I very much doubt that looking at the print anyone would be able to determine that, or would frankly bother to. A good picture is a good picture, regardless of the label on the front of the camera used to take it.

Another point with these comparative reviews is that I very much doubt that many people here have actually used a 20D for any period, so telling us that the viewfinder image is about the same as the 20D is like telling us that something we've never seen is about the same as something else we've never seen. Don't get me wrong, this is not pointed directly at you, its simply that this list is now getting a bit overendowed with what are essentially 20D reviews and this one was just the latest of them.

digicam_fetish said:
Hi all,

I was just at a small camera show in Edmonton where both K-M and
Canon had booths. I was able to try out both a K-M D7D and the
Canon 20D for about 30 mins. Below are my impressions. To let you
know my background, I have owned many Canon point-and-shoots in the
past, and I'm now about to get into D-SLR's (no prior D-SLR
experience). I'm trying to decide between the 20D and the D7D
(have no lenses for either system at the moment).

Note: D7D camera firmware version was 1.00u. Lens was a fairly
inexpensive looking 28-100 f3.5-5.6 Minolta. 20D had a 17-85 IS
lens.

Body:
D7D wins here. The grip is a little nicer, and the D7D body is a
little heavier than the 20D, which makes the camera with lens feel
more "balanced" overall. Both cameras have a "quality" feel,
though.

Viewfinder:
D7D wins, but only by a very small margin. The D7D viewfinder is
slightly brighter than the 20D. However, the AF points are
brighter and easier to see on the 20D, and with glasses on I found
it a little difficult on the D7D to see the right side "shake

mobydick · Oct 21, 2004

First, thank you very much for your extensive review. I had the opportunity to test a 7D for a short time as well: On the Photokina with the new 17-35 and the 24-105 D and would like to comment on some of your observations where I had different (or similar) impressions.

digicam_fetish said:
Viewfinder:
D7D wins, but only by a very small margin. The D7D viewfinder is
slightly brighter than the 20D.

I agree.

digicam_fetish said:
Responsiveness:
Canon 20D wins by a longshot, for three reasons. First, the Canon
is READY to shoot instantaneously from off to on position, or
waking up from sleep mode. Not so with the D7D. The D7D from off
to on takes about 1.5-2 seconds between switch on and actual
picture taken (due to time to wake up and autofocus).

Not my impression. I turned the D7D on and off for several times, and experienced a nearly instant on with the usual Maxxum lens initialization first. I estimate, altogether less than a second. Also image review was possible really immediately after the shot, image magnification and scrolling was fast and smooth.

digicam_fetish said:
Screen:
D7D only wins by a small margin, IMHO. I thought I would like the
screen on the D7D a lot more. It certainly is bigger than the
Canon by a longshot, but wasn't as "contrasty", so that images on
the D7D screen didn't look as clear as on the 20D's screen.

You may be right, but nevertheless I liked the LCD of the D7D a lot.

digicam_fetish said:
you can only zoom to 4.7x on the D7D screen, whereas Canon can zoom
to 10x.

Yes, the magnification of the D7D stops before one reaches pixel level. But you get close at least.

digicam_fetish said:
Playback interface:
20D wins, IMHO.

Really a matter of taste.

digicam_fetish said:
Images:
On the Canon, more of my shots seemed to be in focus.

My autofocus impression with the D7D and the above-mentioned lenses was very good.

digicam_fetish said:
Overall feel:
The LCD screen on the D7D was a lot
bigger, but because it wasn't as contrasty, it didn't seem that
much better than the 20D.

For me it was much better, also compared to the 20D which I visited later and also several times here in town at a local dealer (I am trying to decide between both cameras at the moment as well).

digicam_fetish said:
responsive and didn't seem as good at focussing.
(I realize the lens on the D7D may have something to do with this).

Actually, despite the difficult lighting in the exhibition hall, I really had to try hard to get the AF of the D7D into hunting. I wanted to hear how noisy the AF is, but unfortunately, whenever I switched from a far to a close target to hear the AF, the AF was so fast and secure, that there was no time for listening. At the end I had to put my hand in front of the lens to force hunting. As all maxxum users know, Minolta AF is noisy compared to USM lenses. That's the point where I like Canon a lot.

No argument intended, just my partly different impression

Henry Richardson · Oct 21, 2004

Desmond Lim said:
thyll, please forgive KM also, like you said, "Guess it's first
time they sell DSLR..." :-D

Yes, but not the first time to sell an SLR. I agree, the KM people that put the camera on display were boneheaded to put such a cheap lens on their new high-end, wonderful DSLR. It doesn't take too much smarts to figure out this wasn't the thing to do so it is a mystery why they did it. Oh, well.

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.richardson.photoshare.co.nz/
http://www.printroom.com/pro/intrepid

Alex Escada · Oct 21, 2004

Nice review...

I'd like to say that used Canon lens is about 6 times more expensive than the Minolta 28-100. Sharpness, AF speed, build quality are for sure very different.

Sol · Oct 21, 2004

Very nice job Jeremy. Thanks for sharing your experience. And nice follow-up by mobydick, with a slightly different take. All are valid comments, as it is great to hear, peoples first impressions on these to great cameras.

Doesn't effect my buying decision either way, though. And I would hope it wouldn't determine anyone else's, either.

For anyone seriously debating these, or any other cameras. Go to the store and hold the cameras. Take some time to get to know them. It's to expensive of a purchase, not to. Take a few minutes to absorb the camera, it's features, and how they function.

As an example, I recently played with the Canon 20D. Now I'm pretty good with electronics, so I did figure out some of the basic menu functions fairly quickly, on the 20D, but it was in no way as intuitive as my Maxxum 7. But I totally blame that on my lack of experience with Canon cameras, rather than possible design short-comings .

But by the same token, I feel completely familiar with the 7D simply by glancing through the PDF manual. Though, I've never actually held the camera. But because I own the A1, KM's "way of thinking" with their menu layouts, is very familiar to me. I would think, for instance, that Jeremy, having used a Canon Point & Shoot in the past, is probably some what more familiar with Canon's "way of thinking", and the arrangements of their menu systems, more so than he would be with the 7D.

I guess the point is, by all means, read my comments, Jeremy's comments, Phil's review, etc. But take the information with a grain of salt, and go spend some real time with the different cameras your debating, and spend wisely.

mobydick said:
mobydick said:

Viewfinder:
D7D wins, but only by a very small margin. The D7D viewfinder is
slightly brighter than the 20D.

Click to expand...

I agree.

mobydick said:

Responsiveness:
Canon 20D wins by a longshot, for three reasons. First, the Canon
is READY to shoot instantaneously from off to on position, or
waking up from sleep mode. Not so with the D7D. The D7D from off
to on takes about 1.5-2 seconds between switch on and actual
picture taken (due to time to wake up and autofocus).

Click to expand...

Not my impression. I turned the D7D on and off for several times,
and experienced a nearly instant on with the usual Maxxum lens
initialization first. I estimate, altogether less than a second.
Also image review was possible really immediately after the shot,
image magnification and scrolling was fast and smooth.

mobydick said:

Screen:
D7D only wins by a small margin, IMHO. I thought I would like the
screen on the D7D a lot more. It certainly is bigger than the
Canon by a longshot, but wasn't as "contrasty", so that images on
the D7D screen didn't look as clear as on the 20D's screen.

Click to expand...

You may be right, but nevertheless I liked the LCD of the D7D a lot.

mobydick said:

you can only zoom to 4.7x on the D7D screen, whereas Canon can zoom
to 10x.

Click to expand...

Yes, the magnification of the D7D stops before one reaches pixel
level. But you get close at least.

mobydick said:

Playback interface:
20D wins, IMHO.

Click to expand...

Really a matter of taste.

mobydick said:

Images:
On the Canon, more of my shots seemed to be in focus.

Click to expand...

My autofocus impression with the D7D and the above-mentioned lenses
was very good.

mobydick said:

Overall feel:
The LCD screen on the D7D was a lot
bigger, but because it wasn't as contrasty, it didn't seem that
much better than the 20D.

Click to expand...

For me it was much better, also compared to the 20D which I visited
later and also several times here in town at a local dealer (I am
trying to decide between both cameras at the moment as well).

mobydick said:

responsive and didn't seem as good at focussing.
(I realize the lens on the D7D may have something to do with this).

Click to expand...

Actually, despite the difficult lighting in the exhibition hall, I
really had to try hard to get the AF of the D7D into hunting. I
wanted to hear how noisy the AF is, but unfortunately, whenever I
switched from a far to a close target to hear the AF, the AF was so
fast and secure, that there was no time for listening. At the end I
had to put my hand in front of the lens to force hunting. As all
maxxum users know, Minolta AF is noisy compared to USM lenses.
That's the point where I like Canon a lot.

No argument intended, just my partly different impression

--
Sol

Sometimes a photograph captures reality.
Sometimes a photograph captures the imagination.
Ultimately, a photograph simply captures a moment in time.
And then, . . . it lives forever.

kiklop_2 · Oct 21, 2004

So .. the statement in the manual (that we had a chance to download ) of magnification of 4.7 x is true ?!

In one of the press materials KM has stated "Automatic focus-point detection with 10X enlargement makes it easy to check for correct focus" (Well, I can't remember from where I downloaded this guide material but for those who are interested you can download it from http://www.dyxum.com/downloads/7DGuide.rar )

I was hopping for that feature in the final version.

José B · Oct 21, 2004

although I still have to shoot with the 7D so I am reserving my comparisons later.

Hi Jeremy,

Thanks for the user reviews for both cameras. I tried the 20D over a month ago:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1035&message=10223745

So I agree with you that the 20D is very responsive, has a bright viewfinder, fast AF, very clean high ISO images and I like the shutter sound too---very film SLR-like.

This weekend I will try out the 7D at the Henry's show. I might bring one of my Maxxum lenses to try out the AS feature.

Just like Sol, I've already made my decision and pre-ordered a few weeks ago to get the 7D.

Cheers,

José

--

Impatiently waiting for 'Steady Eddie'-----the Maxxum 7D. T-minus-6-days and counting

TerryKC · Oct 21, 2004

Sol said:
mobydick said:

Sol said:

Viewfinder:
D7D wins, but only by a very small margin. The D7D viewfinder is
slightly brighter than the 20D.

Click to expand...

I agree.

Sol said:

Responsiveness:
Canon 20D wins by a longshot, for three reasons. First, the Canon
is READY to shoot instantaneously from off to on position, or
waking up from sleep mode. Not so with the D7D. The D7D from off
to on takes about 1.5-2 seconds between switch on and actual
picture taken (due to time to wake up and autofocus).

Click to expand...

Not my impression. I turned the D7D on and off for several times,
and experienced a nearly instant on with the usual Maxxum lens
initialization first. I estimate, altogether less than a second.
Also image review was possible really immediately after the shot,
image magnification and scrolling was fast and smooth.

Sol said:

Screen:
D7D only wins by a small margin, IMHO. I thought I would like the
screen on the D7D a lot more. It certainly is bigger than the
Canon by a longshot, but wasn't as "contrasty", so that images on
the D7D screen didn't look as clear as on the 20D's screen.

Click to expand...

You may be right, but nevertheless I liked the LCD of the D7D a lot.

Sol said:

you can only zoom to 4.7x on the D7D screen, whereas Canon can zoom
to 10x.

Click to expand...

Yes, the magnification of the D7D stops before one reaches pixel
level. But you get close at least.

Sol said:

Playback interface:
20D wins, IMHO.

Click to expand...

Really a matter of taste.

Sol said:

Images:
On the Canon, more of my shots seemed to be in focus.

Click to expand...

My autofocus impression with the D7D and the above-mentioned lenses
was very good.

Sol said:

Overall feel:
The LCD screen on the D7D was a lot
bigger, but because it wasn't as contrasty, it didn't seem that
much better than the 20D.

Click to expand...

For me it was much better, also compared to the 20D which I visited
later and also several times here in town at a local dealer (I am
trying to decide between both cameras at the moment as well).

Sol said:

responsive and didn't seem as good at focussing.
(I realize the lens on the D7D may have something to do with this).

Click to expand...

Actually, despite the difficult lighting in the exhibition hall, I
really had to try hard to get the AF of the D7D into hunting. I
wanted to hear how noisy the AF is, but unfortunately, whenever I
switched from a far to a close target to hear the AF, the AF was so
fast and secure, that there was no time for listening. At the end I
had to put my hand in front of the lens to force hunting. As all
maxxum users know, Minolta AF is noisy compared to USM lenses.
That's the point where I like Canon a lot.

No argument intended, just my partly different impression

Click to expand...

--
Sol

Sometimes a photograph captures reality.
Sometimes a photograph captures the imagination.
Ultimately, a photograph simply captures a moment in time.
And then, . . . it lives forever.

mjjglasgow · Oct 21, 2004

I've seen a review of the 20D that says the 10X magnification isn't actually useful because at that magnification its actually quite difficult to judge image sharpness as the image is actually blown up on screen a little TOO much to judge if it is in focus or not.

Personally I dont have an opinion on whether 4.7 is worse/the same in practical usefulness as 10X but that's what the Amateur Photography reviewer seemed to think.

Tried a Maxxum 7D and 20D - my first impressions

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