It would be interesting to know if what appears to be deliberate
withholding of information is a policy that comes out of the
company's marketing department, or if it's a higher-level executive
decision and the marketing people are grinding their teeth down to
the bone, knowing that they can't actually market the product this
way.
If it's a strategy to whip up customer enthusiasm, it could be a
risky one. If the camera turns out to be excellent, everyone wins.
But if after all the waiting the machine turns out to be strictly
mediocre, they lose sales
and make themselves look bad in the
bargain. (I suspect most such companies have plenty of marketing
talent but don't have a clue about
public relations -- which is
rather different from marketing. Most companies think, wrongly,
that public-relations work is properly delegated to some low-level
functionary in the personnel department.)
Ann Chaikin wrote:
This is sounding an awful lot like Daimler Chrysler and the PT
Cruiser... sad to say. Lots of hype and then too little
information on availability. I hope Minolta's distribution system
is better!
Let's hope they are more attentive to service and to making
accessories available in a timely fashion than they have been to
communicating with their dealers and customers.
I'd like to know how large and heavy the Dimage 7 is
In the photos, such as they are, the machine seems to be roughly
the size of vaguely similar-looking cameras from Fuji...but it's
difficult to know. I would not expect it to be heavy. But then we
also don't know how much of the body is metal and how much is
plastic. (So far, actually, it's vapor, which is unacceptably
light.
If both the camera and the price are not too huge it could be
the perfect answer to the digital vs film camera question. I'd go
all digital myself if I could find a good enough camera.
And this might be it!
An interesting issue...the answer to many people's "film--or
digital?" dilemma. It's possible that E-10-like and Dimage-7-like
cameras with non-interchangeable lenses are actually dinosaurs in
the prosumer market. It might be that within a relatively short
time,
the desirable prosumer camera will be an
interchangeable-lens model--and it will be more easily afforded
than such cameras are now. (I'd love to have a D30, but...ouch...)
The folk wisdom about the Dimage 7 price seems to be: US$1500 to
$2000, as cited in various articles in print or on-line. Such a
range -- a $500 difference! Not insignificant.
I'm attracted to the combination of focal lengths and mpx rating,
at those price points. But there's a good deal more to think about.
Is the new whiz-bang EVF design
really as good as they claim? How
bad is the shutter lag? E-10 owners love the responsiveness of
their cameras, and with good reason. Will the Dimage 7 be similarly
responsive?
Is the new 5 mpx sensor going to be really noisy at all but the
lowest ISO setting? If so, we have at least a mild disappointment
on our hands -- another case of failure to reduce noise when that
should have been a priority. The E-10 is clearly capable of taking
gorgeous shots at its ISO 100 setting...but not at ISO 400 (I
notice that most of the folks in the Oly SLR forum display their
photographic wares with shots taken at ISO 100. That's for good
reason.)
So will the Canon D30 remain
the low-noise camera? If so,
WHY ?
What would be preventing other manufacturers from adding such
enhancements? Is it a CCD versus CMOS issue? Or is it that Canon
was willing to invest in the necessary firmware and algorithm
designs--but the other companies are not? This has also been on my
mind concerning, for example, the Canon's compressed RAW format,
available in the G1 -- and perhaps in the D30 as well. What a great
feature. Why do we not see this in other prosumer cameras?
So...will Minolta have gone the distance with a really well
thought-out design? Will they have placed that manual focusing
control in some sensible place? Have they made this camera usable
without pain with studio flash equipment? The questions could go on
and on...
Hello, Minolta: As much as I like the idea of a 5 mpx camera with
that interesting-sounding lens: if they have taken too many
shortcuts, ergonomics-wise; if sensor is unacceptably noisy at all
but ISO 100 (or whatever the lowest setting will be); if the EVF is
not so great -- etc.! -- then Minolta will likely have lost at
least one sale to the E-10...
