Let's Focus on the real issues:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,

and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments, etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--The joy of photography is being there when you take the picture.......NICKPHOTO

I think there are two issues that have still not been settled for everyone. In spite of a couple of questions concerning the camera, I was quick to get my name on a waiting list for one.

One potential problem is noise in the image. Many of the sample images posted so far appear to be pretty noisy compared to those of some other digital cameras of similar specs.

The other concern to many is how well the EVF is going to work. The lack of an optical viewfinder may be a big negative in some usage.

Steve

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

NICKPHOTO said:

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),

Click to expand...

I doubt the lag time is short compared to an Elan IIe. Film based SLRs are normally pretty fast. Consumer digicams normally are not. Do you have comparison numbers.

Those are all significant plusses, except the microdrive. I say that because there is still an outstanding question as to just how ell the camera controls noise. However well it does that at ambient room temperatures on its first shot, it will do it more poorly as the heat increases internally(and externally, of course). That it is a reflective color will help--unlike my black bodied 990, which heats up like crazy at 100 F plus, and gets very noisy at those temperatures. A microdrive in the Minolta is unlikely to do anything but increase noise. If you are shooting at 60 F that will perhaps not be objectionable, but at 90-110 F it very likely will be. Since the price of high capacity CF cards is falling as we speak, my plans are to use a 256 meg card in the D7'

dh

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Some nitpicks...

1. Slow continuous shot mode. Barely faster than 1fps. The Fuji 6900 can do 5fps.
2. No IS like the Canon Pro90 or the Oly C2100

3. would still like a longer telephoto (my Oly C2100 has 380mm at telephoto) but I love the fact that its wide angle is 28mm

Generally, noise doesn't seem to be that bad as far as I can tell. Perhaps I'm not as critical of noise.

Joo

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Ever take 5 or 10 quick shots, then drop the batteries out of the camera? The heat generated by the Microdrive doesn't compare to the heat generated as the batteries discharge.

papatrout said:

dh

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Thank you for the feedback,

Steve, the evf could be a stopper, would Minolta enineer such a camera at these specs to have it hit a brick wall with a bad evf? I hope not.

Andrew: I shoot baseball with my elan iie and i must manual focus and press the shutter when the pitcher (softball) is just at his release to get the
batter just before he contacts with the ball. much longer than the .13 second
mentioned for the D7.

papatrout, yes, i will stay with the cf's vs the micr-drive.

Joo, noise is not nice, and your IS is not imoprtant to me at 200 mm tele.
Thanks for your response and valuable info.

nickphoto said:

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

There is an unanswered question about the heat from batteries located just under the ccd in the D7. Batteries do get hot. The point is to keep as much heat out of the system as you can. A microdrive is considerably hotter than a CF card. The batteries are a given. No matter how hot they get, the only way you can control that is possibly with an external battery pack. Presumably there is one. Easy to beat the heat of a microdrive--use a CF card instead.

At any rate, my presumption has been that the D7 is likely to be very heat/noise sensitive--like the 990. I hope that Phil's tests prove me wrong. If it has noise/heat problems of the same magnitude as my 990, I'll wait for a camera with less noise. Again, I really hope that all the speculation about problems with noise turn out to be greatly exagerated. The feature set of the D7 is very attractive, but I don't need another noisy camera. Phil's tests will settle the issue.

dh

Wayne said:

papatrout said:

dh

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I have never felt a heat problem in either of my cameras from
the microdrive. I popped 86 straight flash shots at a Whitetail
classic show one day, and the batteries were more than a little
warm when I replaced them. You could feel the heat thru the
camera case. I have yet to see a noise problem in any of the
prints that I have made of the sample shots. People keep saying
that the inkjets cover it up, and that reducing the size of the
image averages it out, but that it is still a problem. Guys, the
vast majority of the images produced by this camera will be
printed at 8x10 or smaller, and will be printed on inkjet printers.
At 8x10 on my inkjet, there is no noise problem. Unless you
have proffesional prints made of these images at full capture
size, there is no noise issue. The camera does need a 2 second
delay or a wireless trigger. Shooting macros on a tripod with a
10 second delay is a pain.

NICKPHOTO said:

Andrew: I shoot baseball with my elan iie and i must manual focus
and press the shutter when the pitcher (softball) is just at his
release to get the
batter just before he contacts with the ball. much longer than the
.13 second
mentioned for the D7.

papatrout, yes, i will stay with the cf's vs the micr-drive.

Joo, noise is not nice, and your IS is not imoprtant to me at 200
mm tele.
Thanks for your response and valuable info.

nickphoto said:

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

What kind of cameras do you use that have no noise issues as they heat up? The g1 at 1so 50 or the D30, D1,D1x are relatively noise free. Are you using one or more of these? If there are others, I would like to know who makes them, and I assume others would as well.

You are right, if the images are printed 8x10 or below, or downsampled, the concern is less. But I am interested in getting a better camera than a 990, which I have, so that I can print 11x14 and 13x19, which is a stretch with 5 megapixel small ccd cmaeras. I want the raw files and as little noise as possible if I am going to be making prints beyond 8x10.

All the advice to downsample to suppress the noise misses the point in buying a 5 megapixel camera in my opinion. It may well be that I'll have to go to a D30 ( at lower res, but superior quality) to get away from the noise issue. But, for your purposes, especially if your shooting style is noise tolerant (eg photojournalism, sports, family stuff), the D7 may be the best choice.

dh

Bob Williams said:

NICKPHOTO said:

Andrew: I shoot baseball with my elan iie and i must manual focus
and press the shutter when the pitcher (softball) is just at his
release to get the
batter just before he contacts with the ball. much longer than the
.13 second
mentioned for the D7.

papatrout, yes, i will stay with the cf's vs the micr-drive.

Joo, noise is not nice, and your IS is not imoprtant to me at 200
mm tele.
Thanks for your response and valuable info.

Member said:

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Sorry but Mircodrive proven to don't increase singificantly the heat in a digital camera.

Moreover the position of the CCD and the micridrive in ther D7 IMHO cna't exclude this problem.

papatrout said:

dh

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

As already said the microdrive proven don't increase the heat significantly.

D7 will be less sensitive to battery heat than 990 because the dimension of the lenses: see the cross-sectional image of the D7.

The only precautiuon required: not to insert the batteries when just charged.

papatrout said:

At any rate, my presumption has been that the D7 is likely to be
very heat/noise sensitive--like the 990. I hope that Phil's tests
prove me wrong. If it has noise/heat problems of the same
magnitude as my 990, I'll wait for a camera with less noise.
Again, I really hope that all the speculation about problems with
noise turn out to be greatly exagerated. The feature set of the D7
is very attractive, but I don't need another noisy camera. Phil's
tests will settle the issue.

dh

Wayne said:

papatrout said:

dh

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

I never said that heat did not contribute to noise issues. Have
you downloaded one single full sized image from this camera and
printed them? I have, and on an inkjet at 8.3X10.7 or so, there
is no noise issue to worry about. All of the crying about noise in
this camera has been from looking at monitors. Download one of
the files and either print it yourself, or have it printed at the
size you are looking for. I think you will be pleased. AA batteries
get very warm from contiuous use. On my G-1, the LCD gets
even hotter. When snapped into the recess in the back of the
camera, the case around it gets hot. Yes, heat is an issue, but I
have not yet printed an image from the D-7 that turned out
bad. My purpose is to make the best prints possible. I am not a
journalist. I just learned a long time ago not to judge the print
off the monitor, but to make the print first. Yes, I am using
the G-1. The shots I said I had not seen a problem with when
printed are the shots from the various tests of the D-7. The
comments about the batteries was in response to people
worrying about the microdrive causing heat issues. The
microdrive is not a problem.

papatrout said:

You are right, if the images are printed 8x10 or below, or
downsampled, the concern is less. But I am interested in getting a
better camera than a 990, which I have, so that I can print 11x14
and 13x19, which is a stretch with 5 megapixel small ccd cmaeras.
I want the raw files and as little noise as possible if I am going
to be making prints beyond 8x10.

All the advice to downsample to suppress the noise misses the point
in buying a 5 megapixel camera in my opinion. It may well be that
I'll have to go to a D30 ( at lower res, but superior quality) to
get away from the noise issue. But, for your purposes, especially
if your shooting style is noise tolerant (eg photojournalism,
sports, family stuff), the D7 may be the best choice.

dh

Bob Williams said:

NICKPHOTO said:

Andrew: I shoot baseball with my elan iie and i must manual focus
and press the shutter when the pitcher (softball) is just at his
release to get the
batter just before he contacts with the ball. much longer than the
.13 second
mentioned for the D7.

papatrout, yes, i will stay with the cf's vs the micr-drive.

Joo, noise is not nice, and your IS is not imoprtant to me at 200
mm tele.
Thanks for your response and valuable info.

abc said:

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

NICKPHOTO said:

Thank you for the feedback,
Steve, the evf could be a stopper, would Minolta enineer such a
camera at these specs to have it hit a brick wall with a bad evf? I
hope not.

Click to expand...

Every review I have seen (pre-prod. cameras) seems to agree that the EVF is better than any EVF they have seen before. So, "bad evf" is simply wrong. The EVF may not be good enough for some people, but it seems to be better than other EVFs out there...

Wait until you can try the D7 for yourself and then make up your mind about it. Don´t listen too much on all wining and crying in this or other forums, most of those who write (including me) haven´t held a D7 in their hands, just debating and evaluating the reviews and few photos there is on the net. The number of D7 sold to date is very small, only a few people posts here that actually do have a D7...

nickphoto said:

papatrout, yes, i will stay with the cf's vs the micr-drive.

Click to expand...

One or two 128 MB CF should let you go shooting a lot, esp. if you
download the CFs to a portable computer or a device like
ImageBank, Digital Wallet (6, 10, 20 or 30 GB!) etc.

NICKPHOTO said:

what issues are there that would
stop me from buying the D7?

Click to expand...

The very same extremely high noise level and extremely small dynamic range that all the 3.xMP digicams have. If you have any real world need for the images this quality will not satisfy those needs.

nickphoto said:

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens,
flash sync upto 1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time
(compared to my Elan IIe), "micro-drive-able", Minolta's
press release indicating fast start-up times, a good buffer,
contrast & color controls in usable increments, etc., etc....

Click to expand...

Yes, all very good point. I think it saw it does exposure bracketing, this is a very important feature when the exposure metering itself is unreliable.

But the image quality of the 3.4µm x 3.4µm pixel is just very very poor, unusable for everyting else than being an extremely expensive toy for the pre-teens.

nickphoto said:

The joy of photography is being there
when you take the picture.......

Click to expand...

...with a camera that delivers acceptable quality and that you can rely on.

Timo Autiokari

Joo said:

Generally, noise doesn't seem to be that bad as far
as I can tell. Perhaps I'm not as critical of noise.

Click to expand...

Just wait until you have the possiblity to actually use the camera.

You most propably will be soooooo critical about the noise that you do not bother to carry tha camera with you at all. That is what happened to me with the QV-3500ex (with similarly high noise and similarly small dynamic range).

Timo Autiokari

Steve

I've been using my D7 for 5 days now and have found the EVF to be very good. Yes, if your use to only using an optical viewfinder its a change and it takes some time to get use to but I find it to be very easy to use and in low-light situations MUCH better than an optical one. It is very bright and definately sharp enough to even allow for manual focusing.

As for the noise issues, as i saw someome else in this thread also say, let the PRINTS speak for themselves. i have prints from the D7 up to 12"x18" (the limit of what I can currently get printed either here at home or at my local printers) and based on the PRINTS - not on what I see on the monitor - noise just isn't an issue at all.

Steve Dean said:

One potential problem is noise in the image. Many of the sample
images posted so far appear to be pretty noisy compared to those of
some other digital cameras of similar specs.

The other concern to many is how well the EVF is going to work. The
lack of an optical viewfinder may be a big negative in some usage.

Steve

NICKPHOTO said:

Having read Image Resource's D7 'Preview' review,
and even knowing that I would not buy anything digital without
Phil's review, what issues are there that would stop me from buying
the D7?

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens, flash
sync upto
1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time (compared to my Elan IIe),
"micro-drive-able", Minolta's press release indicating fast
start-up times,
a good buffer, contrast & color controls in usable increments,
etc., etc....

I'm ready to stop buying film, am I missing something?

--
The joy of photography is being there when you take the
picture.......NICKPHOTO

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Isn't it amazing how excited we all are to get information about this great new product? What's it like? When can we buy one? Does it really perform as advertised?

It's equally amazing to think that in a number of months you can count on your fingers and toes, this exciting new camera will be gathering dust in the back of some dark closet, possibly next to a Salad Shooter or Pocket Fisherman, having outlived its butterfly-like lifespan, replaced and nearly forgotten. (I know this to be true, because my own closet is brimming with such items. many still in like-new condition!!)

Even realizing that, I, like so many of you, have read hundreds of posts, downloaded dozens of images, made prints out the wazzoo, and tried to find all the reasons for and against owning this little jewel . . . .

Sometimes I feel like such a Lemming!

Timo Autiokari said:

NICKPHOTO said:

what issues are there that would
stop me from buying the D7?

Click to expand...

The very same extremely high noise level and extremely small
dynamic range that all the 3.xMP digicams have. If you have any
real world need for the images this quality will not satisfy those
needs.

Timo Autiokari said:

So far, so good on all points: 28-200 mm top quality lens,
flash sync upto 1/2000, 5 mega pixels, short lag time
(compared to my Elan IIe), "micro-drive-able", Minolta's
press release indicating fast start-up times, a good buffer,
contrast & color controls in usable increments, etc., etc....

Click to expand...

Yes, all very good point. I think it saw it does exposure
bracketing, this is a very important feature when the exposure
metering itself is unreliable.

But the image quality of the 3.4µm x 3.4µm pixel is just very very
poor, unusable for everyting else than being an extremely expensive
toy for the pre-teens.

Timo Autiokari said:

The joy of photography is being there
when you take the picture.......

Click to expand...

...with a camera that delivers acceptable quality and that you can
rely on.

Timo Autiokari

Click to expand...

Timo Autiokari said:

The very same extremely high noise level and extremely small
dynamic range that all the 3.xMP digicams have. If you have any
real world need for the images this quality will not satisfy those
needs.

Click to expand...

I cannot agree ... yes, image noise is an issue, but it is most definitely NOT a 'show-stopper' and NOT a reason to boycott digital in favour of film for the vast majority of camera users. For example, there are millions of people happily using APS film cameras and, from my experience, a good quality 2 megapixel digital camera can produce better prints (with better resolution and less grain/noise) than a good quality APS camera with the prints being produced at the local camera store. These are, of course, amateur users, not professionals, but nevertheless they have a "real world need for the images".

Whilst a large print from a 3 megapixel digital camera (or even a 5 megapixel) may not be quite as good as that from a quality 35mm film camera, they are still extremely good and more than acceptable to the vast majority of users -- indeed I don't suppose that most people could even tell them apart!

Timo Autiokari said:

But the image quality of the 3.4µm x 3.4µm pixel is just very very
poor, unusable for everyting else than being an extremely expensive
toy for the pre-teens.

Click to expand...

I am sorry Timo, but this is sheer nonsense. To so readily dismiss consumer digital cameras in this arrogant manner is just infantile. You clearly do not live in the real world of the typical camera user -- with respect, please change the record, it is getting tedious!

Timo Autiokari said:

...with a camera that delivers acceptable quality and that you can
rely on.

Click to expand...

To most people a quality digital camera DOES deliver "acceptable quality" and it can be relied on -- I am sorry Timo, but it is you who are marching out of step with the rest of humanity on this issue! Yes, there is plenty of room for improvement, so I guess there is a place for your 'perfectionist' viewpoint in order to push the camera manufacturers to produce ever better products.

Terry.

From what I can see, the D7 doesn't seem to be much noisier than my Oly C2100 and i've taken a couple thousand pics with it.

Joo

Timo Autiokari said:

Joo said:

Generally, noise doesn't seem to be that bad as far
as I can tell. Perhaps I'm not as critical of noise.

Click to expand...

Just wait until you have the possiblity to actually use the camera.

You most propably will be soooooo critical about the noise that you
do not bother to carry tha camera with you at all. That is what
happened to me with the QV-3500ex (with similarly high noise and
similarly small dynamic range).

Timo Autiokari

Click to expand...