MikeA
Senior Member
A friend of mine who is a professional photographer had a chance to spend about an hour with the D7 today, in a store near his home. He is slightly acquainted with the local Minolta sales rep, who allowed my friend to fool with the D7 while he was taking care of some business in the store. My friend's impressions were something like the following:
Focusing: yes, the D7 did have to "hunt" in relatively low light. But when he took the camera outside, the auto-focus mechanism was fairly quick and error-free. Even in low light, if he took aim at subject-matter with sufficient contrast, the camera did not have a problem focusing. Emphasis on "with sufficient contrast." He pointed out that in his experience nearly all auto-focus cameras -- including his top-of-the-line Canon film camera -- are going to "hunt" if their focusing "spots" are not aimed at a sufficiently contrasty scene.
He really liked the movable focus spot. Unfortunately, he said, you can't simply hold down the buttons that move the spot, and have it "scroll." You have to click the buttons repeatedly. But there wasn't much lag. And the feature worked. He noted that it seemed to focus a bit faster than the "normal" mechanism, and the rep noted that he himself likes to leave the camera in that movable-spot-focus mode, only to leave the crosshairs in the center of the image. Interesting little tip (assuming it works with other units).
Interesting thing about automatic focusing: he said he saw not only a central rectangle used for focusing; he also noticed a grid of six smaller rectangles within it -- three across, in two rows -- each of which appeared to be a focus "zone" of some kind. I had not heard about this before.
Manual focusing: He liked the manual focus control quite a bit and noted that he found it possible to focus quickly and precisely with it. I wanted to know if it was too easy to over-compensate with the ring, focusing farther away or closer than the desired plane of focus...and then have to back up or go forward again. Manual "hunting," that is. He didn't find this to be the case at all. Nor did he find the manual focusing ring uncomfortably close to the camera body. (For all I know people's perceptions about this will vary depending on whether they have large hands.)
Manual/auto focus switch: he did not run across the problem of inadvertently moving this switch from the one position to the other. Again, whether this gets to be a problem could pertain to the size of the user's hands.
Battery life: he had the thing on for an hour -- the battery had enough juice for the entire session. (That said, I don't know how many shots he took with it, how often he used the LCD monitor, how often the camera went into power-down mode, and so forth.)
Viewfinder: he thought it was fine. He owns a G1. Because the G1 has such a useless optical viewfinder, he always uses its LCD monitor. But while playing with the D7 he said he didn't feel any need to use the monitor. The image in the EVF was acceptably bright -- and FWIW, it compensated by lightening or darkening the image depending on the ambient light -- and he didn't see too much evidence of "jerky" movement within it. (This did happen a bit, however, when he was trying to follow-focus on cars that were moving by him quickly.)
He didn't notice any significant unsharpness anywhere in the viewfinder -- at least, nothing he found distracting or irritating.
Ergonomics: he said that at first he didn't know the controls but found that he quickly got used to them. Holding a button in with one finger and turning the command dial with the other finger was not a problem -- in fact, he found it pretty convenient.
I asked him if he found the grip uncomfortable. He didn't. He said that just about nothing beats the E-10 for the "feel" of the camera in one's hands, but then again he is comfortable using the gripless G1 and didn't have a problem with how the D7 felt in his hands as he worked with it.
Zoom ring: I should have asked about this, but at the least he didn't remark on the zoom ring's being too stiff (or otherwise weird) for his tastes.
Image quality: he had time to open a few of his and the sales rep's test shots on the store's computer. He liked the image quality. He felt the images needed a bit of USM, but overall he was impressed by the color rendition and the tonal range. This is someone who I would consider to be a Photoshop expert and who is damned good with his G1. He's been shooting pictures (film and digital) for a long time. I expect that he is not easy to impress. If the images had looked bad , he would have said so.
There is one big drawback for him: the Minolta rep told him that contrary to popular belief, the existing Minolta hot-shoe adapter with a flash synch socket will not work with this camera. In other words, there's no studio flash capability at the moment. The rep said that another such accessory making the D7 usable with studio flash equipment will become available in the future. But he didn't know when the accessory would ship. It might become available some weeks after the introduction of the camera, and then again it might ship at the same time that the cameras themselves become available.
His overall impression: He liked it. Thumbs up. He added that even though the price strikes him as being a bit high, he probably would buy this camera ... if he could just get that flash adapter.
Focusing: yes, the D7 did have to "hunt" in relatively low light. But when he took the camera outside, the auto-focus mechanism was fairly quick and error-free. Even in low light, if he took aim at subject-matter with sufficient contrast, the camera did not have a problem focusing. Emphasis on "with sufficient contrast." He pointed out that in his experience nearly all auto-focus cameras -- including his top-of-the-line Canon film camera -- are going to "hunt" if their focusing "spots" are not aimed at a sufficiently contrasty scene.
He really liked the movable focus spot. Unfortunately, he said, you can't simply hold down the buttons that move the spot, and have it "scroll." You have to click the buttons repeatedly. But there wasn't much lag. And the feature worked. He noted that it seemed to focus a bit faster than the "normal" mechanism, and the rep noted that he himself likes to leave the camera in that movable-spot-focus mode, only to leave the crosshairs in the center of the image. Interesting little tip (assuming it works with other units).
Interesting thing about automatic focusing: he said he saw not only a central rectangle used for focusing; he also noticed a grid of six smaller rectangles within it -- three across, in two rows -- each of which appeared to be a focus "zone" of some kind. I had not heard about this before.
Manual focusing: He liked the manual focus control quite a bit and noted that he found it possible to focus quickly and precisely with it. I wanted to know if it was too easy to over-compensate with the ring, focusing farther away or closer than the desired plane of focus...and then have to back up or go forward again. Manual "hunting," that is. He didn't find this to be the case at all. Nor did he find the manual focusing ring uncomfortably close to the camera body. (For all I know people's perceptions about this will vary depending on whether they have large hands.)
Manual/auto focus switch: he did not run across the problem of inadvertently moving this switch from the one position to the other. Again, whether this gets to be a problem could pertain to the size of the user's hands.
Battery life: he had the thing on for an hour -- the battery had enough juice for the entire session. (That said, I don't know how many shots he took with it, how often he used the LCD monitor, how often the camera went into power-down mode, and so forth.)
Viewfinder: he thought it was fine. He owns a G1. Because the G1 has such a useless optical viewfinder, he always uses its LCD monitor. But while playing with the D7 he said he didn't feel any need to use the monitor. The image in the EVF was acceptably bright -- and FWIW, it compensated by lightening or darkening the image depending on the ambient light -- and he didn't see too much evidence of "jerky" movement within it. (This did happen a bit, however, when he was trying to follow-focus on cars that were moving by him quickly.)
He didn't notice any significant unsharpness anywhere in the viewfinder -- at least, nothing he found distracting or irritating.
Ergonomics: he said that at first he didn't know the controls but found that he quickly got used to them. Holding a button in with one finger and turning the command dial with the other finger was not a problem -- in fact, he found it pretty convenient.
I asked him if he found the grip uncomfortable. He didn't. He said that just about nothing beats the E-10 for the "feel" of the camera in one's hands, but then again he is comfortable using the gripless G1 and didn't have a problem with how the D7 felt in his hands as he worked with it.
Zoom ring: I should have asked about this, but at the least he didn't remark on the zoom ring's being too stiff (or otherwise weird) for his tastes.
Image quality: he had time to open a few of his and the sales rep's test shots on the store's computer. He liked the image quality. He felt the images needed a bit of USM, but overall he was impressed by the color rendition and the tonal range. This is someone who I would consider to be a Photoshop expert and who is damned good with his G1. He's been shooting pictures (film and digital) for a long time. I expect that he is not easy to impress. If the images had looked bad , he would have said so.
There is one big drawback for him: the Minolta rep told him that contrary to popular belief, the existing Minolta hot-shoe adapter with a flash synch socket will not work with this camera. In other words, there's no studio flash capability at the moment. The rep said that another such accessory making the D7 usable with studio flash equipment will become available in the future. But he didn't know when the accessory would ship. It might become available some weeks after the introduction of the camera, and then again it might ship at the same time that the cameras themselves become available.
His overall impression: He liked it. Thumbs up. He added that even though the price strikes him as being a bit high, he probably would buy this camera ... if he could just get that flash adapter.
