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Finally......The A2 Has Arrived !!

Started Oct 31, 2018 | Photos thread
Hike Pics
OP Hike Pics Senior Member • Posts: 2,917
Re: Finally......The A2 Has Arrived !!

EXX wrote:

Beware that when using RAW+JPG is that it takes a lot of time for the camera to process and write the data to the CF card. The only real benefit is that you can zoom in on the result to see that the focus is correct; you cannot do this with RAW only.

You solved the problem right here! I checked the firmware version and it is the old 1.10 version. The camera was locked during RAW writing!

The slow speed annoyed me so much that I just use it in RAW mode only. The JPG engine of the A2 is not so great anyway (the A200 is better in that respect), Also, you can get a lot more out of the sensor by using RAW and then processing it in e.g. Lightroom. The sensor in the A2/A200 produces a lot of noise which can be handled quite well by modern software like Lightroom. I operate the camera mostly in full manual mode, using the live histogram as a guide for the exposure. Using the "expose to the right (ETTR)" method really works well with the A2.

I use Xubuntu so I can't use LR or PS or any of the "regular commercial" PP editors. I do, however, have Darktable, GIMP, RawStudio, UFRAW, RawStudio and RawTherapee to work with.

Check the firmware: if it is not 1.14, update it. The 1.14 was the final gift of Konica-Minolta to A2 users. It squeezes the last bit of performance from the hardware and makes it faster in RAW mode.

Updating will be my next step. I have read horror stories from users who ended up with bricked cameras updating from the KM instructions. I need to update carefully!

You can some A2 shots in my A2 gallery:

https://www.dpreview.com/galleries/9239768447/albums/konica-minolta-dimage-a2

There is another add on I have that is very nice: the Konica-Minolta CL49-200 Close up lens. It really improves the macro capabilites of de A2/A200.

I will check that out.....I love shooting macro! I will check your gallery out tonight, thanks!

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