This is it. Finally!
When I entered the world of digital photography several months ago, I initially bought a Canon G5. Pretty nice camera, but ergonomically it really sucks: I simply couldn't hold it properly because of the tiny hand grip. Other things that annoyed me were the terrible viewfinder and the vulnerability of the lens. Anyway, because I couldn't handle it like my good old Nikon FE2, I returned it and bought a Minolta 7Hi. I got a faulty unit (it randomly started browsing through the menus fully automatically, like a ghost was playing with it), so I had to return it anyway, but the blocky view in the evf and the low battery life made me decide to go for the A1 instead of another 7Hi. And now that I've been using that camera for a couple of weeks I know that this is the right digital camera for me!
Pros of the A1:
-very, very good battery life
-very nice image quality
-all the features and options you will ever want or need
-feels extremely good in my hand, nice deep, rubber hand grip
-a very clear and smooth image through the evf
-first digicam with an anti-shake function (and it actually works)
-brilliant lens (with an impressive zoom range of 28-200/35mm)
-macro function (also at full tele!)
-it is not really expensive compared to other prosumer digital camera's, but still, it's a lot of money (I paid 999 euro's for it in The Netherlands), but I guess that's simply a drawback of digital photography in general...
Problems:
-my A1 crashed once (had to remove the battery to reset it), but I haven't been able to reproduce it...
When I entered the world of digital photography several months ago, I initially bought a Canon G5. Pretty nice camera, but ergonomically it really sucks: I simply couldn't hold it properly because of the tiny hand grip. Other things that annoyed me were the terrible viewfinder and the vulnerability of the lens. Anyway, because I couldn't handle it like my good old Nikon FE2, I returned it and bought a Minolta 7Hi. I got a faulty unit (it randomly started browsing through the menus fully automatically, like a ghost was playing with it), so I had to return it anyway, but the blocky view in the evf and the low battery life made me decide to go for the A1 instead of another 7Hi. And now that I've been using that camera for a couple of weeks I know that this is the right digital camera for me!
Pros of the A1:
-very, very good battery life
-very nice image quality
-all the features and options you will ever want or need
-feels extremely good in my hand, nice deep, rubber hand grip
-a very clear and smooth image through the evf
-first digicam with an anti-shake function (and it actually works)
-brilliant lens (with an impressive zoom range of 28-200/35mm)
-macro function (also at full tele!)
-it is not really expensive compared to other prosumer digital camera's, but still, it's a lot of money (I paid 999 euro's for it in The Netherlands), but I guess that's simply a drawback of digital photography in general...
Problems:
-my A1 crashed once (had to remove the battery to reset it), but I haven't been able to reproduce it...