Let's Focus on the real issues:

[Martin45638]

In TOTAL agreement ... period.

Kind regards,

Martin

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.

 

[Bob Williams]

Having taken over 5000 images with a QV3000, and before
that at least that many with the very poor Argus DC-100, I
have a problem with most of what Timo posts. The fact is
that almost a month after the QV3000 died, I still have a back
log of prints that I need to print that have been requested
by others. The poor quality impressed the heck out of a lot
of people. The image quality was no where near what the
D-7 represents. It was not as good as what the my present
G-1 is capable of. It did produce very nice smooth usable images.
The G-1 has better resolution, and produces nice smooth
usable images. The D-7 has better resolution yet, and produces
nice smooth usable images from what I have seen so far. If
anything, the poor printer comment will apply to over 95
percent of the people that purchase and use the D-7, so Timo's
commercial printer is a non issue, even tho he is the only one
I have heard complaining about digital prints and dye-sub
printers. Most with dye-subs loudly proclaim better quality
prints than the inkjets produce from digital images. Not one
has said, "now I can really see the noise", that is except Timo.
Now, how to get my wife to see the need for a second new
camera, when the replacement for the Casio is less than a
month old? I guess Timo would say she sees clearer than I
do.

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

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.

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....

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.

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

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

Timo Autiokari

 

[The Man]

well, when I read Timo's latest comments ealier today I immediatly spent almost 45 minutes replying in a scathing manner (hey, give me a break - I'm a slow typist!) rebutting what he had to say about the D7, my opinion of it, and even my printer (the poor printer has an inferiority complex now, I had to pet it on the head and feed it new ink tank treats to make it feel better). As soon as I hit "post" I left for work. When I came home I see that somehow my post didn't actually post because I can't find it anywhere in this thread. I guess my ability to post messages must be on par with my printers ability to print decent prints or my own ability to judge what I feel are acceptable prints or not.

That's OK with me, after all these hours i've calmed down anyway and decided it's just not worth getting upset about. In the future i'm just going to do what someone else already has done and thats just skip over and ignore any posts I see from Timo. As far as i'm concerned, nothing he says is constructive to the discussion of this camera. I understand disliking or wondering about the performance or feature of a camera but to be so overwhelmingly negative with blatant statements dismissing the camera out of hand is of no value to anyone but Timo himself.

The name of this thread of discussion is "Let's Focus on the Real Issues". May I suggest that we do just that? I think we have given Timo more than enough of our time when he hasn't seemed to actually given us anything in return except for general negative statements and nothing contructive about them.
So, what's the next topic up for discussion behind cutain #2?

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

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.

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....

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.

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

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

Timo Autiokari

 

[Forrest41926]

In single shot shooting the EVF will stay blank while it writes the
image to the memory card, but during continous shooting its fine
and only blanks out for an instant than comes right back on. Of
course, while in single shooting mode, how long the EVF stsays
blank depends on the size of file you selected - if its a Tiff it's
longer of course than if you were only shooting in a higher
compressed JPEG mode. I've found the range to be from a high of 20
sec (Tiff mode) down to about 1 sec (JPEG - higher compression
setting) in the single shot drive mode to basically instant in the
continous drive mode.

Is there a "record view" option, so instead of going black, it can display the picture you just took? The 2100's EVF can do this, and it's definately better than a black screen. Basically, it lets you know whether you should try again real quick...

 

[Bob the Printer]

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.

In what usage would the EVF be a 'big negative' ?? If it's as good as it seems to be, it can be nothing but a 'big positive'.

Bob Dolson

 

[Bob the Printer]

Well, there really aren't too many negative things i've come across
so are in my limited time but...
1. I wish it also recorded audio in the movie mode

I'm sure that's something that many of us will be wishing for..hehe

6. In the flex-focus focusing mode, its GREAT to be able to move
the focusing cross hairs anywhere I want in the viewfinder to
select my precise focusing point without having to shift the
camera, lock focus, and than recompose, BUT the movement of the
crosshairs on the screen is fairly slow so sometimes it is faster
to just go back to the "old fashion" method. (I still like the
feature a lot though and the flexability of it is awesome)

I guess it has to be fairly slow so you can more 'finely' adjust it. One question I have though is that if you move the 'flex focus point' to somewhere other than the center and take a picture, do the crosshairs remain where you left them or do they jump back to the center of the frame for the next picture?

In a similar vein, if you custom settings for say white balance, etc and then shut the camera down, does it power back up with the same settings? Or is this configurable??

I hope that you don't get tired of us 'picking your brain' but as one of the first D7 owners, that's part of the price of admission eh?? Too bad you can't get paid for each question you answer...hehe

Bob Dolson

 

[The Man]

It does have a "quick view" mode to see the image after you shot it

In single shot shooting the EVF will stay blank while it writes the
image to the memory card, but during continous shooting its fine
and only blanks out for an instant than comes right back on. Of
course, while in single shooting mode, how long the EVF stsays
blank depends on the size of file you selected - if its a Tiff it's
longer of course than if you were only shooting in a higher
compressed JPEG mode. I've found the range to be from a high of 20
sec (Tiff mode) down to about 1 sec (JPEG - higher compression
setting) in the single shot drive mode to basically instant in the
continous drive mode.

Is there a "record view" option, so instead of going black, it can
display the picture you just took? The 2100's EVF can do this, and
it's definately better than a black screen. Basically, it lets you
know whether you should try again real quick...

 

[Bob the Printer]

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.

I believe that other digicam manufacturers will hasten to adopt that same type of EVF for their future models. Don't know why you or anyone else would say that the EVF would stop you from buying the camera..

Bob Dolson

 

[Bob the Printer]

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.

How many times have you made that very same ridiculous statement? Seems to be that YOU are one of those pre-teens which you refer to.

I suppose that all of those 2 and 3 megapixel cameras with similarly sized pixels are using 'toys for pre-teens' also??

Bob Dolson

 

[aee]

A good number of people seem to have trouble with making accidental posts (posting nothing but the original quoted message, for instance). I have a theory about this...I noticed that hitting the tab key in the message body tabs down to the buttons, where hitting the Enter key will cause whatever button has the focus to get "pushed". Is this maybe how these accidents happen?

Is there an attribute of some kind which can be set to prevent the tab key from tabbing out of the message body? Just an idea.

 

[Bob the Printer]

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!!)

I don't think that you can compare a 'leading edge' digicam such as a D7 to a salad shooter or pocket fisherman (neither of which I own or would own). Now while YOUR closet may be brimming with such items, many of us have closets which contain mainly clothes...hehe

Bob Dolson

 

[Tricia]

Timo apparently prefers toys from the future - like about 10 years down the road. I doubt that even present-day toys for the wealthy or the professional would please him.

Tricia

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.

How many times have you made that very same ridiculous statement?
Seems to be that YOU are one of those pre-teens which you refer to.

I suppose that all of those 2 and 3 megapixel cameras with
similarly sized pixels are using 'toys for pre-teens' also??

Bob Dolson

 

[Bob the Printer]

Tegenfeldt wrote:
.

Timo on the other hand is just one of the bunch, not having the
camera, and obviously do not intend to get it either, that nit pick
or even create issues about it. When that isn´t enough, the printer
is at fault... It is just an endless debate hunger.

He won´t buy the D7 will he? He is among the most negative posters
in this forum, about anything and everything of the D7 is
poor/bad/kid/pre-teen/toy... So, if he has that view, why keep on
hanging around here? Timo, please keep on using your DCS3 or film
or whatever, but don´t stamp on everyones toes that comes in your
way.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he actually DID buy a D7. I have seen others in the past badmouth a given camera (or other product) and then turn right around and buy that product!

Timo's brain seems to work that way.. Don't ask me why though! hehe

Bob Dolson

 

[Bob the Printer]

A good number of people seem to have trouble with making accidental
posts (posting nothing but the original quoted message, for
instance). I have a theory about this...I noticed that hitting the
tab key in the message body tabs down to the buttons, where hitting
the Enter key will cause whatever button has the focus to get
"pushed". Is this maybe how these accidents happen?

Is there an attribute of some kind which can be set to prevent the
tab key from tabbing out of the message body? Just an idea.

I've noticed that a lot also! Always wondered what caused it and the 'tab thing' is probably why. I've always been going to make a comment about it but couldn't find a tactful way to do it. You seem to have found a way and hopefully people will read your message and pay heed to it and we can do away with most of these messages (with everything 'included' but nothing 'new' added).. They also need to learn how to edit out the parts of previous messages that are not important to their reply. It's very wasteful of bandwidth (and server space!) to have to wade through all of that previous included messages garbage...

Bob Dolson

 

[Bob the Printer]

Timo apparently prefers toys from the future - like about 10 years
down the road. I doubt that even present-day toys for the wealthy
or the professional would please him.

Tricia

Good point Tricia! hehe

Bob Dolson

 

[Eli50097]

Thanks for all your info! Much appreciated!!

Can you tell us if the d7 has wireless off- camera TTL flash control (with dedicated minolta flashes)? This has long been a hallmark of minolta ingenuity on many of their slr's and it would be a shame if they left it out. I find the official website to be a bit confusing in this regard. Also, does it have auto ratio control for multiple flashes?

 

[abc]

Already done that, as have others. On my printer @ 8x10 the noise in the shadows and from low light pics is obvious and it prints. It is no worse than from my 990. When the production cameras hit the stores, I will take a CF card in and run some raw shots into Photoshop and see how controllable it is from that end. As I said earlier, I cannot print 11x14 or larger from my 990 that are of sufficient quality to sell. I was hoping that the D7 would have that quality at larger print sizes. Phil's tests will help determine a lot about the production camera. I'll reserve judgment until after reading that and getting some raw images straight out of a camera.

dh

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

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.

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

 

[Les #39998]

This gentleman was on the Pro Forum, wading in on a post called "pixel size". It appears he thinks nothing can equal film. He certainly classifies the Pro slr's digitals as sub par.

I anxiously await his unbelievable photos qualifying him to say what is good and what is bad for consumers or pros.

And for his obviously superior ability to tell us commoners what is or is not the real world.

Speaking of pre-teens, has anyone noticed how absolutely "know it all" they can be?
Hopefully this gentleman will mature and see the world beyond his eyes.
Les

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

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.

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....

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.

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

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

Timo Autiokari

 

[Rich49375]

His photos are on his site;

http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/400z/index.htm

I am especially impressed with the image correction techniques he applied to his Oly 400 shots.
They remind me of some old black and whites my daughter corrected.

She used a box of crayons as I recall.

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

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.

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....

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.

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

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

Timo Autiokari

 

[The Man]

Eli

no, it doesn't have the wireless off camera flash feature. I wish it did!. But it does incorporate the same ADI flash system as the Maxxum 7 if you use it with the Minolta 3600HS or 5600HS flash units. Also, you can use off camera flash just by using one of the Minolta off camera cables. Another nice feature is that you can high-speed sync with flash up to the top shutter speed of 1/2000 sec.

Thanks for all your info! Much appreciated!!

Can you tell us if the d7 has wireless off- camera TTL flash
control (with dedicated minolta flashes)? This has long been a
hallmark of minolta ingenuity on many of their slr's and it would
be a shame if they left it out. I find the official website to be a
bit confusing in this regard. Also, does it have auto ratio control
for multiple flashes?