"First Impressions" article posted for Minolta Maxxum 7D.
By
Dave Etchells
(Saturday, November 27, 2004 - 09:44 EST)
We just received a production sample of the new Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D a couple of days before the Thanksgiving holiday. We're working on a full review, but in the meantime have posted some first impressions of this interesting d-SLR.
One from the "too hot to wait" department: Konica Minolta announced their 7D SLR a while ago, and we've heard reports that people are actually finding them in stores already, but until this week, we hadn't seen one ourselves yet. Judging by our email, the level of interest in this SLR is pretty remarkable, testimony to the large number of devoted Minolta shooters who've been patiently waiting for a digital SLR they can use all their Minolta lenses with. What with the Thanksgiving holiday in the way, it's going to be a couple of weeks before we can post a full review of the Maxxum 7D, but we thought the many readers who've been emailing about this camera would appreciate hearing a few initial impressions of the new camera. At this point, we've only had the camera for a few days, and have been cursed with unrelenting cloudy/rainy weather, so haven't had the opportunity to go out shooting with it yet. - And we've been so swamped with the rest of the backlogged review work that it's unlikely we'd have had time to do much, even given beautiful weather. We have played with it a fair bit though, just snapping things around the office, wives, kids, dogs, etc. None of that is fit for publication, but we've developed a pretty good sense of what the camera is like to work with, so thought we'd share our initial impressions of it. We also snapped a few our our standard studio shots, although the lens Konica Minolta sent with it (a 17-35mm wide zoom) really isn't what should be used for that sort of thing. - We'll be reshooting all these studio shots with the sharp prime Konica Minolta promised us after the holidays. In the meantime though, the few shots we did capture and post should give an idea of the camera's general imaging characteristics, and the First Impressions piece (mostly written by Shawn, with color commentary inserted by Dave) should convey some sense of what the camera is like to use. (A teaser: The 7D's user interface philosophy is rather different than that of other d-SLRs on the market. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it richly rewards time spent becoming comfortable with it.) Stay tuned for a full report in about two weeks, but meanwhile check out our "First Impressions" Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D article.
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