I got a Maxxum 7D yesterday. I’ve been with Minolta since I got my first camera, an X-700, in 1993. I went through several manual bodies before switching over to AF in 1999 with an HTsi+, eventually settling on two 600si’s. I sold all my MF gear and got a range of AF lenses, using the advice of the kind folks on the Minolta Yahoo! Group. I’ve been waiting for about two years for the Maxxum 7D, after I got tired of removing dust from my negative scans. With the new $200 rebate and recent price drop, I decided to get one.
My initial impressions are those of someone coming to the Maxxum 7D from years of using the Maxxum film-based system (I probably shot 500 rolls of film in 5 years). I played briefly with a friend’s Canon D60, and had a small point and shoot digicam for the last two years (a PowerShot S30). But I did not do any "serious" photography with these (thought it takes surprising good pictures for a point and shoot – check out http://www.aelzina.com/travels/sw/index.php)
Straight out of the box, the camera feels solid. The rubberized grip is nice. The layout is similar to the 600si, but only slightly. There are a bunch of new buttons, and I will definitely need the manual for the first couple of days. I got a SanDisk 1 Gig Ultra II card and put it in. The battery is fully charged right out of the box, and I am taking pictures in minutes. The default setting is Large, Fine (meaning full size, slightly compressed JPEG’s). The card says 289 pictures remaining. For someone who shoots 100 rolls of film a year, this is a start, but I’m glad I bought 2 cards (and a 60Gig portable storage device). I change the resolution over to Super Fine (minimum compression) and the number drops below 200. Switch over to RAW + JPG and I’m down to less than 100. Looks like I’ll be using the portable hard drive!
One thing that I notice quickly is apertures and shutter speeds I’m not used to from the 600si: f/6.7, f/8.3, 1/80th, 1/40th, 1/25th, etc. I shoot mostly on aperture priority. It seems I will have more finely tuned control with the 7D.
The most striking thing in first playing with this camera is the viewfinder. It is so amazingly bright and large. I mount my Maxxum 50mm f/1.4 and start taking pictures. If there is shutter lag, I don’t notice it. It locks focus in moderately low light as quickly as on the 600si, and only hunts a bit on low-contrast shots in very low light (below 1/60th at f/1.4).
Shooting indoors at night, I pop up the built-in flash. The results are disappointing.
Maxxum 28mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8, 1/60th sec with pop-up flash. P mode.
It provides adequate exposure for a tolerable shot, but not what I am used to. So I pull out my 3500xi flash to see what happens.
Maxxum 28mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8, 1/60th sec with 3500xi Flash, P mode.
Basically, it fires full power on every shot. Well, fortunately I learned flash photography on the X-700 and SRT-201. Back in the day, all flashes fired at full power, and you looked at a chart on the back of the flash that told you what distances would be properly illuminated for a given film speed at a given aperture. Guessing the target distance settings, I shoot on aperture priority at f/7.1. The camera defaulted to 1/60th. The results are perfect!
Maxxum 28mm f/2.8 lens at f/7.1, 1/60th sec with 3500xi Flash, Aperture Priority.
Beautifully exposed shots, properly lit. And with digital, I can guesstimate, shoot and adjust very quickly. I tried the same thing with my 5400HS flash, with the same results. Poking around the menus, I discover that the flash firing strength can be adjusted to Full, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 strength. However, this does nothing to change the output of these two flashes, which is a bit disappointing. The option is grayed out until the "flash control" is set to "Manual"; only then can you adjust it.
Slightly after this, I discovered the first quirk. If you set the flash control to 1/4 strength in Manual, and then switch the flash control back to "ADI" and use the pop-up flash, the flash stays at 1/4 strength (both in the menu and in firing). I had a few under-exposed frames using the built in flash, and couldn’t figure out why. I went back into the menu, and the flash was set to "ADI" control mode, at 1/4 strength. I had just assumed that, since the power ration option was grayed out and could not be changed in ADI mode, it would not apply to ADI mode, only to "Manual" mode. Further, to change it back to full strength, I had to first set the flash mode back to "Manual", then change the flash strength back to full, and finally set the control back to "ADI".
Later, playing with my 100mm/f2 and the ISO settings, I became very happy. At ISO 1600, shooting wide open, hand held, no flash, indoors at night under a 100 Watt bulb, I could take useable shots! Further, I concluded that Anti-Shake was worth it. I was able to shoot (again with the 100mm f/2) down to 1/5 of a second hand held with excellent results. Granted, I was using proper position and holding my breath, but the results were far better than I had ever gotten with ISO1600 film, and I have never been able to shoot hand-held successfully under 1/60th of a second with this lens on the 600si (too much motion blur due to hand shake). I should note that I judged the results on my computer screen, not on the camera display.
100mm f/2 at f/2. Hand held, Anti-Shake on. 1/5 second shutter speed! No flash.
100% crop of the above picture. A small amount of motion blur is discernable.
This is hand held 1/5 second at 100mm (150mm effective)!
I eventually tried out all my lenses, and all functioned properly. The one difficulty I had was when using a T-mount adaptor. The camera would meter, but wouldn’t actually take the picture. I’m sure there is a setting for this I have yet to discover. I remember with my HTsi+ there was some button combination to override to correct this, and assume there is something similar for the 7D.
I looked through the DiMage Viewer software manual, and could find no reason to install the program. PhotoShop CS opened the RAW files that I took with no problems (after downloading the CameraRaw update) and transferring the files of the CF card to the computer was accomplished with my card existing reader.
The battery lasted for about 2 hours, in which I took about 150 shots, several with flash.
With all the talk of the limitations of traditional film lenses on a digital camera, I will be testing my lenses carefully in the next couple of weeks to see which ones are still up to grade. On the list to test are (all Maxxum):
28mm f/2.8
35mm f/2.0
50mm f/1.4
100mm f/2
35-70mm f/4
20-210mm f/4
100-200mm f/4.5
Sigma 28-105mm f/3.8-5.6 UCIII
Tokina 20-35mm f/3-4.5