Why Sony / Minolta at all?

[Uksnapper]

> [ Nee Sung is a touch behind in the sensor dust problem.The recently announced Olympus E1 uses an ultra sonic cleaning system to remove dust from the sensor. I have to say that despite the low pixel count ,about the same as the Dimage 7, I believe the advances in CCD technology will have endowed it with much improved image files. Its also the first Digital SLR with lenses designed for exclusivly as part of the digital imaging system]

 

[tuscanboy]

I agree with Fritz,

I'm fed up with lining the pockets of film manufacturers and processing companies who in many cases use mass production techniques to undo half of the creative input used when taking the photo. I also don't want to wait a week between taking a picture and seeing it, and not getting the opportunity to improve upon it there and then. Digital photography has arrived and having just borrowed a friends Canon D10 I'm switching c&s. With manufacturers such as Nikon and Canon backing Digital SLR, I am not convinced by Minoltas arguments, and I suspect the truth is they have made a big marketing blunder in failing to have a DSLR offering. It is going to cost me a fair bit to sell and re-buy into canon, but with no offering from Minolta on the horizon I am going to bite the bullet. I will retain one of the Dynax bodies and a recently aquired lens as they have little re-sale value, but I suspect neither will ever see the light of day again.

BTW, a friend has the Dimage 7i and is very impressed with it, but as an SLR user as well he admits you can't beat the format

 

[ddai]

I bought my first Minolta (Dynax 700sid) in 1993 with careful compares with Nikon and Canon. The Nikon F70 would cost a body plus a entry level zoom lens (28-80) and I did not find significant difference between the two (of course, the comparison should be financially approximate). The then Canon offered only EOS 88 in this range with awful spec's plus the ordinary lens (not L lens) were pieces of junk. The conslusion then was Minolta has the best price performance with decent quality. Nikon is serious but costed one third more while Canon is deemed more marketeering.

I reviewed my choice by tracking the history of the Minolta and simply found it a renovation maker/inventor most of the time -- the first auto focus system and the benchmark making Dynax 7, etc. Minolta is a company full of ideas and willing to listen to its customers. It made it system with pace and market only mature products.

I also agree with some posts talking about the DSLR. It's simply not the time because from the technology point of view neither CCD nor CMOS is up to mature. Recall the failure rate of your digi cameras and you certainly found it can not compare to any of the first generation computer. The availability (computer terms) is far below 70% with prolonged usage. The marginally accepated rate for IT industry for a production system should be at least 93%. Minolta is considered wise not to invest too much into the new area before the technology to up to although this decision gives revenue pressure on its operation. Believe me (because I've been working with 3-4 top IT companies) that a digital system (viz the body) is kind of OEM (letting other specialized company to produce the product in the purchasing company's brandname). It's far more easy to do this than to seriously consider the benefits of its customers. If the industry will be on a typical IT track, in the future there should be an industry standard for DSLR so that every vendors can follow, and hopefully the system can eventually be compatible with all lens from different companies. That's the roadmap.

I hope that helps dilute some of the anxiety and complaint on why Minolta is not offering DSLR at this stage.

I myself do not regret owning a best price-performance system.

 

[ddai]

Well, I also have to admit that I owned two digicameras, D7HI and Xi. They worked their way but overall they are not up to standards from technical point of view.

I used Nikon 5700 and Fujifilm S602 also but did not get convinced though S602 seems a little superior.

I've got Contax G system also.

 

[tuscanboy]

Cameras and PCs are very differnet in that at the outset of PC existance a generic standard was adopted. This was not the case with cameras and I don't think ever will be. Once multiple tier 1 manufactures adopt a proprietry standard they will not adopt a common one unless they are forced to through market forces. Canon and Nikon and Minolta for that matter know it is in their own interest to retain the status quo as nuch of their income comes from licencing these standards to 3rd party companies. My experience with digital cameras to date (a Fuji6800) has been 100% in terms of reliability.

 

[twm47099]

Steve said:"Cameras and PCs are very differnet in that at the outset of PC existance a generic standard was adopted."

Not really. In the beginning there were many personal computer standards. Most of these disappeared. When I bought my first computer in 1978-79, it was a "Compucolor II". It had a proprietary File Control System, a proprietary version of MS-Basic built in and was very flexible. It was very advanced compared with the other home computers such as the TRS-80, Commodore Pet, Apple 2. But in the early 80's they disapeared. Later there came the Atari's and Commodore 64. Each brand was incompatible with the others. In the business world it was just as bad. Many computers used the CPM operating system, but had incompatible disk formats. As newer computer came to the market, the older formats (and all the software/data) died.

Then IBM put out the first "PC" with PC-DOS (a proprietary version of MS-DOS). There were other computers with generic MS-DOS that were "almost" IBM compatible. During this time there were significant advances in speed and memory (4k, 8k, 16k, 32k, then the famous statement by a head of a famous software company that nobody would ever need more than 32 or 64 k, etc). Then there was UNIX, then there were all sorts of varieites of high capability servers. In each category (home, business, server, workstation, etc.) there was no compatibility between brands.

Each year new capabilities were released. If you needed a new computer most of the stuff you already had was no longer useful. It was a very expensive time. Eventually software houses legally reverse engineered the PC-DOS, and eventually, that famous software company resolved the compatibility problems by essentially taking over the world

.

The difference between PCs and digital cameras is that while the different brands are incompatible, they different models within a brand share the same accessories (lenses, flashes, etc.) And there are the 3rd party lens manufacturers who still provide for all the different brands.

This is probably where Minolta made it's biggest digital mistake. Their first DLSR (RD175) was too expensive and the technology of the time too limited to be a big hit. Their second one probably would have succeded except they used the VECTIS APS mount rather than the MAXXUM lens mount. They sort of tried an approach similar to the 4/3-Olympus approach, but annoyed their Maxxum lens users. They should have kept their 2nd DSLR compatible with their primary film SLRs.

Tom

 

[peterblaise]

Very savvy - Tom Montemarano (Twm47099) - I agree wholeheartedly.

Sadly, Minolta declined to do the 3rd attempt at a digital camera until Canon and Nikon made the waters safe, so to speak, yet now the waters may be even more dangerous since Canon has so overwhelmingly dropped the price, and Pentax and even Sigma have entered the DSLR fray (along with higher end Kodak and Fuji and Leica -- and where's Contax?).

Minolta, hurt and whimpering (I understand their financial constraints, yet the Minolta 9 appears to have been an expensive, whimsical, hand made in Japan -- and much appreciated -- expression of apparently only one Minolta higher up who pushed it forward against all marketing predictability, eh?), has decided to stay with designing neat lower end products and even neater factories to crank them out at excellent profit margins to the masses - such as the Minolta Dimage X series.

PCs are NOT compatible from generation to generation, Microsoft products are NOT compatible with each other from version to version. We have a lot to do to make our various worlds of photography, computers, and audio-video compatible, and do it ALL ON OUR OWN by carefully and painstakingly exploring and selecting among vast and confusing options - without much help! Have you tried to play a series of digital images recorded to CD on your CD/DVD TV player yet? Ouch!

End of rant.

For now.

Love and hugs,

Peter Blaise Monahon - peterblaise@yahoo.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minolta507si600si650si/ and http://www.geocities.com/minolta507si600si650si/





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[photoman]

I have owned every camra that you care to name from 5x4 linhoff to Hassles and Nikon Canon Leicas, all suffer the same complaint I can not get the exposue right and I am a compleat duffer when it comes to flash, but then I brought a cheap Dynex 5 and my promblem was solved i can now take transparencies and get all the expo OK and with the 24- 105D I get the flash Ok as well.I am going to buy a dynex 9 the best and most beautiful camra made to day other that the Leica MP.Digitil in spite of the hype is not here yet it will take another ten years to replace film you would have to have a 100 meg dig camra to get anywhere near the quality that a 35mm film can give it fact like steam we should have stuck with, we should have stuck with film it is now allmost perfect it took us a 100 years to make it so and we are about to throw it all away.The reason is that not many have seen a hand colour print 20x16 and accept a poor quality prossed be it film or dig as good. Until the public are educated to know the end product of the picture making prosess is that exposure, flash, and quality of film, that is why Minolta have held back on dig they know that film is best at the moment and that they make the best film SLR camra in the planet the Dynex 9 just save up and buy one.when your grand children see it they will know that you were a photographer.

 

[idutta]

I have a wonderful x-700 with which I have taken many many pictures. Recently, however, I was reloading the camera with new film while the flash was attached and as I tried to advance the film, the shutter got stuck. As I found out from web searches this happens when two of the capacitors in the x-700 blow up and can be fixed by replacing them. I have been able to locate the capacitors on Ebay.

My only concern: Is changing the capacitors really going to work? Or could there be something else wrong with the camera?

I will post a summary to the list if there are enough responses.

Thanks in advance,
Indranil

 

[Travis]

the BJP ran a comparison between film and digital the other day, and concluded that on 35mm digital is as good as, if not better.

I own a Minolta 9, and like many here want the option to keep my expensive collection of lenses, and have a compatable digital camera. Minolta claim they will probably make one at some point, based on the dynax 7.

Given that Minolta has developed good, high end £1000 digital cameras, why don't they use this technology and bring out a digital model we can use our sytems with. At some point people will stop buying into Minolta SLR systems if there is not a digital option. I may well use film for the next 5 years, but I want to know that - like any Nikon, Canon, Pentax, ext etc user I can move between formats.

At least if Minolta made a firm commitment that in the next year they would bring one out, we could all relax!