Will there be an earlier release date for the USA or will it be a single
worldwide release???


"Ian Burley" wrote in message
...
We have UK pricing and availability in a news story at:

http://dpnow.com/1069.html

We're also interested in what people think of the new 7D.

Ian

Digital Photography Now
www.dpnow.com

"Alan Browne" wrote in message
.. .


Well the spec is out and we are pleased. Of course the Canon 20D now
leads this segment of the market and it will probably take Minolta a
while to catch up ... if at all ... (the encouraging note here is that
the A1 went from 5 to 8 MP within months ... but a different sensor size
of course). The highs and lows a

The D7 (whether Maxxum or Dynax depending on where you live) has a very
strong spec. Using (we assume) the same Sony CCD sensor as the Nikon
D100/D70 and getting the same resolution and pixel numbers with a 12 bit
ADC. A fixed low pass filter is employed.

The high point wrt the sensor integration is that it will have a slow
sensitivity of ISO 100 and reach up to 3200.

The real bonus here is of course that the sensor is mounted on the
Anti-shake technology first deployed by Minolta on the A1 and A2 SLR-like
predecessors. This will give anti-shake margin of at least 2 stops, 3
stops is claimed by K-M. So all my lenses will benefit.

The system employs about all of the over achieving specifications of the
film Maxxum 7 with a few minor sacrifices (below).

Flash sync is a bit slow, with 1/160 (A-S off) and 1/125 with AS on.
This is a 1/3 stop margin between A-S on and off, so it would seem in the
studio that 1/125 with A-S on will result in cleaner handheld studio
shots than at 1/160 ...not accounting for subject motion of course.

I'm disappointed, K-M should have had a quicker sync speed, at least
1/200 and 1/300 from the Maxxum 9 would have been preferred.

The max shutter speed is 1/4000 which again is odd, as the Max 7 has a
1/8,000 shutter speed. In practical terms this is no real problem.

The link above says "DOF" unknown. But previous releases indicate that
DOF preview is included. Let's hope that K-M have not dropped this ball
(the photos provided hide the position where the DOF button is located).

Viewfinder: The spec says 95% and this has me perplexed. If this is the
Max 7 frame then with a 1.5X crop the viewfinder should be something well
in excess of 100%. I hope that K-M have not crippled the VF as the spec
here seems to indicate. (Could be they just copied over the Max 7 spec
without adjustment for the sensor ... I hope so).

Flash covers all the bases from the built-in flash, wireless flash and a
PC sync terminal.

In a nutshell, a great first DSLR from K-M (Yeah I know it isn't really
the first one, but few people bought their expensive kludge of a few
years ago... the RD-175).

So, the two big questions remain:

WHEN? Maybe Photokina will reveal this...

HOW MUCH? as above...

The spec appears to have been rushed out to me and is possibly a reaction
to the release of the Pentax *ist DS announcemnt of a couple days ago.
K-M seem to continuously be in reaction mode.

Cheers,
Alan








--
-- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource:
-- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.--