Great review! I picked up an α100 earlier this year, and for the longest time I had been on the fence about whether I should get the α100 or the 7D. In the end I chose the α100 mainly because I got a great deal, but I still think about that 7d. Just about every time I pick up my Maxxum 7 to shoot some film, I wish I had the 7D because the 7 just feels so good in the hands, especially with the vertical grip on there. I like the α100 and all, but it just doesn't quite have the same quality feel as the 7 does.

Nice review Carl.

I like that 6mp sensor, even if it's in the less beefy but still nice 5d. I would love to buy another 6mp CCD, esp useful for low light work as well. 6mp is enough for many jobs.

Nice to see the review at last Carl, I know you've been having a ball with the camera. Like Barry I think the 6mp chip is a very good one and I agree with you about the JPEG engine of the KM cameras (I've always preferred the way they handle the JPEGs compared with Sony, even though I shoot RAW).

I also like the mix of traditional knobs and dials on the camera and think there is a place for them on some of the newer cameras. Nikon has decided to copy the rotary dial, giving options for drive, self timer and mirror up etc. Seems some people think it's a good idea, even if Sony don't!

If I had the image quality of the A700 in my 7D I would be very happy indeed. The 7D had the most intuitive controls of any camera I ever picked up, not only that, but the ergonomics are just great. If mine hadn't died on me I would probably still be using it.

A greally great review for a fantastic camera -- I started with the A1, which I still use each day professionally in news coverage, along with an A2.

When Walmart was clearing out 7Ds I acquired one, and was so taken with its ergonomics that I got another before their stock disappeared. That New in Box 7D is safely tucked away in the closet, and has resisted all my attempts to part with it.

It was a fun article to put together.

Carl

Carl, your comments about noise reduction in the 7D might need some clarification. A couple of times you mention "setting NR to off" in your high ISO tests... and you also say "I don't turn on the noise reduction until I make longer exposures that would normally create 'hot pixels'..."

Fact is, the so-called Noise Reduction setting in the 7D is just hot pixel correction accomplished through dark frame subtraction; and even if you leave that menu setting on all the time (as I do), it only becomes active with exposures of one second or longer. This is explained on page 77 of the user manual. The 7D does not provide any way for the user to change the camera's actual noise reduction behavior per se.

I see what you mean. Lemme work on that section a bit. Thanks for taking the time to point it out here.
Carl

Carl, thanks for the 7D review. My 7D is the reason I still haven't "upgraded" to any of the Sony models. I think Sony is missing an opportunity to show just how well this camera was designed by taking most of the ergonomics and features directly from the 7D and incorporating them into the top-of-the-line Sony DSLRs. The initial lack of two top dials on the first Sony bodies was heartbreaking for me, and I still find the lack of two dials a curious omission.

One thing the 7D has that no other Alpha-mount camera has is the intervalometer that allows unattended captures at preset intervals for time-lapse or other special circumstances. I use mine all the time.

Also, many of the models I have worked with have commented on the ability to hear the shutter while working outdoors. They tell me it's easy for them to know when I'm taking frames so they know when they can change poses without verbal direction from me. A newer, quieter camera just doesn't relay that information to anyone not right next to the camera body.

Finally, the vertical grip allows the use of two NP-400 batteries OR a sled loaded with six standard AA-size batteries. I always keep the sled loaded with lithium AAs in my bag, just in case. The lithiums will keep in the bag for years without needing to be charged and without leaking, and the worst case would require me to buy new AAs at any store on the planet. This is a feature sadly lacking on almost all new cameras in a world of proprietary batteries run amok.

I was planning to buy the Sony a900, but with my trusty 7D by my side, maybe I can wait for the a950 (or whatever it will be called). Maybe Sony will by then have learned that what they really need is a worthy 7D replacement.

Having retired from Professional Photography a couple of years ago, I decided to buy a used 7D in E+ condition from Adorama, and when it arrived, it was spotless. I installed the latest upgrade that I had downloaded, and have been smiling ever since. This is truly a refined photographic tool that is proving to stand the test of time. Having used the Maxxum 9 for years shooting weddings and portraits, I thought that I would never again find a camera that would give me the same satisfaction. However, the 7D has done just that. I am still waiting for SONY to put out an Alpha model that has a FF sensor of about 12 - 15 mpx, and without all of the video gimicks, etc. that is being used to sell bodies these days. Just give us a no nonsense camera, with dials, buttons, and switches, just like the Maxxum 7D. They will fly off of the store shelves, and give Canon and Nikon the biggest headache they could imagine. I considered the a900, but who needs 24 mpx? I do not intend to print bill boards, and do not need to shoot mice with an elephant gun! Your review was great, and much appreciated. Thank you!

Carl, thanks for the review - if I didn't have a 7D, I'd have to go and get one after reading your article.
I have accidentally come across this web while searching for some info on a Soligor lens. Having read the review, I can sign every word you say. I got my Dynax 7D (Europe market...) in 2007, it was a second-hand purchase. Before that I had a Panasonic LS1 and an Olympus SP 500. Then my dad gave me his old Dynax 505 film SLR, with a flash and two lenses. So when I started thinking about getting my first ever DSLR, I was pretty sure it would have to be a Minolta (so I could use the analog lenses and the flash: budget issues). The body that I bought was in mint condition, with a basic kit lens. I can't say how many shots the camera has taken since it was made, but it works just great. I have been using it rather extensively (as a family and community photographer) - and I have discovered three faults:
1) the rubber grip comes off on the edge closer to the lens. Maybe I hold the 7D too tightly, I do not know,
2) the camera stopped responding once> I had to remove the battery to switch it off and restart,
3) when using a Hoya 72 IR filter, nasty artifacts appear near the edges and in the corners of the image. Maybe this has something to do with the long exposure times (25 secs) and bright sunlight as some of the UV might be coming in through the body walls. Or maybe the camera is not made for this kind of shooting. I know I am probably wrong, but that is the only explanation I can think of. (Suggestions? - please email me: j.kastnerATcentrumDOTcz)

Apart from those three glitches, I am more than satisfied. It is true that the first months were disappointing as the technical merit of the shots was a lot worse than the output from the Oly EVF, but I guess I have learned a couple of things since then. Having the big knob dials and all those buttons available at my fingertips without having to delve into some 2- or 3-level menu keeps me from missing my shot. Well, on most occasions.

It is also the easy-to-reach buttons etc. that I miss in the new Sony DLSRs. I am certain they are fine examples of industrial achievement, yet they seem too software-ish to me. So I guess I am going to stick with my Dynax 7D. When your first car is a Porsche, you do not really want to replace it with a Yugo, right?

I got it during 2006, 100% brand new the European model named Dynax 7D. Some months earlier brought a Dynax 5D...but after less of two weeks sold the body...& kept the "Kit' lens that came with the 5D "made in Vietnam" 18-70mm one...today when finally acquired my A900 one...mount such "Kit' lens on my 7D...which honestly & sadly almost "Don't look it"...anymore...only 3 times a year "Charge' the NP-400 battery.

Because after looking trough a "FF" A900 finder....can't look trough a "Cropped" one...sorry!!!.

Also...because acquired a Nikon D300;/grip fitted ONLY with a 18-200mm VR Nikon zoom lens...which gave me better satisfaction that the 7D...yes I'm an retired/pensioner technically photographer...after been working for 45 years...mainly with 4x5 plates Sinar/Linhof cameras & Hasselblad roll film camera.
Outside use a Leica M4 with 4 lenses + during the 70ties acquired my first SLR...a Zeiss Ikon Contarex with 5 lenses...wow...was something extraordinary...the quality of the Planar/Distagon & Sonnar lenses.

Thanks for such good review on the legendary 7D & now to the A900...really appreciate it very...very...much!

Peace,

Alex!

Hello Mr. Kastner, the Malfunction you mentioned is known as Error58, Err58 or simply First Frame Black (FFB) and it can appear in Konica Minolta Maxxum (Dynax in EU) 7D and 5D.

The solution is to send the camera (JUST THE CAM, no batteries, lenses or something like that) to a service partner from Konica Minolta.

I don´t know where you are from, so here you can look for a solution near to you: ;)
(and all of you with the same problem)

The Problem, stated in KM webpage (yes, it´s still there):
http://ca.konicaminolta.com/information/20070202/01_en.html

The solution, here:
Europe: http://support.sony-europe.com/dime/km/km.aspx?site=odw_en_GB
USA: http://esupport.sony.com/perl/news-item.pl?news_id=120&region_id=1

I´d love to have a 7D, I have to accept the fact that I only have a KM 5D...but...I still love her ;)

Greets.

I also have a 7D that I purchased new in early 2005. A great camera. I have had an Alpha 850 for about three weeks, but I intend to keep my 7D. I have a TAMRON 17-50 2.8 and they make a great combination. The analog controls are the way all cameras should be made. I started with a Minolta 7000 Maxxum (which I still have and it works), a 50 1.7 and a 70-210 F4. These two lens work great with my new Alpha 850. I also have a KM 28-75 F2.8, a TAMRON 70-200 2.8, and a KM 70-300. And I have TAMRON 11-18 that I can also use on my 7D.

But the analog control actually scared most of the consumers away. I would take my 7D with me to a lot of shows and unless someone shot Minolta their was little appreciation for the controls.

Carl,

I'm happy that you have discovered and confirmed what many of us have known for a long time! The 7D is a great camera, despite having only 6.1 Mp! I purchased mine long after Minolta had exited the Photographic business and handed off the Alpha mount to Sony. I had intended to enter the DSLR world with a Sony but changed my min, deciding to go with the 7D with a more familiar Minolta interface, like my Minolta 7. I was lucky enough to buy one of the last 7Ds available new locally! I have zero regrets. I now travel with the 7 and 7D together have (I feel) the best of all worlds, full frame analog with the 7 and a digital camera with analog feel, the 7D. Though I have experience some unpredictable multi-segment metering problems as you mentioned, I never noticed the shutter speed limitation. I'll be paying closer attention to that. I have my AEL set to toggle on to spot metering and have found myself using that a lot. Have not experienced any of the other common 7D bugs, luckily. AF is fine for me, but I don't shoot birds in flight and that sort of thing, where I have heard the 7D performs poorly. I have no plan to replace my 7D, in the near future, but if and when I do it will have to be FF and hopefully a worthy replacement!

Thanks again,

Kelly

thanks for the kudos and good stuff ;)

Even though I wrote this review a year ago, I felt the need to update it a year later and I may do that again too, I don' t know. I think good designs should be remembered, even it that means putting them back on the front page again long after most people have moved on. :)

Carl

I had no idea that the 7D was so close in set up (nuts and bolts) as the Alphas!

Most of what Alpha DSLR is today is because of what Minolta engineered into the 7/5D.

Hopefully I'll get my hands on a 5D at some point in near new condition to finish my collection of Minolta cameras. I just need to find a near new one that isn't sky high in price a quick search yielded a couple "brand new" ones for over 1K and that's not happening. I know supply of new units is short but that's too much for me :).

I'll gladly do a write up on a KM5D if someone can find me one at a great price or would like to send me one on loan.

Sony hasn't made any real major advancements in DSLRS beyond what Minolta initially developed. They've done some good sensors and processors and added a few new features, but not much ground breaking in DSLR technology such as Minolta developed (SSS, predictive focus, metering, etc.).

C

That will teach me not ready the timeline carefully! :-) Thought my RSS feed is supposed to bring me news, right? No matter, still, a job well done and Kudos well deserved!

Mr. Garrard,

I read your review with great interest. I have to say you are spot on. I have the A700, 7D, and Maxxum 9 film. In my opinon the 7D out performs the A700 hands down and the 9 is just simply a superb film camera in every respect. My issue with the A700 is the sharpness and clarity of the image, especially in jpeg. Whenever I know I want clean images, especially people shots, I always turn to the 7D. The only two things I wish about the 7D is that 1) there was another card type available and 2) that the 5600 HS (D) flash was a bit more consistent with TTL. Other than that I almost would rather use the 7D in most situations. I don't mean to bash the A700 but I wish I had been more patient and waited for the A850. Hindsight being what it is I simply don't feel there was enough of a jump from the 7D to the A700.

Maybe someone can tell me what I'm doing wrong with the A700 that gives me images that don't seem to be up to par with the 7D.

Sincerely,
G Givens Jr.

Nice review Carl. Even though I have an A700, I still prefer my 7D (and 5D too) in some situations because of the fantastic JPEG engine that the Minolta has. My wish would be that Sony would incorporate that "old" technology into their DSLRs because I shoot mainly xfine JPEGs and Minolta has the finest I've seen...even though it is 6 years old. I hope my 7D and 5Ds last a long, long time.

As I was tired of unreasonably high prices for the legacy CF cards, I bought a SDHC -> CF adapter for my Minolta 7D, it works like a charm. Google for "SDHC compact flash adapter".

Last year, I bought this for around $20 from http://www.semsons.com/sdtocftyiiad.html. My 7D now works perfect with any of wide variety of SD cards (including the ones with their mini and micro adapters). As a bonus it looks like they've come down in price since then.

I have one and still shoot with it; I picked it up for about $550 about a year after KM ceased selling cameras, new in box at an electronics store. I've put about 15,000 shots through it, lots of band photography and railroad photography mostly.

I shoot RAW for the band photography and sometimes JPEG for railroad stuff -- the colors coming out of the Minolta JPEG engine are just perfect in daylight. I have the Minolta 24-100mm lens they were frequently bundled with (a poor DSLR choice, really) and the cheap-but-good Tamron 75-300 -- the latter focusses slow but gives beautiful results.

Only problem I have is that my sensor gives serious banding at times at ISO 3200 -- I understand this is not typical and this is a defective sensor, but I only realized other peoples' cameras didn't do this after the warranty expired, so I've just lived with it. I occasionally get the "first frame black" issue but it's very infrequent so I never bothered getting that fixed, either. Aside from that, I had the CF card reader come loose and cease reading cards; a little soldering work at a local camera shop fixed it right up.

Never really been interested in the A700 because I really didn't see the point unless the price dropped significantly, and they removed some of the dials and buttons that I love. Of the Sonys, the A850 sounds like it would be a wonderful upgrade, but still a lot of cash -- though I am also considering switching brands and getting a K-7 and a few of those lovely Pentax lenses. Hmm. Fortunately I can still enjoy my 7D while I procrastinate!

Hi, Carl and others.
I would like to know your opinion about buying the KM 7D as a first DSLR. I am currently in Japan and am completely overwhelmed by the choices, but the controls on this thing seem amazing. I can also get it very cheap in a pretty good condition. I would love to have the A850/900, but that is just too expensive. So will it be better to have an A100/200/700? I tried them all in the shop, but the dials on the KM are great - is that a reason enough?
PS. Does Sony still repair them?
(also, I don't seem to be able to access your 5D review, why is that?)

But if you are looking for a DSLR that will help teach you fundamentals, desire manual external controls, and want excellent Jpegs with near perfect color right out of the camera in outdoor situations, then you might like this camera more than the Sony's. The LCD and metering leave something to be desired, but given enough use you'll adapt to the 7D.

In summation, I think it handles better than any Sony and the out of camera Jpeg processing outdoors is superior (almost to any camera). Those are the two main advantages of the 7D, and if those matter more to you than anything else, grab one.

C

Minolta got a lot right in the 7D, and it's one of the standouts of its generation of cameras. Which is a couple of generations old, now, but it still does very well so long as 6MP is enough for you. It's enough for a lot of us, and certainly enough to learn on.

In the US, the maintenance situation is kind of sucky. Minolta basically passed off the remaining warranty work and the parts supply to a private company (name escapes me; Precision, perhaps?) who seem to do reasonable work but not quickly and for a very high price for out-of-warranty repairs. It's almost guaranteed that any repair quote from them for a 7D is going to be higher than the worth of the camera. However, simple repairs can be done by independent camera repair shops. I got a busted CF card fixed that way for about $100. If you're staying in Japan, I haven't heard anything about service there.

Be sure to check if your camera has the final firmware on it, if you buy one. Many don't, and it fixes a bunch of stuff. The firmware and installer are still on K-M's website, last I looked.

Metering is a little iffy at times, as Carl says, but its quirks are mostly learnable.

I believe all Sony's new lenses should work on this camera, but there are more compatibility issues with the flashes (which are the bugbears of compatibility for other brands, too). [img][/img]

Hi again. Thanks for the replies. Done some more research and frankly I got myself a bit scared - too many issues with the 7D!
So I think I limited myself to this:
DMC-L1 - lots of manual control, can find it here for about 300$ body only, seems really reliable.
A700 - very nice, great colors and DR (not that I am good at evaluating this kind of stuff, but it appeals more to me than the Canon/Nikon/Pentax rendition - I shoot in RAW mostly, but still...) and of course very good manual controls - but it is more expensive and I'll probably get a japanese menu (not a problem for me, but when I leave the country I can forget about selling it in the future)
Your thoughts?

I know the 7D has English as well as Japanese as language choices in the firmware; I wouldn't be surprised if the A700 has it too, or if you can upload English-language firmware later if not.

It's certainly easier for the manufacturer to only have one firmware release rather than several, so I wouldn't be surprised if both are options in there.

Hi, Carl. Just stumbled on a comment of yours on DPreview. You were searching a magnifier for the DMC-L1. Did you buy something? Does it work?
For the moment I found that the Tenpa is probably the best, based on others' opinions. And what is the deal with this Katzeye?