The Minolta ^TM Dimage 7 Digital Camera
 

I have recently begun using the Dimage 7 digital camera in my imaging. I had made an earlier attempt with the Kodak ^TM  DC260 digital camera, but the lower resolution and lack of professional features made it difficult to achieve the desired results. The Dimage 7, on the other hand has excellent resolution at 5.24 million pixels. It also incorporates professional features including, program, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual modes. It's lens has 16 elements in 13 groups, including two AD glass and two aspheric elements. With an optical zoom of 7x, it is equivalent to a 200mm telephoto lens. Digital zoom will increase that by a factor of 2x.

The camera incorporates both a LCD viewer/monitor and a ferroelectric 4.8mm reflective liquid crystal microdisplay, the latter the first ever in a consumer model digital camera, making it a prosumer model according to marketing hype.

The Dimage 7 uses Compact ^TM Flash cards which are small and easy to carry. The camera comes with software allowing the transfer of files directly from the camera to the computer, but I highly reccomend the use of a USB card reader instead. It is more convenient, faster, and will save battery power. At the highest quality setting and next to highest size setting, a 64mb card will hold about 20 pictures. It is worth remembering that this is very useful capacity, as the concept of digital imaging means that you keep culling unwanted images, and keep only those images you consider acceptable. By carrying four of these 64mb cards, you have the capacity to take the near equivilent of four rolls of film, always knowing ahead of time that you have the shots you want. You could expose 10 or 20 rolls of film, and have no guarantee that you have what you need till after returning to the darkroom and developing and printing the images.

After using this camera for only a short time, I am convinced that this is the camera I've been waiting for to move into digital imaging fully. It is relatively easy to learn most of the basic controls and the images are picture perfect! Sorry...I couldn't help myself! ;). Of course.....your mileage may vary! In other words, you will need a good printer, and good imaging software for your digital darkroom.

Almost every possible control and feature has been built into this camera, making it possible to achieve professional results. Be forewarned, however, that this camera has so many features that the learning curve is steep. This is not a camera for those who want to take snapshots of Uncle George! For a great review of the Dimage 7 please use the following link:  Steve's Digicams  This site has reviews of just about every camera you could want and is very professionally done.