The DiMAGE 7Hi is made for the Professional in Mind!
Written: Jun 05 '03
|
Product Rating:
|
|
| Ease of Use: |
 |
|
| Durability: |
|
|
| Battery Life: |
 |
|
| Photo Quality: |
 |
|
| Shutter Lag |
|
|
|
Pros: It looks and feels like a 35mm camera with excellent photo quality.
Cons: Only a 16MB CompactFlash card is included.
The Bottom Line: Minolta has produced an excellent 5-Megapixel digital camera that can be used by anyone looking for a good quality photo producing camera.
|
|
|
| surferdude7's Full Review: Konica Minolta DiMAGE 7Hi Digital Camera |
The DiMAGE 7Hi is a digital camera made for the professional but can easily be used for an amateur who thinks he or she may need all the added features found on this beauty. It has a 2/3-inch CCD image sensor with 5-Megapixel effective resolution.
It uses a 3-point wide Auto Focus system for fast, accurate focusing. For accurate control over the focusing area it uses Flex Focus point. For Manual focus is has Direct Manual Focus for instant manual adjustments.
The DiMAGE 7Hi has a 12-bit A/D conversion that provides more details in portraiture, smooth complexion, rich shadows, and luminous highlights, as compared to the standard 10-bit A/D conversion.
The Built-in Flash has TTL metering meaning it flashes twice, the first flash sets the right exposure and the second flash takes the photo. The camera also uses ADI (Advanced Distance Integration) to give you optimum flash exposure.
Minolta went with an electronic viewfinder over the optical viewfinder. The electric viewfinder is like having a built-in LCD screen in your viewfinder. You can also use the LCD on the back for photo taking. It has a 1.8 inch color LCD that delivers clear crisp color that is used for photo shooting, editing and camera setups.
{{{{{{{ What I liked! }}}}}}}
The Look and Feel of the camera reminds me more of a 35mm SLR with a black metal body and Rubber Grips to hold the camera better with. It weighs a little over a pound and measures 4.6 inches in width by, 3.6 inches in height and 4.4 inches deep. No lens to pop out when turning it on and you can manually focus it with a ring on the back of the barrel lens.
The Lens is an f2.8, 7x optical Minolta GT lens that is equivalent to a 35mm lens of 28mm to 200mm, this is a nice range for any camera. The focal range is 7.2mm to 50.8mm, the lens is threaded with a 49mm for attachments. You can operate the Zoom Mechanically which is a nice feature and much faster than the electronic zoom.
I like the Hot Shoe for adding a more professional flash like the Minolta 3600HS for about $250 or the 5600HS at higher price. You can also use other flashes with the flash sync terminal. I do recommend a better flash if you do much indoor or low light photo shooting.
A big hefty 64MB of Buffer Memory to give about 3 frames per second in the 2500 x 1920 mode, it can also shoot up to 7 frames per second in the 1280 x 960 mode.
The included 4 AA NiMH rechargeable batteries with charger that lasted me through slightly over 200 photos each time before they needed to be recharged.
A well made Manual that explains everything in detail for people to understand, plus a section on photography basics.
{{{{{{{ What I Disliked! }}}}}}}
The Pop Up Flash is a feature I do not like on any camera. Half the time when I am not use to the camera, I end up placing my finger over the area of the flash, so when I snap the photo my finger is holding down the flash.
The EVF (electronic viewfinder) has some nice possibilities but I prefer the old optical viewfinder.
The included 16MB Memory Card is a joke! It has built-in 64MB of memory and all they offer is a 16MB card for your photos. A camera like this should include at least a 128MB card for the quality of the camera and the high price you pay for it.
You Can Not Magnify the RAW and TIFF files on the LCD screen but you can magnify the JPEG files.
Finally The Price of $1299 is too high, though I have seen it going for as low as $899 on the Internet.
{{{{{{{ Other Features! }}}}}}}
Program AE, Aperture priority, Shutter priority and Manual
ExtraFine (1:2.5 compression) JPEG mode plus Fine and Standard
Feather-light magnesium-alloy body
Up to 60 seconds of 320x240 video at 15frames per second with 16-bit audio
Shutter speeds are from 15 seconds to 1/4000 in Program and Aperture priority modes
Digital Program modes of portrait, sports, night portrait, sunset and text
There are 9 white-balance settings plus three custom settings
ISO Sensitivity is Auto, 100, 200, 400 and 800 equivalents
Built-in PC flash synchronization terminal
Digital Enhanced Bracketing for exposure, contrast and color saturation
Digital Effects Control for exposure compensation, contrast and color saturation
Flex Focus Point, changes the extra-wide focus to a cross-hair spot focus point that can be moved to anywhere within the image
Three exposure-metering modes, the are multi-segment, center-weighted and spot
Playback & QuickView with histogram feature
Exif Print and Epson PRINT Image Matching II compatible
Data imprinting that records date, time and descriptive information on an image.
You can add 5 or 15 sec audio memos to still images
{{{{{{{ What You Get! }}}}}}}
The DiMAGE 7Hi digital camera
Four AA NiMH rechargeable batteries plus charger
A 16MB CompactFlash card
Lens Hood, Lens cap with strap, neck strap and accessory shoe cap.
USB and A/V Cables
CD-ROM with drivers and software plus a nice detailed manual.
{{{{{{{ My Conclusion! }}}}}}}
I was very impressed with the quality of the photos, the ease of use, the many features it offers and the feel much like a 35mm camera.
The EVF (electronic viewfinder) is nice, like adding a little class to it with the advantage of seeing 100% of your frame that you plan to shoot and the ability of it tilting up 90 degrees. The disadvantage is it uses battery power where an optical viewfinder uses no extra power. Also under bright or dim conditions it seems to eat the batteries faster. Plus I feel like I personally am not getting the view that I want even though the photos turn out great!
Once I got past holding down the flash with my finger it produced excellent photos from 6 to 8 feet from the subject without any red-eye in every shot. Most digital cameras that I have used will produce some red eye every once in a while even while on the red-eye setting.
Using the 16MB card produced only one photo in the RAW quality or one photo in the TIFF quality using the 2560 x 1920 resolution. Using the Standard mode at 2560 x 1920 gave me a total of 10 photos. To get more photos on the 16MB and have a decent resolution to print from I went with the Standard quality at 1280 x 960 resolution and got a total of 34 photos out of it. The 1280 x 960 produced excellent 4 x 6 inch quality prints. The 8 x 10 inch prints looked good from the 1280 x 960 in the standard mode but closely looking at it I could see the quality deteriorating slightly.
I do recommend three things if you consider this camera, buy an extra set of rechargeable batteries, buy a 256MB of bigger CompactFlash card and buy another flash for better low light photo shooting.
I have been a Minolta fan for a long time and I am glad to see such a good digital camera from them that can be used by anyone from the point and shoot person to the professional.
Here are some of my other camera reviews!
Casio QV3000EX Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix A303 Digital Camera
Fuji FinePix 2800 Digital Camera
Kodak DX4900 Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera
Olympus Stylus 300 Digital Camera
Nikon Coolpix 3500 Digital Camera
Sony MVC-FD87 Digital Camera
Sony DSC-F717 Cyber-shot Digital Camera
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 999
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Solid Enough for a Professional
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
surferdude7
|
 - Top 10 |
|
Location: Elizabethtown, Ky.
Reviews written: 374
Trusted by: 1169 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.