Konica Minolta, Inc. is a Japanese multinational technology company headquartered in Marunouchi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, with offices in 49 countries worldwide. The company manufactures business and industrial imaging products, including copiers, laser printers, multi-functional peripherals (MFPs) and digital print systems for the production printing market. Konica Minolta's Managed Print Service (MPS) is called Optimised Print Services. The company also makes optical devices, including lenses and LCD film; medical and graphic imaging products, such as X-ray image processing systems, colour proofing systems, and X-ray film; photometers, 3-D digitizers, and other sensing products; and textile printers. It once had camera and photo operations inherited from Konica and Minolta but they were sold in 2006 to Sony, with Sony's Alpha series being the successor SLR division brand.
Minolta Co., Ltd. was a Japanese manufacturer of cameras, camera accessories, photocopiers, fax machines, and laser printers. Minolta Co., Ltd., which is also known simply as Minolta, was founded in Osaka, Japan, in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten. It made the first integrated autofocus 35 mm SLR camera system. In 1931, the company adopted its final name, an acronym for "Mechanism, Instruments, Optics, and Lenses by Tashima".
A digital single-lens reflex camera is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.
The Minolta Dimâge EX is a digital camera, first marketed in 1998. Similar to the earlier Minolta Dimâge V of 1996, the Dimâge EX line was one of the first consumer point-and-shoot cameras released in the American market and featured an unusual interchangeable lens system not normally found in point-and-shoot cameras.
Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure.
Sony α is a brand of digital camera. This line has been active since 2006, building upon the Konica Minolta camera technologies, whose assets were acquired by Sony.
The Maxxum 7D, labelled Dynax 7D in Europe/Hong Kong and α-7 Digital in Japan and officially named "DG-7D", is a 6.1 megapixel digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR, produced by Konica Minolta. It was the top model of their DSLR range; the Maxxum/Dynax 5D consumer-grade model was the other.
The Minolta A-mount camera system was a line of photographic equipment from Minolta introduced in 1985 with the world's first integrated autofocus system in the camera body with interchangeable lenses. The system used a lens mount called A-mount, with a flange focal distance 44.50 mm, one millimeter longer, 43.5 mm, than the previous SR mount from 1958. The new mount was wider, 49.7 mm vs. 44.97 mm, than the older SR-mount and due to the longer flange focal distance, old manual lenses were incompatible with the new system. Minolta bought the autofocus technology of Leica Correfot camera which was partly used on the a-mount autofocus technology. The mount is now used by Sony, who bought the SLR camera division from Konica Minolta, Konica and Minolta having merged a few years before.
The Minolta DiMAGE A1 is a 5 megapixel bridge digital camera with electronic viewfinder manufactured by Minolta. It was introduced in July 2003, replacing the Minolta Dimage 7 series. It was the first Minolta product to incorporate the Anti-Shake system, a built-in image stabilization system.
The Minolta Dimage 7, 7i, 7Hi series is a "pro-sumer" line of digital electronic viewfinder cameras from Minolta. These are also known as bridge digital cameras. They are capable of capturing images in the 5-megapixel range.
The Minolta DiMAGE 5 is a "pro-sumer" digital bridge camera, utilising both an electronic viewfinder and LCD back. It is capable of capturing images at 3.3 megapixel range.
Sony α100 (DSLR-A100) is the first digital single-lens reflex camera (DSLR) marketed by Sony in 2006. It is the successor to the previous Konica Minolta DSLR models through Sony's purchase of the Konica Minolta camera division. The α100 retains a similar body design and claimed improvements on Konica Minolta's Anti-Shake sensor-shifting image stabilization feature, renamed Super SteadyShot. It uses a 10.2 megapixel APS-C sized CCD sensor. Another notable feature inherited from Konica Minolta is Eyestart, which provides for automatic autofocus activation by detecting the presence of the photographer's eye on the viewfinder, thus quickening the camera's response.
The Sony α700 (DSLR-A700) was the second model launched in the Sony α series of APS-C sensor digital single-lens reflex cameras, following the α100, with several improvements over the latter. Some of the camera's technology was inspired by the former Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D, such as the man-machine command interface/commands, LCD menus, viewfinder, and lens mount.
A mirrorless camera is a digital camera which, in contrast to DSLRs, does not use a mirror in order to ensure that the image presented to the photographer through the viewfinder is identical to that taken by the camera. They have come to replace DSLRs, which have historically dominated interchangeable lens cameras. Other terms include electronic viewfinder interchangeable lens (EVIL) cameras and compact system cameras (CSCs).
The E-mount is a lens mount designed by Sony for their NEX and ILCE series of camcorders and mirrorless cameras. The E-mount supplements Sony's α mount, allowing the company to develop more compact imaging devices while maintaining compatibility with 35mm sensors. E-mount achieves this by:
Single-lens translucent (SLT) is a Sony proprietary designation for Sony Alpha cameras which employ a pellicle mirror, electronic viewfinder, and phase-detection autofocus system. They employ the same Minolta A-mount as Sony Alpha DSLR cameras.
The Sony α55 is a midrange-level SLT camera, released in August 2010.
CxProcess is the trademark of an image processing technology used in Minolta and Konica Minolta digital cameras.
