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![]() Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D with lens | |
Overview | |
---|---|
Type | Single-lens reflex |
Lens | |
Lens | Interchangeable via Minolta A-type bayonet mount |
Sensor/medium | |
Sensor | 23.5 × 15.7 mm CCD |
Maximum resolution | 3,008 × 2,000 (6.1 megapixels) |
Film speed | ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, and Auto |
Storage media | CompactFlash (CF) (Type I or Type II) or Microdrive |
Focusing | |
Focus modes | Single-Shot, Continuous, Auto, Manual |
Focus areas | TTL CCD line sensors (9-points, 8 lines with center cross-hair sensor) |
Exposure/metering | |
Exposure modes | Manual, Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority, Program, Auto, 3-Programmable modes |
Exposure metering | EV 0 to 20 (at ISO 100 with f/1.4 lens) |
Metering modes | 14-segment Honeycomb, Spot, Center Weighted |
Flash | |
Flash | Built-in pop-up with hotshoe |
Shutter | |
Shutter | Electronically controlled, vertical-traverse, focal-plane Shutter |
Shutter speed range | 1/4000 sec – 30 sec, or Bulb |
Continuous shooting | RAW / RAW+JPEG: 3 frame/s, up to 9 frames, JPEG Extra Fine: 3 frame/s, up to 12 frames, JPEG Fine: 3 frame/s, up to 15 frames, JPEG Standard: 3 frame/s, up to 19 frames |
Viewfinder | |
Viewfinder | Eye-level fixed pentaprism |
Image processing | |
Image processor | CxProcess |
White balance | Auto, 6 adjustable presets, Manual, Color temperature |
General | |
LCD screen | 2.5" TFT LCD, 207,000 pixels |
Battery | NP-400 Lithium-Ion rechargeable battery |
Optional battery packs | Vertical Control Grip VC-7D |
Weight | 760 g (1.68 lb) body only |
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 7D was first announced on 2004-02-12 at the PMA show, [1] with full details released just before the 2004 photokina show on 2004-09-15. [2] The production camera was released in late 2004. Production ceased when Konica Minolta announced their exit from the camera business in January 2006. Regardless of its high specification (for the time) and innovative feature set, it came with a very high price tag. The 7D was available as body only, but also with a 17-35mm f/2.8 kit lens. Like the Nikon 18-70 kit lens found with many Nikon DSLRs, this lens was regarded as of high enough quality to do justice to the sensor within the body, unlike the cheap zoom kit lenses found with many DSLRs. In 2006 Sony acquired the Konica-Minolta camera business [3] although remaining inventory continued to be sold, alongside the K-M based Sony α100. On release, the camera retailed for around £1000 GBP; somewhere between the Nikon D300 and Canon 40D.
The 7D features a magnesium alloy body, plastic backside, and primarily external controls. The body includes external controls for exposure compensation, flash compensation, focus mode, shooting mode, exposure mode, drive mode, metering mode, white balance, focal area, ISO, and two dials that are used to control shutter speed and F-stop. Presence of the external controls for most functions encourage experimentation without having to traverse through menus.
The 7D's 2.5-inch (64 mm) LCD also doubles as the control LCD. Rather than having a second, status LCD located elsewhere like some Canon and Nikon DSLRs, it displays information such as exposure settings, aperture, shutter speed, battery life, and other miscellaneous recording information. The LCD, when acting as the control LCD, also rotates 90° based on the orientation of the camera.
The Konica Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 5D and 7D both come with in-body image stabilization (IBIS): Konica Minolta's Anti-Shake Technology, in which the CCD is on a floating plane controlled by two actuators that work based on detected outside movement and create an inverse movement, thereby keeping the CCD in line with the image.
The factory firmware that the 7Ds initially shipped with (version 1.00) included a few performance related camera issues which affected initial reviews. The next build of firmware (version 1.10) gave such a great improvement in camera performance that DPReview revised their initial review of the 7D to retract a couple of the main negative points, citing true USB 2.0 speeds up to 25 Mbit/s (up from 7.5 Mbit/s), blinking highlights in the camera's built-in playback mode, the addition of a remote storage function in the transfer modes, and faster times when writing to the CF memory cards.
It did have one problem which appeared to afflict all of the 7Ds at one point in their working lives: the development of "first frame black" aka "error 58" in which after a period of not being used, the first frame turned up dark. Sony for a while fixed this problem, and so did some private camera shops, however the parts which caused the problem are no longer available. First Frame Blank is often a simple process of turning off and back on, though it can lead to blank frames all the time. Another significant problem is misalignment of the sensor, where the sensor is stuck at one of the positions it can take up to counteract camera shake or it fails completely often due to one of the piezo actuators which 'shake' the sensor. There is a chugging sound and no picture can be taken. Repairs for this are prohibitive but are still available at a few specialist centers.[ citation needed ]
In July 2005, Konica Minolta announced a partnership with Sony to research and develop camera technologies. The following March, Konica Minolta announced its withdrawal from the camera business altogether and transferred all of its camera assets to Sony as of March 2006.
Sony's line of Alpha DSLR cameras built upon the digital Maxxum line, keeping many of the features that made the Maxxum 7D and 5D popular, most notably the built-in Anti-Shake technology. All Sony DSLR cameras came to support the Minolta α mount lens system which makes newer Sony-built lenses compatible with Maxxum bodies and Maxxum lenses compatible with newer Sony bodies.
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".
The Minolta MAXXUM 7000 35 mm SLR camera was introduced in February 1985. It was the first camera to feature both integrated autofocus (AF) and motorised film advance, the standard configuration for later amateur and professional single lens reflex cameras.
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.
In photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded. This is a common problem in the photography of fast-moving objects or animals and people in motion. The term narrowly refers only to shutter effects, but more broadly refers to all lag between when the shutter button is pressed and when the photo is taken, including metering and focus lag.
The NikonD50 is a 6.1-megapixel entry-level digital single-lens reflex camera, sold from June 2005 until November 2006 by Nikon. It was Nikon's first DSLR aimed at the consumer market, and sold for US$899. It uses the Nikon F mount. The D50 is similar to the slightly older D70 using the same CCD sensor, with a slower maximum shutter speed and slightly smaller size; however, it continued to offer the internal focus motor of prior autofocus film and digital SLRs. Future entry-level Nikon DSLRs would eliminate the internal focus motor and require these motors to be in the lenses. Lack of a focus-motor in the camera eliminated the ability to autofocus with late film-era Nikkor AF and AF-D lenses, though these lenses work well on the D50.
Advanced Photo System type-C (APS-C) is an image sensor format approximately equivalent in size to the Advanced Photo System film negative in its C ("Classic") format, of 25.1×16.7 mm, an aspect ratio of 3:2 and Ø 30.15 mm field diameter. It is therefore also equivalent in size to the Super 35 motion picture film format, which has the dimensions of 24.89 mm × 18.66 mm and Ø 31.11 mm field diameter.
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 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 Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D was a digital single-lens reflex camera introduced by Konica Minolta in 2005.
This article details lensesfor single-lens reflex and digital single-lens reflex cameras. The emphasis is on modern lenses for 35 mm film SLRs and for "full-frame" DSLRs with sensor sizes less than or equal to 35 mm.
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.
The Nikon D3000 is a 10.2-megapixel DX format DSLR Nikon F-mount camera announced by Nikon on 30 July 2009. It replaces the D40 as Nikon's entry level DSLR. It features a 3.0-inch 230,000-dot resolution LCD monitor, CCD sensor with ISO 100–1600 and 3D tracking Multi-CAM1000 11-point AF system which makes it quite similar to the Nikon D200 in these main parts. Initially priced with $599 MSRP, actual prices are much lower.
The Nikon D3200 is a 24.2-megapixel DX format DSLR Nikon F-mount camera officially launched by Nikon on April 19, 2012. It is marketed as an entry-level DSLR camera for beginners and experienced DSLR hobbyists who are ready for more advanced specs and performance.
CxProcess is the trademark of an image processing technology used in Minolta and Konica Minolta digital cameras.
Alpha 7 (α7) or Alpha-7 (α-7) may refer to:
Media related to Konica Minolta Dynax 7D at Wikimedia Commons