Minolta DiMAGE A1 or Sony DSC-F707?Opinions Wanted

Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

01/18/2005 11:49:59 AM · #1

Hi all, I've been coming here for a few weeks now and am thoroughly impressed by the content and wealth of knowledge available. I recently bought the Konica-Minolta DiMAGE Z2 and am considering returning it to get an even better upgrade. I'm unable to get the types of pictures that I would like out of the Z2. I enjoy taking macros and high speed pictures. The A1 is able to take pictures at shutter speeds as fast as 1/16000 while the F707 has nightshot abilities. I notice that the F707 has many more owners here and much higher ratings on the photos. I don't want to spend much more than $600 as this is just a hobby for now. Perhaps in a year or two if I stick with it and learn enough I'll upgrade to a DSLR. But until then any input will be greatly appreciated. If you know of a better camera for the money than the two I listed, please put the model and tell me why you like it.

Thanks in advance - Sean

PeterC

Canon EOS-7D

01/18/2005 12:00:51 PM · #2

Hi, started with the Z1, and recently got the A2 I'm pretty sure only difference is the 8.0MP, very happy with it looks mind boggling at first but control is very intuitive, have taken over 1000 shots since begining of december, I think the scores can be miss leading as I believe that is far more to do with the user than camera, love the anti shake it really works and can give some hand held night shot's my landmarks entry was hand held at night, but very little other experience of camera's so best hope for some replies on the F707 and good luck.

Kathyc

Sony DSLR-A100

Tamron AF 18-250mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Konica-Minolta & Sony Alpha

01/18/2005 12:03:49 PM · #3

I've got the Sony DSC-F717, similar to the 707 and have been very happy with it. Works nice with automatic settings and has a nice range of manual settings as well. You should be able to find one on E-Bay or somewhere for within your budget. If you don't require a DSLR then it's certainly not a bad option.

omnibus

Pentax *ist DL

Pentax DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AF

01/18/2005 12:53:17 PM · #4

I have an A1, but haven't used either of the Sonys.

Plusses: The A1 has the best user interface of any digital camera I've ever used. Yes, it has a lot of dials and buttons on the outside, but that's the beauty of it - you can change just about any setting very quickly by just twisting a dial rather than having to hunt through menus. The anti-shake is very good, and very handy. It basically permits flash-free tripod-free indoor shots, provided you've got good indoor lighting or sunlight coming through the windows. I think the image quality is great. Manual zoom - much, much nicer than electric-motor zoom.

Minuses: Fairly short battery life, and the battery pack is expensive. Quality control is a problem. I had mine in the shop four months after I bought it. The autofocus system is kinda strange, especially the way it's set out of the box - definately read the manual and learn all the different autofocus modes.

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

01/18/2005 03:22:27 PM · #5

Thank you so much for the super fast responses. In addition to those two cameras, I've also expanded the list to include the Nikon-8700 & the Canon Pro 1. I'm also considering biting the bullet and getting the Canon EOS 300D as it has a $100 rebate right now and I won't be able to afford these toys in the near future. (Career change) So any further input is definitely appreciated.

Thanks again,
Sean

hsteg

Fujifilm X-T20

01/18/2005 03:25:16 PM · #6

Id have to recommend the f717 because Im selling it cheap witha buncha stuff.

spease

Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D

Konica Minolta 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 MZ

01/18/2005 04:04:03 PM · #7

I have the A1. I really like the camera, it will do almost anything that you want it to do, and the quality is very good. I think the battery life is great. There are 2 sites that I alway look at when I am thinking about a new camera. //www.dpreview.com/
and //www.steves-digicams.com/

_Armadildo_

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

01/18/2005 06:00:44 PM · #8

If you're thinking about bitting the bullet and buying a 300D, I posted this "comparision" in another thread a little while back
So you know that my comments have a minimum of weight to them, I owned the A1 for about 3 months, sold it and then bought the 300D.

1. Using the A1 at ISO 400 or above is not a good idea. Too much noise and when I say noise, I mean green and pink pixels starting to show up.
With the 300D, I find that I can go up to ISO800 and still get clean pics.
Also note that the 300D offers ISO1600.
Winner: 300D

2. Although when looking at numbers, shutter lag doesn't seem that bad on the A1 or A2 but let me tell me you that there's a big difference when handling the camera.
Winner: 300D

3. Low light focusing with the A1 is so slow compared to the 300D.
Winner: 300D

4. Manual focusing with the A1 is not very accurate as you have to rely on distance instead of actually seeing it in the viewfinder.
I had bought the A1 because I was afraid of having to use the viewfinder all the time instead of being able to see what I was going to shoot on the LCD but I didn't use the LCD very long and once I started to use the A1 viewfinder, I didn't like the fact that the image wasn't crisp since it's a small LCD instead of a mirror reflection of what I'm shooting.
Winner: 300D

5. When looking at the specs, the LCD of both cameras have the same size and resoltion but for some weird reason, I find the 300D LCD much sharper and what I see on there is a whole lot closer to what the final result is.
I also love the preview in which you can be shown overexposed areas on your pics. The A1 doesn't have that.
Winner: 300D

6. Metering. Sadly, the 300D doesn't let you manually select the type of metering while the A1 does.
Winner: A1

7. The A1 has two dials which by default, let you set shutter speed and aperture.
The 300D only has one dial which sets shutter speed and you need to hold and press a button and then scroll with the dial to change aperture.
It's not a big deal and I'm starting to get used to it but it's still something I miss from my A1.
Winner: A1

8. Image quality is simply put, better with the 300D. I know that it's only 1.3 megapixels higher but I see a difference between both cameras.
The jpg compression algorythm is a lot better on the 300D. Visually, there's almost no difference between RAW and high quality jpg on the 300D while every A1 or A2 user will tell you that you want to shoot in RAW if you want maximum image quality which is all good but sadly, slower.
The sensor size which is much bigger on the 300D also has something to do with it.
Winner: 300D

9. I noticed you made a comment about the A2 being easier to carry around than the 300D. I don't see any difference.
I bought the Lowepro Top Load Zoom 1 to carry the A1 and the 300D fits in very well.
Also note that both cameras weight about the same (6g difference)so none of them will feel heavier around the neck.
Winner: Tie

10. Lenses. Well, this one is a bit tricky depending on how you see it.
Out of the box, you can cover more range with the A1 has the lense covers 28-200 compared to the packaged 18-55 of the 300D so on that, the A1 wins.
However, if you ever have other needs such as wider angles or longer zooms or even smaller apertures, with the A1, there isn't much choice except for the wide and telephoto converters which are nice but you'll lose one stop and overall, you'll never be able to go below 2.8.
Winner: 300D

11. Shutter speed on the A1 goes all the way up to 1/16000 while the 300D stops at 1/4000.
Seriously, 1/4000 is plenty and even 5000$ cameras don't go to 1/16000 so I don't see much of a use for it unless you're trying to photograph something that travels at the speed of light or something.
Winner: Tie

12. The on-board flash of the 300D is much better. I've used both flashes in different lighting circumstances and the A1 flash blows out subjects a lot more than the 300D.
Winner: 300D

13. Transfer from camera to PC is much faster on the A1.
I bought myself a card reader for the 300D (35$CAN) because the transfer was way too slow.
I'll also have to buy myself a USB2.0 PCI (20$CAN) card to make full use of my card reader since my PC only support USB1.1.
Once I have that set up, I'll be much faster than the A1 alone but you could get the same set up with the A1 anyways.
Winner: A1.

Overall winner: 300D

If you buy the A2, you will probably be happy with it for a while but am sure you'll soon feel the need for more like I did and that's exactly what the 300D will get you.
The overall responsiveness and feel of the 300D is a lot better overall and the results are much better.

As far as the new Rebel coming out, from what I've read, it will be officially announced in February but the tentative release date is in the fourth quarter of 2005 so you'd have to wait a while before getting it.
If you're going to wait a little, you might want to look into the Olympus Evolt which is set to come out soon enough and will be in the same price range as the 300D and has a few additional features which might be interesting.

I strongly recommend the 300D if you decide to go the dSLR way as it is cheaper than it's competitors and offers a wide range of lenses which you can invest in and keep if you ever want to upgrade the body.
One piece of advice though, don't buy EF-S lenses as if I'm not mistaken, only fit on the 300D and 20D so go with the EF line instead.

Whatever choice you make, I wish you a lot of fun with your next camera. :)

Hope this looooooooooooooooong post helps you in some way.

Message edited by author 2005-01-18 18:01:20.

coolhar

Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS

01/18/2005 07:39:04 PM · #9

Both the A1 and the 707 are fairly old models. If your career change is going to dampen your spending on the hobby in the future forget the 300D, you'll want to get more and better lenses that will cost you many times what a top quality prosumer will. I had an A1 for about six months but didn't like having to work the images so much in post processing.

If macro shooting is you bag consider the Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom or it's 8mp big brother, the Oly C-8080 WZ.

Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS

01/19/2005 01:40:27 PM · #10

Thanks again for all the replies. Let's suppose for a moment that I do get the Digital Rebel with the stock lense. With the exception of a few filters and possibly lighting and such. Will I be able to use this camera in an all purpose way without additional lenses or addons? I would like to work with Macrophotography, high speed pictures, long exposures, and general nature shots. I can afford to buy this camera now, but I won't be able to get any addons until christmas next year.

Thanks,
Sean

coolhar

01/19/2005 02:02:00 PM · #11

Originally posted by seanernet:

You will be able to do all those types of shooting with the kit lens. But you will be able to do each of them better using a more specialized lens. There will always be a tug to get the more expensive lenses so you can get better results with the Rebel. You will also be able to do all those types of shooting with a high level prosumer model, in some cases as well as with the kit lens. No matter what you decide on, allocate part of your bankroll for the things you'll need right away like a spare battery and some decent sized memory cards.

Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS

01/19/2005 02:15:53 PM · #12

Thank you coolhar,

I have allocated the money to include a 1G CF Card and if the extra battery is reasonable I can stretch it to include that also. But I would have to live with that lense for nearly a year. I just want to make sure I get something that will last awhile while I can afford it. If I did get a Canon Powershot Pro 1 for example, it would only end up being $70 cheaper than the Rebel after rebate. And if I went with an even cheaper model such as the first two mentioned I would be able to accessorize more if needed, but I'm not sure that I would. I've read reviews on all these cameras for hours and hours. The only one that seems to be reliable over a broad iso range is the Rebel.

Thanks,
Sean

coolhar

01/19/2005 05:05:30 PM · #13

Originally posted by seanernet:

Sounds like you have done a lot of thinking, and that you really want to get the Rebel. In that case I would encourage you to go ahead and get it asap and start enjoying your purchase. Canon rebates expire at the end of this month. Go for it!

_Armadildo_

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

01/19/2005 08:59:02 PM · #14

The Rebel is a better long term investement for you I think...

01/25/2005 07:58:23 AM · #15

UPDATE: Friday I ordered the Digital Rebel from Dell.com, including the rebate it cost $733 to my door. Also ordered the 1G CF card. Yesterday the Rebel arrived!!! I only got to play with it a short while, but I have to say that it is phenomenal. I can see now why over 2000 members own this camera.

Coolhar: I see exactly what you mean by wanting better lenses. Although the kit lense will probably do most of what I want, I see that I will definitely need a 100mm Macro lense ($350-$450) and a series of filters ($95).

Armadildo: Thanks again for your great comparison, it helped a bunch!

I read yesterday that you can use a lense coupler and connect another lense backwards to the existing lense to get macro results. Has anyone here tried connecting two of the 18-55 kit lense together, and if so what were your results?

Thanks everyone for your input.

Sean

OneSweetSin

Nikon D3000

01/25/2005 08:28:27 AM · #16

Something you need to keep in mind is why did you pick the Z2 in the first place? Minolta users stay minolta users for certain reasons just as do canon, fuji and other brand users stay loyal. The lenses you have play a part in that when you get into SLRs but there are other factors too.

Think back to when you got the Z2 why? was it comfort of the camera, the lightweight of it or was it a feature thing? I used to be a dedicated canon person. But Canon's digitals all have grips on them that are two large for my hands. I went to Minolta simply because of the comfort level of the camera. So remember that while you are looking at the Minolta and Sony. What was the real thing that attracted you to the Z2 and what do you like about it rather than trying to as others for their opinions cause in the end it will be you who is using it and not them.

Also don't know if you know this but if you find the camera price in a local store lower than anywhere you can go to a Ritz or Wolfe Camera store and get the price matched as well as be able to get the extended warrenty Ritz offers. And believe me that warrenty is worth it if you are buying retail.