Konica Minolta Dynax 7D review

Performance
Overall, the Konica Minolta Dynax 7D is a very good performer, but the Anti-Shake system gets a qualified thumbs-up. It sometimes allowed us to get sharp results using a shutter speed one to two stops slower than we could manage without it. But it also seemed to work a little less consistently than we're used to with other stabilisation systems, including the same basic technology in Konica Minolta's prosumer digicams. In short, it appears to be often worthwhile, but we're not head over heels for it.

The camera's start-up time is 2.1 seconds, a modest annoyance, but otherwise it's very responsive. Shutter delay including autofocus time is 0.4 seconds with a bright target and falls to 0.55 seconds with a darker, low-contrast subject. Shot-to-shot time with either raw or JPEG images is only 0.4 seconds, and 1.8 seconds with flash. In continuous drive mode, we measured slightly less than 3fps and buffer stall (using a very fast CompactFlash card) occurred after 17 full-size JPEGs, 9 raw images or 9 raw-plus-JPEG shots.

In our tests, the Dynax 7D's autofocus system was a notch above average for the camera's class. It's quick and decisive with stationary subjects and, more impressively, also able to track amateur sports action fairly well. It performed well in low light and an AF-assist lamp comes on when it's really dark. An excellent feature called Direct Manual Focus, which is available if the shutter release is pressed halfway, lets you instantly take manual control of the lens focus ring.

The camera's excellent LCD, at 64mm, is bigger than most, and it's sharp and very good in strong outdoor light. The bright, sharp viewfinder uses a pentaprism rather than the cheaper and slightly darker pentamirror finders on some entry-level dSLRs. It shows about 95 per cent of the actual image.

Comparable to nearly all such units in SLRs, the built-in flash has a guide number of 39 (in feet at ISO 100; that's 12m).

Image quality
Overall, the Konica Minolta Dynax 7D's basic image quality appears to be similar to that of other entry- to midlevel 6-megapixel dSLRs; detail capture and noise levels in JPEGs captured at ISO 100 and ISO 200, in particular, look practically the same as what you get from the competition. Images converted from raw with Adobe Camera Raw were slightly smoother and more detailed than out-of-camera JPEGs.

As ISO moves into the 400-to-3,200 range, it looks like Konica Minolta has decided to err on the side of noise reduction and the loss of detail it entails. The images aren't very noisy, but details are progressively more obscured as the sensitivity climbs. Several competing cameras show better detail at ISO 800 and above, though some are also noisier. We also noticed that our high-ISO images saved in raw format appeared to have noise reduction applied to them, too. That's somewhat unusual in our experience.

At default settings, our test images showed pleasant, accurate colours and decently balanced saturation, but the shots were slightly too contrasty for our taste. Obviously, the camera's extensive adjustments make it easy to tune these qualities to your preferences. We got a high percentage of good exposures and the auto white-balance system did a good job in all but the most difficult indoor situations. Digital artefacts, such as colour aliasing, strange highlight colour casts and fringing, were almost nonexistent in our test images.

Edited by Aimee Baldridge
Addional editing by Nick Hide