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Why Sony / Minolta at all?

From: c...@y...c... of the MUG
Subject: December interview re: DSLR

I remember a brief news blurb about K-M's CEO being interviewed and references to a DSLR. Found this today at

http://bagira.iit.bme.hu/pipermail/foto/2003-December/012384.html

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Eventually, an interview with Minolta Head in Japan by a local Chinese Newspaper confirms that a digital SLR will be launched next
year.

Here is the original article

A translation from Frisky

Strong DSLR competitor joins in. Konica Minolta claims that they will surpass Canon & Nikon.

The number of professional and amateur photographers are increasing rapidly, DSLR market is set to grow at phenomenal rate, this
year's production can expect to hit 1 million units. Looking at the great opportunity, Konica Minolta announced that they will be
launching DSLR with exchangeable lens system next year. CEO Yijuwenxion even claims that Konica Minolta will become the world's
biggest supplier.

Joining the battle

Currently, Canon & Nikon are the market leaders of the DSLR market, but Konica Minolta's competitors are not limited to them, there
are others like Pentax & Olympus etc.

Canon has revise target 3 times.

But according to Yijuwenxion, in traditional SLR market, Minolta has market share of 25%. Analyst thinks that he implied that
Minolta's loyal customers will continue to use Minolta DSLR products to be launched shortly.

Shi Shou Shan, stock analyst from JP Morgan commented: the DSLR market is growing rapidly and would be sustained for several
years, reaching new heights together with the overall digital camera market. He thinks that Konica Minolta has a good future in this
market, and recommends investment in their stock.

Canon points out that the sales of EOS Kiss Digital in Japan, and EOS Digital Rebel in US are better than expected and has up their
shipment estimates of digital cameras 3 times.

Fierce competition in the Digital camera market


--

Click!

Love and hugs,

Peter Blaise Monahon
Minolta Vivitar Tamron Fujifilm Ilford Kodak Adobe Hewlett Packard et cetera Photographer
peterblaise@yahoo.com
http://www.peterblaisephotography.com/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minoltafilmbasedcameras/
 
Why Minolta: A few quotes gleaned from recent posts in this thread.

Why am I here. Because I am a photographer who uses a Minolta. Not a Minolta photographer.

You say you don't know what a Minolta Photographer is. Me thinks you protest too much - and that convinces me that you are
the penultimate Minolta Photographer ... you love you gear, yet you whine all the time. THAT'S A MINOLTA PHOTOGRAPHER!!! ;-)
The Minolta 9 has consistently won "best camera of any type - ever" accolades.

ALL Minolta cameras have consistently won accolades, within their price and performance classes, as having competitively
superlative feature and benefit sets, producing the most accurately exposed images, and having uncompromised feel, fit and finish.

The Minolta 9000 is one of the few cameras, after inventing the category, to survive long enough to be noticed as having aging
problems. Let's see, Nikon's and Canon's first attempt at a professional fully automatic system is the ...?!? ... introduced in

I'm not sure what is meant by not producing workhorses but the the Maxxum 9 and 7 <dynax 9 and 7> are very reliable.

Many, many reasons. Mostly the reliability. Never had to repair a Minolta camera or accessories, with the exception of my first of course. Second, is the innovations Minolta brings to the table and life outside of the "box" i.e. Canon and Nikon arrogance. Easy to use, cost effective, a joy to own and sensuous hold.

I belong to Minolta family (as amateur) more than 15 years, with a few Minolta bodies and many lenses. I always believed that Minolta offer more than other manufactures for the money. I love sharpness, contrast and color saturation of Minolta lenses in despite of distorsion or flare in most of cases. Bodies were fantastic

I'm not sure what is meant by not producing workhorses but the the Maxxum 9 and 7 <dynax 9 and 7> are very reliable. I use the 9 considerably and it has been to Antarctica with me. It has also been in Death Valley at temperatures over 120 deg F and has been to 14K altitudes. It has been in temperatures as low -20 deg F and has been rained and snowed on. It has also survived a fall of about 8 feet on a couple of occasions. In Antarctica, it was rountinely in cold, humid and salt-laden atmosphere

So I'm not sure what is lacking to make this camera any more of workhorse than it already is


I enjoyed Hung's exploration of what Minolta gear means to him (inexpensive, well featured, reliable), and you all have seen my experience (Minolta cameras seem to jump to my hand and just work with me intuitively).

..................................................................................................

Peter wrote:
"Marc, I appreciate your sharing in this discourse (perhaps we can also get Steve involved in an extended participation someday?)".

That may prove to be a little difficult to accomplish unfortunately, as you may be disappointed with the results. Although I have been fortunate enough to have the resources to accumulate a few nice pieces of Minolta equipment, my less than serious dedication to photography would be painfully obvious. My forte of late seems to be one of a protagonist of which I do not wish to be.

I just happen to appreciate and prefer a finer camera and Minolta fits that bill. Minolta just feels correct in my hands, worts, faults and all. Living outside of the Canon, Nikon box, it must be the renegade in us, as we continue to keep and defend the "faith".

I was drawn to this thread to further understand the Minolta devotee and the motivations of other Minoltites. It is a rare occurrence to come across another Minolta user/merchant in my metropolitan surroundings of 3 million people.
The posted accolades and citisims of Minolta of late have only served to deepen my resolve.

.... My name is Stv and Yes, ..... I'm a Minoltaholic ..................... ;)
 
‘I think Minolta took the right path in hesitating re-entering the DSLR market again..’

Peter, your above words made me to write like that. Sorry.

Canon, Nikon and Pentax(digi.) did not change the lens mount for their digital and APS cameras. But Minolta did that, without taking into consideration of its dedicated photographers. Buying another complete system is costly and carrying two systems together is so difficult, but buying a body only is easy and affordable. Not only that, its not good for Minolta too, because Minolta is giving a chance to its photographers to choose their new system from another brand. Hope Minolta will not repeat the same mistakes again with its future DSLRs.

Regards,
Robin
 
>When comparing Minolta and Leica, bear in mind that both collaborated on the CL. As it happens, I own Leica, Canon, OIympus and Minolta gear of various kinds, and like them all. You get the equipment that does the job you have in mind and feels right when you're doing it. In my experience, the quality of the lab work makes a bigger difference than the quality of the picture-taking gear (which is why I send stuff out -- my own lab work is merely adequate), and the quality of the photographer makes the biggest difference of all. Let me use Cartier-Bresson's Leica and him use the Wirgin Edinex I bought for $30 in 1953. and I bet he'd still have taken better pictures than I. There are real differences, especially in lenses, but they get smaller as the years go by--and I suspect its a lot harder to tell one lens from another on a 5-MP digital image than it was on Kodachrome 25.
 
>Interesting question: In the analog domain, every copying step involves some loss. So which works best and which works worst: (1) Shooting 35mm (est. 20-30 MP equivalent) and scanning the negative into, say, a Scan Dual III (2,688 x 4,032 , or 10.8 MP) , (2) printing it carefully to 8x10, and scanning at 2400*4800 dpi (11.5 MP/square inch, or 921.6 MB!), or (3) using a digital camera at 5 MP? I don't claim to know the answer, just wonder how these three methods stack up.
 
>Ritts, Adams, Cartier-Bresson et al are or were terrific photographers, = and Keppler probably wouldn't rank himself in the same league. But Keppl= er is the most influential of that bunch when it comes to equipment becau= se he writes about equipment every month, in the world's largest-circulat= ion camera magazine. I've never thought of him as "a Minolta photographe= r" (or a Canon or Nikon one, or ...) because he writes about all brands. = And because of his influence, if a major manufacturer tells him, for pu= blication, that it plans to bring out something, then it's a damn good be= t they plan to bring it out. Once a manufacturer lies to ANY journalist,= it runs the risk of his never passing on that company's news again, wit= h some risk that no other journalist will, either. I've been writing abo= ut products of variious kinds for over 40 years, and no reputable company= has ever knowingly lied to me -- and I'm a lot less prominent than Keppl= er.
 
>Minolta's DSLR may well have anti-shake, but I doubt it will work like that of the A1. The latter works by moving the sensor counter to the movement of the camera. That's easy enough with a standalone small chip, but not with a 24x36mm frame that's attached to the rest of the film roll.
 
>My main motivation for going Minolta was the DiMAGE 7. It had that classic look of the 35s I grew up with and, better yet, had just the right mix of features for me. By the time i had saved up for it, however, the 7i was out, and I got that. I liked it a lot but various things about it annoyed me; presto! along came the A1, answering most of my objections, and I sold the 7i to buy it. No regrets about that! >

Aside from a Super-8 movie camera, I've never owned a Minolta before. I own modern Canon EOS SLR equipment, but when I'm shooting film I use my Olympus OM-2 outfit equally often. Since I got the A1, however, I've just about stopped shooting fillm.
 
>I'm surprised you need additional macro with the 7i; but if you do, try close-up lenses that screw onto the front of your lens. I have not used any such in decades, so I can't say if they'll have any perceptible adverse effect on image quality. Here's a discussion of the topic (oriented toward medium format cameras but mostly applicable to you): http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/diopter.html
 
Forgive my mental lapse when discussing anti-shake. Of course a Minolta DSLR could use the same system as the A1 -- somehow I started thinking about film cameras at the same.
 
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