Product Reviews

Minolta has been producing top-end digital SLRs for many years, although it no longer offers a model with interchangeable lenses. Instead, the company developed the DiMAGE 7, which was released just under two years ago and was one of the first true 5-megapixel cameras. The DiMAGE 7 was a good camera with some neat features, but other aspects such as auto focus and its electronic viewfinder let it down. The DiMAGE 7Hi is the second revision to hit the shelves and is now looking better than ever.

The DiMAGE 7Hi has a 7.2-50.8mm GT series lens, which equates to a 7x optical zoom. This is a quality lens that is equivalent to a 28-200mm range on a standard 35mm film camera. This powerful zoom covers almost any shooting situation, including landscapes, portraits and sports. The lens will also focus down to 25cm, so good close-up detail can be captured. A 2x digital zoom is available as well.

The DiMAGE 7Hi is a nice size - smaller than a typical film body but chunkier than a compact. In fact, it looks similar to Nikon's Coolpix 5700 (see Labs, issue 98, p78) and Fujifilm's FinePix6900 Zoom, which is no bad thing. Plus, with a reasonable weight of 480g, it remains a portable camera.

The Digital Hyper Viewfinder is of the electronic type, which can be hit and miss in terms of performance. It lacks the clarity of an optical viewfinder, but I like the fact it can be angled up to 90 degrees, allowing for low-level shooting and some more unusual or artistic shots. There's also an option to magnify the central area by a factor of four, which is useful. The rear 1.8in TFT LCD and the finder are activated automatically by a sensor that can detect if you're holding the viewfinder to your eye. This auto switching occurs swiftly, so isn't a hassle. There's also a data panel display on the top-plate.

Another disadvantage of an electronic viewfinder is that it places extra demand on the battery. That said, the DiMAGE 7Hi has some good options for power and comes with four NiMH AA batteries and a charger. Further battery options are available to buy, as is a mains adaptor.

The auto-focus system features Flex Focus Point - a clever focus-detection system that can be manually adjusted

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for any part of the composition. This is based around a spot-focus option, supplemented for general use by a wider detection area. There's also a manual focus ring, but the electronic finder lacks the precision of a true optical system, making it more difficult to use in practice.

Exposure control options include point-and-shoot programs based on specific types of subject, alongside a normal program mode for shooting more generic subject matter. However, we feel many users will opt for the more advanced shutter and aperture priority or manual modes for extra control. There's also a useful interval timer mode.

Multipattern, centre-weighted and spot-metering measurement options are included too and cater for most needs. Generally, we found exposure control was excellent. Sensitivity includes 100, 200, 400 and 800 ISO, with an auto setting selecting between 100 and 200 ISO. Noise is controlled to a reasonable degree up to 400 ISO, but the fastest setting is disappointing and not worth using. Minolta has also included a good shutter speed range from 1/4,000th second to 15 seconds, underlining the advanced capabilities of the camera once more.

Still images are saved as JPEGs with three levels of compression, or as a 14MB uncompressed TIFF file. There's also an option for a 9.5MB RAW file. This is processed using the capable DiMAGE Viewer to produce TIFF files of roughly 28MB (48-bit) or 14MB (24-bit) in size. Images can be created at a maximum resolution of 2,560 x 1,920. The supplied 16MB CompactFlash Type II card won't get you far at this resolution, though, so we recommend an immediate upgrade.

It's also worth pointing out that images are captured using the relatively wide Adobe 1998 or sRGB colour spaces, tagged with ICC profiles for colour matching - another feature for serious users.

In terms of image quality, we were impressed with the colour reproduction, which can be adjusted for a natural or vivid effect, plus saturation across seven levels. The image contrast (tone curve) may also be changed from the standard settings. The built-in flash is a bit pedestrian to recycle on full output, but it offers modes for interior, fill-in, slow, rear or front sync, plus red-eye reduction. The advanced feature set continues with a hotshoe for Minolta's top SLR flash guns and a PC socket for a studio flash. We tested the DiMAGE 7Hi in a studio environment where we found it best suited to shooting stationary targets.

The DiMAGE 7Hi is an impressive update to an already superb camera. Image quality is excellent and the extensive feature set includes a variety of high-end options to suit the more advanced user. We don't like the digital viewfinder, but if you're looking for a relatively compact and powerful camera the DiMAGE 7Hi fits the bill.