IntroductionThe Konica Minolta A2 is one of the most feature-packed 8 megapixel prosumer cameras available. Most notable features include its Anti-Shake (AS) image stabilization feature, its high resolution 640x480 electronic viewfinder (EVF), its fast response time, a 544x408 30fps movie mode, a maximum 1/4000 second flash sync speed, and a convenient 7x 28-200 f/2.8-3.5 zoom. With such a great feature set, can this digital camera meet the demanding expectations of its users? In this review I describe my impressions of the A2, after a fairly extended use of the camera in a variety of situations, and compare it with my current other digital camera, the Sony F717. As a background to the reader, I have been photographing as a hobby for over 25 years now. Some of my past cameras include the Minolta x370, Minolta x700, Minolta Autocord, Canon Rebel, Canon EOS Elan II, Canon S40, and Sony F717.
First ImpressionsTh Konical Minolta DiMAGE A2 feels very solid when you pick it up. Weighing in at 22.8 ounces (with the battery), it feels very dense and solid for its size. Its size is good- smaller than most SLRs, but bigger than almost all point and shoot cameras. It looks and feels like a high quality camera. It has a manual zoom ring, which is for some reason all too rare these days for digital cameras, and also a manual focus ring. The zoom ring is great, though I noticed my camera didn't zoom very smoothly. One thing that you will immediately notice is the proliferation of buttons and dials dotting the camera. This is convenient, because many settings and features can be accessed fairly quickly and efficiently. Overall, I found the layout and design to be excellent. I liked the usability of the camera a lot. However, you do need to take some time to read the manual and learn about the many features of the camera. The menu system is clear, intuitive, and easy to use. Its overall design and usability are excellent. The camera feels great, handles great, and is a pleasure to operate.
Golden Gate Bridge, Marin Headlands, San Francisco, CA Electronic Viewfinder - EVFThe EVF on the A2 is notable because it has a high resolution mode, 640x480 at 30 frames per second, and a fast refresh mode 640x240 at 60 frames per second. The EVF is usable outdoors on bright days as well as indoors in low light. The EVF updates quickly, with much less lag than the Sony F717's EVF, and is very usable in most situations. Even with the fast refresh rate, however, I would say that it is still difficult to use in capturing fast-moving action. Also, when the camera is in continuous focus mode, the display updates very roughly, with noticeable skips and jumps (this does not happen in single shot mode). Colors look reasonably good, however, highlights tend to wash out (just as the Sony F717 EVF also does). Also, in low light, it seems to only display in black and white (whereas the Sony F717 is able to display color images just fine in the same low light situations). One of the nicest features of the EVF is that it has a sensor that detects when you're looking into it and automatically switches from the LCD panel to the EVF- a great design! Overall, I am satisfied with the EVF. It is good, but, could be better.
Golden Gate Bridge, Eagle's Point, San Francisco, CA LCD PanelThe LCD panel on the back of the camera is very nice. It has very little lag, and is viewable in most lighting situations. In bright sunlight, it is usable, though I wouldn't say it is great (but it is noticeably easier to read in bright sunlight than the Sony F717 LCD). The LCD panel tilts up 90 degrees and down 20 degrees, making it useful when shooting with the camera held high or low. I only wish it had a little more tilting range or swivel range, like Canon's Pro1.FocusingFOcusing was generally very good and very fast in daylight. In macro mode and in low light, focusing took a bit longer, on the order of a few second sometimes. The camera doesn't have a focus assist light, but, it was able to focus even in low light indoors. In night landscape pictures, it does tend to have focus problems. I find that sometimes I need to use manual mode to focus properly at night. Overall, I was satisfied with its focusing performance in typical daylight situations, but its night focusing ability could be better. The Sony F717 by contrast, had fewer focusing problems in similar night scenes.
Grasses, Santa Theresa County Park, San Jose, CA ImagesThe Minolta A2 supports RAW, RAW+JPEG, JPEG, and TIFF image encodings. For full 8 megapixel images, writing images to disk (in single shot mode) seemed a bit slow, taking over 20 seconds for RAW and RAW+JPEG mode, over 30 seconds for TIFF mode, and about 8 seconds for JPEG mode (using a 256MB Sandisk Ultra CompactFlash card). Images tend to come out a bit soft straight from the camera. Hard in-camera sharpening helps a bit, but be warned, for those that like razor-sharp images, some post-processing may be needed (don't use Hard in-camera sharpening if you plan to post-process, use the Normal mode). Image sharpness and detail are noticeably better than those taken of the same scene with the Sony F717. Noise is higher than the Sony F717 in most cases, but, this is not an issue in making all but the largest prints. Also, this can be fixed to a large extent with post-processing noise reduction software. I found that at the widest angles, there was considerable barrel distortion, which is a concern if you take landscape and architectural photos at wide angle. Also, it makes stitching together multiple images a bit more difficult, as you have to try and correct for the distortion with software, or stitching software tends to have more problems generating panoramas. In some shots, I noticed some vignetting in the corners of some pictures. Image quality was satisfactory- there's room for improvement. If you don't mind post-processing, you will find that you can get great images from this camera. For those who do not wish to post-process, adjusting in-camera settings (such as Hard sharpening, and Vivid mode), you might be able to get by without post-processing, depending on your preferences.Movie ModeThe A2 has a great movie mode. The best quality movie mode is 544x408 at 30 frames per second. You can use the zoom during the movies, and movies can be fairly long, over 6 minutes with a sufficiently fast and large CompactFlash card. Anti-shake mode also works to help stabilize images in movie mode too.TestsI ran several tests on the image quality and noise from the Minolta A2:
LikesOther features that I liked about the A2 include:
Twin Peaks View, San Francisco, CA Nit PicksNo camera is perfect, and there are always improvements that could be made. Some of the things I would like Konica Minolta to fix are:
ConclusionThe Minolta A2 is one of the best 8 megapixel digicams around. It has a great feature set, is capable of producing high quality images, and has a great user interface. The zoom range of 28-200mm (35mm equivalent) makes it a great camera for a wide range of situations, making it an almost ideal travel camera. The Anti-Shake feature works well, and helps stabilize the camera. On the negative side, by default, images come out a bit soft directly from the camera (but can easily be fixed in post-processing, or alternatively, improved using in-camera settings). Like any camera, it has its own unique set of strengths and weaknesses, and, it is up to you to decide if this camera is right for you.
NOTE: All images in this review were taken with the Konica Minolta A2. Most of them were processed in various ways, such as noise reduction, sharpening, curve adjustments. Links |
