These are the camera's strong points:

- Great built in filters
- A wealth of top-shelf features
- Amazing zoom range, and
- Very intuitive traditional controls

But alas nothing in life is perfect. Most reviewers here have faulted battery life - trivial compared to these issues:

TIFF and RAW - Completely useless. Don't ever bother with them if you want to shoot multiple shots. TIFF and RAW files take an outrageous amount of time to save to the compact flash card rendering them useless. Don't use, unless you have an unchanging subject and all day to shoot it.

Auto ISO - It will always pick a ISO setting that is too high and generate an unacceptable amount of noise in your images, especially in low light. If you notice noisy pictures, just set the ISO manually and counter balance it with your exposure biasing.

To sum up, a great camera with only two flaws. That's the least I've ever experienced with any camera. Go for it!


Great Camera but no A/C Adapter   July 21, 2002
 32 out of 33 found this review helpful

I purchased the Dimage 7i plus an IBM 1 Gig Microdrive. I am not sure which is more impressive, the Dimage or the Microdrive! The images one gets with this camera are 90% of the time 100% impressive.. indistiguishable from a flatbed scanned 8X10 glossy photograph. The auto focus feature is generally acceptable, however, the viewfinder or the LCD screen makes it nearly impossible to tell whether or not the subject is truely in focus; both are just to pixely to be sure. If the subject matter is important, I always snap a few extras just in case. At 100% resolution using the fine setting, the microdrive is able to hold upwards of 350 images at a time. (nearly 10 rolls of 36 exp film!) I very much recommend getting the microdrive for this camera as it increases it's overall value 100%. Too, the camera w/microdrive can be used as a storage device for anything on your PC. Connection to the computer via USP is very easy, although not fast if you are transferring large amounts of hi res images from a microdrive. I recommend getting a cup of coffee during such transfers. :O)

I also recommend buying at least three extra sets of NI-MH batteries and keep them charged at all times. (very inexpensive 4 packs available at Ritz Camera)

The memory and setup features on the camera can be confusing and yield unexpected results at times. (i am still not sure I have setup completely figured out)

The thing that really burned me about this product is that it does not come with an AC Adapter even though the box states that one is enclosed!... The quality of the images makes the Dimage 7i a very decent studio camera and an AC Adapter would be a must for this use.

Final thoughts: Buy it, and get the 500meg or 1gig microdrive... and a stash of rechargable batteries!


Excellant Camera   September 26, 2002
 32 out of 32 found this review helpful

I bought this camera right before a vacation that featured the Reno Air Races, Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Yosemite. To go with it I picked up a second set of rechargeable AA's and a 1gb Microdrive.

I am beyond pleased with the results.

At the Races...
I was able to stop props on planes flying near 500 mph and got several very nicely framed shots. The biggest drawback was that I was able to take only one picture per 20-25 seconds on the highest resolution (the write to the card after each picture forces this), so I had to lower the resolution to get a burst of pictures or risk missing a shot either in framing or in the delay. When I hit right I loved the action photos, but this was my biggest disappointment. I had to leave the autofocus off on several of the shots of the fastest planes or the delay would cause lose the picture, but the manual focus was fine for this.

In Tahoe and Yosemite...
Excellent shots with rich vibrant color. Playing with the options on the camera helped find bring out the colors in the sunsets and forest scenes. I did not bring any filters and I really needed a graded filter for some of the low-light situations as I was forced to choose exposures for the Ground or the sky, but that was my fault. Occasionally I had a different goal than the automatic settings, but this camera is a dream manually.

In San Francisco...
Incredible night scenes. The camera performed beautifully. I was able to get great pictures of Muir Woods and the Golden Gate.

Overall...
I wish - just a little - that the 7hi had been out before I went. Per the Minolta website it's able to take three picture bursts at the highest resolution before writing to disk and I think the black will wear better.

The battery life didn't hurt me as long as I had the second set, but I did have to change and charge every day and once had to switch to an emergency set of Alkalines (which it ate and spat out so quickly I thought it must have been an error)
But I took a few of the best pictures of my life and I ended with 7 gig of pictures to stroll through at my leisure and the 8 X 10's I have printed have been amazing.

I am very happy with my purchase and give it five stars because it does everything it says it does very well. But with the 7hi the bar goes a little higher yet.


What a bit of kit!   October 24, 2002
 32 out of 32 found this review helpful

I have a great deal of experience in photography, I have a degree in Audio/Visual Production, I used to teach Photography and I am an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society. I am at present working on an exhibition about poverty in Albania. The Dimage 7i is my first digital camera after a very long and very costly line of Canon EOS cameras and lenses.
Minolta Corporation is a traditional camera manufacturer of long experience, and excellent lens quality who made a slow but calculated entry into the digital marketplace as did I. Like its popular line of 35mm slrs, Minolta's Dimage Digital Cameras are developing a reputation for innovative technology in light metering, exposure control, and autofocus systems. Their lenses in particular are worth high praise for their optical quality.

Minolta shook up the high end of the semi-pro market, by beating everyone else to the punch with the first five megapixel semi-pro digital camera. - And it wasn't just "any" five megapixel model either, but the Dimage 7, an electronic SLR design with a remarkably high quality 7x optical zoom lens, a host of advanced image-control functions, and an all-new electronic viewfinder using ferroelectric LCD technology for impressive low light performance.

Now, just over a year later, Minolta has upped the ante again, with the Dimage 7i, a substantial upgrade to the original Dimage 7. The list of added features and improvements is long and impressive, but the most salient are a dramatic improvement in autofocus speed and shutter delay, the addition of high-speed sequence and movie modes, and a significant change in the camera's native color space. Many of the 7i's improvements are impressive enough in themselves, but viewed collectively the effect is that of an almost entirely new camera. Perhaps more to the point the upgrades aren't just changes for the sake of change itself, but the obvious result of listening carefully to the Dimage 7's existing community of users. Overall, an impressive upgrade to what was already an excellent camera. Read on for all the details!

Highlights
True 4.95-megapixel CCD delivering resolutions as high as 2,560 x 1,920 pixels. 12-Bit A/D conversion.
Digital Hyper Electronic viewfinder with 90-degree variable position.
1.8-inch TFT color LCD monitor.
7.2-50.8mm lens (equivalent to a 28-200mm lens on a 35mm camera) with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/3.5, depending on the zoom setting.
2x digital zoom.
Auto and Manual focus.
Macro option at maximum telephoto or wide angle zoom settings.
Program AE, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual, and Subject Program shooting modes.
Shutter speeds from 1/2,000 to four seconds, with Bulb setting for longer exposures (up to 30 seconds), up to 1/4,000 under certain conditions.
300 segment Multi-Segment, Center-Weighted, and Spot metering options, with AE Lock function.
Adjustable ISO with five settings.
Built-in, pop-up flash with three operating modes, a dual-mode flash metering system, and manually adjustable intensity.
External flash hot-shoe for Minolta accessory flash units.
Built-in support for wireless TTL flash exposure with certain Minolta flashes. (Very slick!)
Continuous Shooting, Interval, and Movie shooting modes.
Digital Effects Control for Exposure, Color Saturation, Contrast Compensation, and Hue (color filter) control, with Bracketing
Adjustable White Balance with six modes.
Sharpness and Color control via menu options. Color modes include Standard, Vivid Color, Black & White, and Solarization.
RAW, uncompressed TIFF, and JPEG file formats.
Images saved to CompactFlash Type I or II memory cards (16MB card included), Microdrive compatible.
"Storage-Class" USB interface.
USB cable and interface software for connecting to a computer and downloading images.
NTSC or PAL selectable video output signal, with cable included.
Power supplied by four AA batteries or separate AC adapter (available as an accessory).
DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) compliant.

Many of our readers are familiar with the original Dimage 7, so I put together the following feature comparison between the Dimage 7i and its predecessor. (There could be other differences as well, but these are the ones I'm aware of.) The sheer length of this list will give you some idea of the extent of the improvements Minolta has made in the Dimage 7's design:

I purchased this camera for a photo-shoot in Albania, it truly gives my older Canon EOS 35mm system a run for its money. I was so impressed with this Minolta that I bought my wife the Minolta Dimage F100, also a great camera for stooting on the move.

I usually shoot in Fine mode with an Image Size of 1600 x 1200, using the amazing IBM 1gb Microdrive this gives me about 825 images on a drive!

My only regret is that Canon have nothing of this quality at this price point.


Superior Digital Camera   July 18, 2002
 29 out of 29 found this review helpful

This is my 5th digital camera in approximately the last 4 years. The Dimage 7i a serious upgrade compared to the Nikon 990(3.34 megapixel) I was using. The Nikon is a nice camera, but the Minolta 7i has more functions and greater resolution.

Battery life was my primary concern prior to purchasing the Dimage 7i. That turned out not to be an issue using good NiMH rechargable batteries (1600mAh or above). I was able to get over 70 photos on one set of batteries. I would recommend using the electronic view finder vs the LCD monitor to conserve battery life.

Because the camera is 5 megapixel, have several memory cards at least 128MB, preferably 256MB or above. They fill up fast when using at the higher resolutions.

Take a few minutes to read the manual to learn the tricks of the camera, it is well worth it.