What a body to complement and enhance your photography!

Author's Rating:

Pros: AF system; mirror lockup; great vertical grip, data, and wireless flash capabilities

Cons: Explicit mirror lock-up, between-frames data imprinting, and 100% viewfinder would be ideal

The Bottom Line: 
I feel that Maxxum 7 is the most ergonomically advanced AF SLR body to date, and is also on the front line technologically.

Author's Review
The past couple of years have been great in terms of major camera makers making significant strides updating their pro and advanced amateur AF SLR camera technology. Minolta's entry in this context, the Maxxum 7, is indeed impressive. It combines bold technological and ergonomic advances with time-proven features that's been desired by serious shooters but regrettably left out from Maxxum 7's competing models and - alas - Minolta's own earlier offerings in the same class.

What follows is just a "tip of the iceberg" - some of the features that strike me personally as especially useful. Head over to Minolta's web site or better yet stop at your friendly retailer to handle this beauty, to get a full appreciation of what it is. Without further ado, here we go:

Mirror Lock-Up - flips up a mirror well before the exposure as opposed to a mere instant before. This eliminates vibrations that, despite some manufacturers' claims, have been shown to blur even tripod held shots in the 1 sec ... 1/90 sec shutter speed range. Maxxum 7 uses a special 2 sec short timer delay to introduce mirror lock-up (MLU). A classic separate MLU control would be preferable in my opinion, but hey, many of this camera's competitors do not make it available at all, and neither has Minolta on many 7 class cameras that came before this one.

Autofocus (AF) System - 9 AF sensors are very well positioned around the central frame area, making it easy to focus using peripheral sensors in just about all situations without having to lock focus and recompose - a technique that of course is often impossible when shooting many moving subjects. An X-Y plus center thumb manual AF selection control on the back, similar in principle to Nikon F5's and F100's, is comfortable, quick, and intuitive to use. Improved AF electromechanics, and software (running on a dedicated AF CPU) improve performance with all of existing Minolta's lenses. X plus + central AF sensor should work with most lenses / lens + TC combo's with max. apertures as small as f/8.

LCD Display - this is perhaps by far the most visible improvement. In addition to a small traditional photo status / setting readout LCD on top, Maxxum 7 has a large dot matrix LCD on the back that provides several screens worth of extremely useful information:

* Detailed conventional shutter / aperture / status readouts that turn 90 degrees automatically when the camera senses it's being held for "portrait" composition. This is great for tripod work and many other situations where peeking over at the top panel is impossible or inconvenient.

* Actual shutter / aperture / other data for the last several shots taken. This is great for keeping track of bracketing or "sanity checking" during a busy photo shoot

* Ev readings of all the individual elements of the camera's matrix autoexposure (AE) sensor. Facilitates making optimal exposure decisions at a glance in complex lighting situations.

* This one is perhaps the coolest: with Maxxum D lenses, actual depth-of-field (DOF) - i.e. sharpness - range in feet or meters, with the specific aperture and focal length in use!


Wireless Flash - Minolta builds on top of the already admirable - or should I even assert leading, position, in wireless flash technology to once again redefine the state of the art. For several generations already of their midrange and up bodies, Minolta has cost-effectively built in wireless flash control as a standard feature. Maxxum 7 adds high-speed-sync (with their most recent flash), even further enhanced flash metering, and other features.

Controls - Some prefer classical knob and lever type controls to button and wheel ones of many of contemporary electronic SLR's. Although I do not prefer the classic controls by any appreciable margin, many users do, and this is what Maxxum 7 offers (following the footsteps of 600si and Maxxum 9) for functions for which such controls make sense.

Vertical grip (optional) - Minolta has always offered great vertical grips for its cameras - unlike many competitor's cheap imitations, Minolta's grips in general, and Maxxum 7 vertical grip in particular, includes many or all the same applicable controls that you find under your fingers when holding the camera horizontally.

Data storage - Minolta offers a huge memory to record shooting data (exposure, etc). Additionally you can off-load that to a CF card using an optional adapter.

Mid-roll film change - Maxxum 7 allows you to leave the leader out upon rewind which makes putting a partially exposed roll back in later and "fast forwarding" to the right exposure easier.