Index to all Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D digital camera test images
(All images copyright © 2004 The Imaging Resource, all rights reserved)
As mentioned in the First Impressions article, here are a handful of test images shot with the Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D. We'll reshoot all these and post a full set of test photos (and gallery shots too, if the !@# weather will ever clear down here), once we get some higher-quality lenses from Konica Minolta.
The red blocks of text below are my remarks and comments, inserted into the server-generated table.
Back to Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D First Impressions article
 This first set is a series showing the effect of the contrast adjustment on the DaveBox target. A good range, and reasonably fine steps.
D7DBCON1.JPG |
 D7DBCON2.JPG 4,083,508 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBCON3.JPG 4,101,291 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBCON4.JPG 4,018,901 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBCON5.JPG 3,925,007 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 Here's an ISO series. I haven't scrutinized these too closely yet, but at first glance, the noise levels look pretty good. At high ISOs though, the camera does seem to trade off a fair bit of fine/subtle subject detail to achieve the low noise levels.
D7DBI0100.JPG |
 D7DBI0200.JPG 1,876,079 bytes 3008x2000 1/25 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 200 |
 D7DBI0400.JPG 2,123,840 bytes 3008x2000 1/50 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 400 |
 D7DBI0800.JPG 2,393,613 bytes 3008x2000 1/100 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 800 |
 D7DBI1600.JPG 2,527,746 bytes 3008x2000 1/200 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 1600 |
 A series showing the effect of the saturation adjustment. A good range with fine steps, although I think I'd like to see it extend further into the low-saturation realm.
D7DBSAT1.JPG |
 D7DBSAT2.JPG 4,047,898 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBSAT3.JPG 4,110,866 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBSAT4.JPG 4,220,033 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 D7DBSAT5.JPG 4,255,677 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 The shots above were all captured with the 7D's manual (custom) white balance adjustment. Both the auto (here) and the Daylight white balance options produced rather yellowish casts.
D7DBWBA.JPG |
 D7DBWBD.JPG 2,074,255 bytes 3008x2000 1/15 sec f16.0 +0.3 EV 30mm focal length ISO 100 |
 Here's a contrast series of the long-suffering Marti under the deliberately-awful lighting of my "sunlight simulator." Just lowest, normal, and highest. I'd really like to see the contrast adjustment's range extend further in the low-contrast direction.
D7OUTCON1.JPG |
D7OUTCON3.JPG |
 After I'd shot these and released Marti to her pre-Thanksgiving preparations I had one of those "doh" moments. - The 7D has a special "high key" mode for shooting exactly this sort of subject, and in the scramble that the day was, I totally didn't think of testing it. Drat. Stay tuned after the holiday, I'll try to get something up with it ahead of the rest of the review.
D7OUTCON5.JPG |
 Another shot, this time with the Manual white balance option. The shots above and to the right were captured with +1.0 EV of exposure compensation. This gave good-looking skin tones, but blew out the highlights. This shot shows what happened with +0.7 EV of adjustment (with the lowest contrast setting). - A rather dark-looking picture. I'll definitely be interested in seeing what the special High Key option does with this lighting!
D7OUTMP2.JPG |
 Just two shots here, showing the extremes of the saturation adjustment. (Saturation was at its neutral setting in the other shots here.)
D7OUTSAT1.JPG |
 D7OUTSAT5.JPG 4,828,895 bytes 2000x3008 1/60 sec f9.0 +1.0 EV 35mm focal length ISO 100 |
 The standard ISO-12233 res target. I felt I had to include this because everyone would ask for it, but I winced inwardly (maybe outwardly too) at the idea of shooting it with a 17-35mm zoom that my subjective sense told me was rather soft. Stopped down to f/16, it definitely looked better than at wider apertures, so that's what we have here. I'll try to replace this image with one shot with a sharp prime early next week after we get the 50mm f/1.4 optic from Konica Minolta. Lens aside, the camera's image processing does a good job here. Very clean, very few artifacts, and a nice job from the default in-camera sharpening. (To my eye, neither too much nor too little.)
D7RES3008F_F16.JPG |
 This viewfinder accuracy shot is very interesting: Konica Minolta's marketing materials make reference to the 7D's 95% viewfinder accuracy. As you can see here though, the VF on our production sample gave almost exactly 100% coverage.
D7VFAT.JPG |
All images copyright © 2004, The Imaging Resource, all rights reserved.