Maxxum 7D w/18-70mm $699 @walmart

[schmoken]

I, a long time hem-&-haw'er, was finally pushed over the edge with this deal at wally world:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=4898002

[meanstreak]

schmoken wrote:

I, a long time hem-&-haw'er, was finally pushed over the edge with this deal at wally world:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=4898002

That is awesome price on an awesome camera. I thought I was doing good a little over a month ago when I got it with the 28-75mm 2.8 lens for 949..... now 899. If it drops much lower, it might be good to get a second one.

[[email protected]]

Yah, that's an excellent deal.

I just picked one up as a gift for the pastor retiring at the local church (came out of their gift budget).

I'm sure his eyes will light up when he sees it.

-- Terry

[superakuma]

I was at Circuit City last night and saw the 5D body and lense for only $471!
:shock:
I would buy this if I didnt buy the Pentax DS for $499 a few months ago at costco. I know I can return it, but I already invested a few $$ on the lense for my pentax.

[[email protected]]

they are both good cams.

I heard the 5D is a little slow.

Better to go for a more responsive cam if you can afford it.

[tmoreau]

[email protected] wrote:

I heard the 5D is a little slow.

How so? I have the 5D and have not found it to be slow in any way (quite the opposite, actually). Curious to see what you mean.

[JimC]

[email protected] wrote:

Yah, that's an excellent deal.

I just picked one up as a gift for the pastor retiring at the local church (came out of their gift budget).

I'm sure his eyes will light up when he sees it.

-- Terry

Great. You may want to check it and make sure it's got the new firmware installed already.

Chances it's already installed. But, if not, there was a dramatic increase in performance between the original firmware and it's replacement.

You can see how to check it in the firmware installation instructions here:

Maxxum 7D Firmware Installation Guide

Here are the download links for the firmware:

Maxxum 7D Firmware Download Links

I heard the 5D is a little slow.

Are you wearing your flame resistant suit today? :-)

AFAIK, the 5D has the same Autofocus performance as the 7D. It's actually the fastest out of the entry level DSLR models.

According to tests performed by PopPhoto, the Konica Minolta 5D's AF system was able to focus faster and in lower light (focuses in -1 EV light), compared to the other entry level DSLR models they tested (comparing the Konica Minolta 5D, Canon Rebel XT, Olympus Evolt E-500 and Nikon D50).

They said this about it:

The 9-zone AF system is the fastest of this group and works down to EV -1, very dim light indeed.

http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/1924...out-page3.html

They clocked it as follows in various light levels. It's my understanding that a 50mm f/1.4 is the lens most commonly used by them to test DSLR AF performance.

Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D AF Speed: EV 12: 0.32 sec; EV 10: 0.33 sec; EV 8: 0.41 sec; EV 6: 0.57 sec; EV 4: 0.59 sec; EV 2: 0.86 sec; EV 1: 0.87 sec; EV 0: 0.93 sec; EV -1: 1.85 sec.

The closest competitor in the Autofocus Area was the Nikon D50. The other models were left a bit behind, especially in very low light (even the Rebel XT couldn't lock focus in light lower than 0 EV, and it took over 2 seconds to lock focus there). In EV 0 lighting, the KM 5D was more than twice as fast.

Of course, don't expect AF to work in light that low without a decent lens (kit lenses aren't going to cut it). But, I've been pretty surprised at how low of light I've been able to lock focus in using a KM 5D.

In one of the local restaurants here with live music, light is so low I need to underexpose 1/3 stop just to get shutter speeds up to 1/10 second shooting with a Minolta 100mm f/2 wide open at f/2 and ISO 3200, and I can still lock focus using an *outside* focus point (albeit with some difficulty).

The 7D has a faster USB interface if you care about that. They decided to give the 5D a USB 2.0 "full speed" interface (basically, a fancy marketing term for USB 1.1). I use a card reader. So, that's no big deal to me.

The 7D also has a larger buffer. But, the 5D is actually faster writing to media.

I did some calculations a while back, and figured out that no camera anywhere near it's price can actually touch it for write speed to media, using Rob Galbraith's numbers for a few of the DSLR models around + 5D user reports of write speed to CF cards.

These have probably changed since then (I just now copied these from an old post) and more reports with newer cards are probably in now.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...e.asp?cid=6007

http://www.dyxum.com/reviews/cfcard/index.asp

Sandisk Extreme III 1GB CompactFlash Card (write time to media in raw):

Konica Monolta 5D.......... 8.88 MB/Sec
Canon EOS-1D Mark II....... 7.17 MB/sec
Canon EOS-20D.............. 6.26 MB/sec
Nikon D70.................. 4.56 MB/sec

That made the KM 5D approximately 24% faster than the Canon EOS-1D Mark II, 42% faster than the Canon EOS-20D, and 95% faster than the Nikon D70.

Of course, that was using Megabytes/second. If KM would have used compressed raw files, the photos/second would have been better. As it is, it can write 1 raw frame/second to media, after it's buffer is full with a fast card

But, it's raw files are larger than some, since they're not compressed. Again, those are old numbers, and given that faster cards are available now (along with tests on newer cameras), some of the other models may have closed in on it.