| Author:
Tim, normal Amateur | Date: Sat, Aug 27, '05 at 00:11 CEST |
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| Pro | Light weight, ease of use, spot and 14-segment honeycomb light metering. Verstility. |
| Contra | Feels flimsy, plastic lens mount, so-so standard zoom (28-80). Lack of any sort of cable release. |
| Thoughts | Unless you are a professional or a very heavy amateur user, this is a camera that will serve you very well. For the beginner it has program mode and five set modes and, for the more ambitious, it has aperture priority, shutter priority and full manual override. I have not yet come across a situation this camera cannot cope with. It will meter to a shutter speed of 30 sec, if necessary, but I would rather use a cable release than rely on the self-timer in low-light situations. With a good lens attached, this camera is very hard to beat for value for money. I currently favour a Sigma 35-135 as my standard lens and I am very pleased with the results I get. |
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| Author:
Noche Dias, normal Amateur | Date: Fri, Aug 8, '03 at 20:53 CEST |
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| Pro | Price
easy to use features for everyone
light weight |
| Contra | The eye relief for users with glasses |
| Thoughts | an overall great camera. I'm satisfied with it my self. I would recomend this camera to anyone. A nice model for minolta's 70th year annerversary. GO MINOLTA. Also a great range of Dynax lenses. |
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| Author:
daren, normal Amateur | Date: Wed, Jul 9, '03 at 09:48 CEST |
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| Pro | Lightweight, lots of features, easy to use. |
| Contra | Built in flash not so good for black and white indoor photos. |
| Thoughts | I mainly use this for black and white photography. Have had no problems with the Minolta lenses and am quite impressed with the 300 zoom. Can't seem to get the right flash exposure for indoor black and white photos, although it is fine for color. If you find a used one reasonably priced, snatch it up! |
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| Author:
Free Bird | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | all the construction |
| Contra | nothing |
| Thoughts | After 30 years of amateur photography I bought this excellent machine with 4 lenses. The ground Minolta 28-80, a Sigma AF 28-300, a Minolta 1.8/50 and a Minolta 2.8/135. As I travel every year several times, I bought the 28-300 for all situations. Some weeks ago I made fantastic pictures in Jordan with the fixed objectives and excellent ones with the zooms too. I'm very much satesfied with it. Many thanks for Minolta! An older guy from Hungary. |
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| Author:
Phil | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | Matrix Metering, nice AF. Light, yet fairly sturdy (no pentax k1000.....) |
| Contra | terrible stock lens. (28-80 af something or other)
proprietary shutter release/remote. proprietary flash mount. |
| Thoughts | I am very happy with this camera. The single best investment would be to purchase a sharper lens, as the stock 28-80 is not very sharp, somewhat slow (both in terms of focusing and aperture) and cheaply made (its light and flimsy). On the other hand, a 50mm 1.8 goes used for around $40-50, is pretty fast, made well, focuses really quickly, and is _sharp_. Overall I think the value is very high. I like it, personally. |
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| Author:
Desmond | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | 14 segment metering
Ease of use
HSS flash
|
| Contra | See comment |
| Thoughts | I would think its one of best entry level SLR camera around, packing with most of the basic features required by beginner. The only lacking are the DOF preview and plastic lens mount, and that why I upgraded to D7. Anyone who considering buying this camera, should also look at D5 too. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
|
| Pro | Spot metering
Price |
| Contra | No DOF |
| Thoughts | I'm an amateur and I have a Minolta 505si with a 28-80mm and a 70-210mm lens. I'm very satisfied. It takes good shot's voor that price. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | Features/Price, light (weight) |
| Contra | Lens, no DOF. |
| Thoughts | Man, the lens that comes with this package is terrible. I am now in the market for another one. I have seen much better/sharper pictures made with cheaper P/S cameras. I used to take sharper pictures with my old east-german camera (circa 1965-1970), EXA 1-A. If I remember corectly, that one had a Leica lens. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | I have used this camera for wedding photography with individual 28mm; 50mm and 135mm lenses. My buddies who use both C & N
cannot believe the performance of this camera. Ultimately, it is the lens that takes the picture! Let's not
get fooled by the little names or extras a camera has to offer. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | I have a Minolta 505si Super with 28-80 & 70 - 300 mm Zoom. Camera works well and it is not hard to confuse the focussing. The quality of image sharpness is not as good as my olde Minolta 303 in some situations when enlarging to 8 X 10 Print size. A great camera for serious quick snapshots with autofocus and quick zooming. I miss the close portrait shallow depth of field that is not available with the f4.0 minimum available with these big lenses. Russell Burns (Australia) |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | I was using this camera for one year. I am advanced amateur. I would also recomended to buy rather Dynax 505si super, since there is not so big difference in price. What I miss most at this camera is the remote shutter realase.
Anyway, now I am going to sell it, and I will buy Dynax 7.
But I think this is good camera when compared with price. But I want stress, buy rather 505siSUPER!!! |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | I recently bought the Minolta 505si promotion package that comes with the standard Minolta AF 3.5-5.6 28-80mm. The package deal was priced attractively to attract budget buyers but don't be conned. To my horror, this is one of the worse len I have come across. The print quality is poorer than my average click-&-shoot camera. If you are thinking of buying this package deal, I suggest that you consider twice. You are better off with the body and consider some other lense. Other users at Minolta discussion group seemed to share the same experience. |
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| Author:
unknown (legacy entry) | Date: not recorded |
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| Pro | - |
| Contra | - |
| Thoughts | I have owned the HTsi Plus/505si for 2 months along with the Tamron 28-200 Super and I am very satisfied. I chose it over the Canon Rebel 2000/EOS 300 and Nikon N60. The Nikon is very short on features and I prefer Minolta over Canon. You can e-mail me with any questions at [email protected] Good Luck! |
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