October 06, 2007
I believe it was two years ago that Sony bought Minolta's camera and lens business. A year before that I had bought my Maxxum 7D digital SLR. So I felt kind of abandoned since I didn't know when or if Sony was going to continue the models.
Sony produced the Alpha 100, a sort of follow-on to the Minolta Maxxum 5D. I think most Minolta digital SLR owners have been waiting for the Maxxum 7D successor, and it looks like it's here. It's the Sony Alpha 700 and hopefully will be for sale soon. They've taken away some of the knobs and buttons that made the 7D easy to operate, but they added a lot more features.
Following are a couple of previews of the new Alpha 700. They're hardly objective reviews, and some of the information appears to be straight from Sony's press releases or brochures. Hopefully someone will have a hands on review soon.
PopPhoto.com
DP Review
Let's Go Digital
Here are some new photos of a couple of bugs. The grasshopper was shot with the Minolta Maxxum 7D and the Tamron 90mm macro lens. The beetle was shot with the Tamron 18-200mm zoom lens. For my purposes the 18-200mm zoom lens is really nice, but it's not a close up lens. The macro lens is truly excellent and you can see the difference in the photos.
