Greetings from Boise, Idaho (USA)...

[Winston]

I hope you have room for a DPR refugee ;-)

A little history: My first SLR was a stop-down metering Pentax Spotmatic...shoulda kept it...made my best image with it. When I tired of stop down metering I bought a Minolta X-700. I ended up with two of them, a 28mm f/2.8, a 50 mm f/1.4, a 100 f/2.5, and a 200 mm f/2.8 (superb)...I still have them.

Due to job and family priorities and disgust with Minolta throwing MD users under the technology bus, my time spent on things photographic dwindled to zero. A few years of retirement awakened the photo genes. Got my digital feet wet with an awful HP945 that took made pretty good 5 MPx images and then graduated to a 7D. To go along with it, I acquired a KM 17-35, 28-75 and a Minolta 100-400..

I had an opportunity to go to Kenya last November and found myself in need of a backup camera. By then it was well known that 7Ds had two time bombs in them so I got an A700. In Kenya I found that, for me, two bodies don't work nearly as well as they could if they don't work exactly the same. A just returned from a trip to Tanzania with two A700s...much, much better ;-)

[Dr. Harout]

You are welcomed here on this nice and calm forum.
Wow, 2 A700, that's excellent. I bet you'll get the A900 as soon as it hits the markets (I wish you do).

[Cogito]

I share your frustration with Minolta for abandoning the MD mount - I bet they could've 'modified it' for exposure/focus recognition....
Nonetheless, welcome and don't worry about DPR. I am or more accurately was a poster there but the KM forum is banal, I don't own a Sony - still happy with a KM 7D and a couple of AF lenses.
Even though it's much easier using AF lenses, I still use my MD/MC lenses on the 7D - I hope you do too!
Enjoy the company here

[David Kilpatrick]

I hope you kept the D7D, they will always remain a classic industrial design example - a camera built with physical controls for almost everything at a time when 'virtual' controls were already universal. I agree about the two bodies thing. It's very difficult for us running Photoclubalpha as we have to keep as a many different bodies around as possible, in case questions come up. So we have two A100s (because back then, it made sense and that was all there was), one D7D, one A200, one A350, one A700. We did sell the 5D because for some reason very few questions come up about the 5D, and for colour and general performance, the D7D serves well enough to enable trips back into the past.

It would be great to have one more A700 instead of one two A100s and one A200, and we are still considering the idea. But then there's the A900 coming which will make a big hole in the bank account.

David

[Winston]

You are welcomed here on this nice and calm forum.
Wow, 2 A700, that's excellent. I bet you'll get the A900 as soon as it hits the markets (I wish you do).

Thanks for the welcome!

Not at all sure that I will do that. My primary interest is wildlife. A FF body would need to carry 27 MPx to get the same reach with my 100-400. What would be the point? If it is around 12 MPx with outstanding available-darkness performance, that's another matter

[Winston]

I share your frustration with Minolta for abandoning the MD mount - I bet they could've 'modified it' for exposure/focus recognition....
Nonetheless, welcome and don't worry about DPR. I am or more accurately was a poster there but the KM forum is banal, I don't own a Sony - still happy with a KM 7D and a couple of AF lenses.
Even though it's much easier using AF lenses, I still use my MD/MC lenses on the 7D - I hope you do too!
Enjoy the company here

I haven't used my X-700 for about twenty years except to exercise the shutters.

[Winston]

I hope you kept the D7D, they will always remain a classic industrial design example - a camera built with physical controls for almost everything at a time when 'virtual' controls were already universal. I agree about the two bodies thing. It's very difficult for us running Photoclubalpha as we have to keep as a many different bodies around as possible, in case questions come up. So we have two A100s (because back then, it made sense and that was all there was), one D7D, one A200, one A350, one A700. We did sell the 5D because for some reason very few questions come up about the 5D, and for colour and general performance, the D7D serves well enough to enable trips back into the past.

It would be great to have one more A700 instead of one two A100s and one A200, and we are still considering the idea. But then there's the A900 coming which will make a big hole in the bank account.

David

I did keep it. It is indeed a classic. I ought to get the First Frame Black problem fixed if Sony is still committed to doing that. Now that I have completely spoiled myself with two identical bodies (including RRS L-plates), the upgrades will be few and far between