I use a Minolta Dimage 7hi, bought it earlier this year in Jan. I originally had a really 'consumer point-n-shoot' Toshiba PDRM-5 (But I can't complain, that camera has been through many years and thousands of pictures with me!), but as time went on I found the need for a faster more professional camera. I'm an aircraft/airshow photographer, so I really needed the power that an SLR has. The Dimage 7hi was the BEST sport camera out there I found at it's price range.

Let me dispell/confirm some rumors on it:

1- It's faster than some say. It can hit up to 1/2000th of a second! For when I need to capture the low speed Blue Angel passes, that's PERFECT. And with just the spin of a dial next to the fire button, I can change the shutter speed down to 1/500th for a nice prop blur on a P-51 Mustang.

2- Battery Consumption. Yes, she's a battery eater. But, I've been able to go on one set of 1800 NIMH batteries for an entire airshow! (8am-4pm). How'd I do that? Well, the Dimage 7hi has an AWESOME feature where you can just have the electronic viewfinder on, and have it 'auto sensor' your face. The LCD will never need to be on, and the viewfinder turns off when your face leaves it (due to sensors). Add that with a 1 minute auto off feature (don't worry, to 'wake it up' all you have to do is hit the fire button, and it'll wake up in less than a second) and batteries are no problem. I went out and bought two extra sets of NIMH batteries (1800 ones, $9.99 on sale at Frys Electronics) but have not yet needed them at an event (unless I use the LCD a lot).

3- Noise. Well, she's got a lot of noise on the images, but it's very bareable. At iso100, no problem. At iso800, ouch, but not as bad as I've seen off other cameras. Even the iso800 looks sharp and pretty good, just I wouldn't recommend prints over 8x10 with it. Thanks to the help of NEAT IMAGE 2.1, it does a great job erasing the noise away!

4- Her on-to-fire time is SUPER fast. I can flip on the camera, zoom in, and fire in less than 2 seconds (if I really needed it fast, probably less than a second if I didn't have the little music tune that plays when it comes on). She is a sports camera.

5- The 7x zoom on her is very good. I have yet to really test her at the BIG airshow I go to, but at the smaller events where the aircraft are further away I've gotten very close. Yes, the lens is not detachable, but you can buy up to 2.0x telephoto lens attachments. I'll be getting one of those sometime soon.

6- Not as good as some of those cameras out there? HA! The DImage 7hi seems to have more features/settings than some of the professional cameras! She's got just about every major iso from 100 to 800, and shutter speeds up to 1/2000, which is more than some pro cameras have. I work at a photo studio, so I'm around cameras like the Cannon D-30/D-60 as well as the Fuji S2, Cannon G-2, etc. My Camera thus far has been able to hold it's own in that field. It's not the best of all of them, but perfect for what I need.

The image at the top of my message was done with the Dimage 7hi at the Riverside Airshow (March 2003). They came over without any announcements, so as soon as I spotted them I flipped the camera on and zoomed it, snapping the photo in auto mode. It has been resized 33% & sharpened slightly (50%) in photoshop.

If you'd like to see some more 7hi shots I've done:

• http://www.bobafettmp.com/warbirds/riversideairshow03/index3.html
• http://www.bobafettmp.com/warbirds/aircommandos03/index3.html
• http://www.bobafettmp.com/warbirds/tuskegeeairmen03/index3.html
• http://www.bobafettmp.com/warbirds/Disneyland/index.html (all of the pages)
• http://www.bobafettmp.com/warbirds/7hiPOFtests/index.html

Hope that all helped!