Minolta A2 questions

[Gary_Berg]

[font color=\'#000000\']Your battery performance seems poor, although it depends on how much viewing you did through the LCD and what distance your flash shots were. Lots of fiddling with the camera chews up battery. I'd take another couple of passes with the battery before I got worried.

As for settings, the A2 has your Canon all beat hollow. Set the camera how you want, then roll the upper big dial on the left side of the camera all the way Mset. You can save 5 settings, and restore them with the mode dial. See page 72-73 of the A2 manual.[/font]

[timh]

[font color=\'#000000\']Well, the battery is supposed to reach full capacity after a few charge/discharge cycles - but if you didn't fully charge it before first use you might have screwed it up a bit.. (I've had that happen with a new mobile phone battery - basically the same thing.)

The memory recall settings get even easier to use if you disable the built-in programs (portrait, action, etc etc) and replace them with your own.[/font]

[DaveLon]

[font color=\'#000000\']I just got an A2 and have some questions.  First off, how is everyone's experience with battery life?  After charging the battery fully, I got about 40 RAW shots (many with flash) before the battery died. Anyone else experiencing short battery life?  (Probably I was supposed to calibrate it initially by discharging fully and then recharging, but I didn't do that, so that could be the problem).

Second, on my Canon G3, I have it set up so that my normal recording settings are RAW w. Adobe RGB color space when shooting in aperture priority (or shutter priority or manual or Program), but when I flip it to "Auto," I have it set up for small JPEG and sRGB, so that when I need to shoot pics to email to people, I can just flip to Auto.  I can't figure out a way to do this on the A2.  I can put it in Auto mode and change the color space to sRGB and the image quality to small JPEG, but when I turn it off, it loses those settings and reverts to the default, which is fine JPEG (which is too big to email). The issue is that I have it set up for RAW and Adobe RGB (embedded) for highest quality shooting.  But pictures shot in Abode RGB look terrible if emailed without any adjustments and the Fine JPEG setting is too large.  I assume I can do this by assigning these settings to the memory function, but it would be a lot easier to just set it up like the G3, i.e., only one knob to flip (from AV to Auto).  

(3) Has anyone using Mac OS 10.3 succesfully downloaded and unStuffed the new firmware?  I downloaded the OS X firmware from the European site, but when I doubleclick to unStuff it, I get an error message saying that the system is trying to open OS 9.  Any help?

Thanls.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']Mac using 10.3.4

Downloaded the Mac version of the update and unstuffed - no call for system 9 (ie Classic)

Did you download the OS X version. ??

Dave[/font]

[Gary_Berg]

[font color=\'#000000\']I believe flash exposure accuracy and white balance improvements were some of the things supposedly improved. Remember that the flash doesn't have a whole lot of range. I've got a set I took with the 5600 external flash, and besides not allowing for the color of my subject's clothing (bride trying on her dress, I got underexposure) the white balance is very good. And I've not upgraded to 1.12 yet.[/font]

[squishyfish]

[font color=\'#000000\']Wow, that is great.  I read the manual and didn't catch that one.  Thanks.

I like this camera more and more every day.  The designers were on the ball with it.  Of course I have not had any out of focus issues, but I think a lot of those are unfamiliarity with the camera more than technical issues.

Again, thanks.

Cheers[/font]

[william]

[font color=\'#000000\']I just got an A2 and have some questions.  First off, how is everyone's experience with battery life?  After charging the battery fully, I got about 40 RAW shots (many with flash) before the battery died. Anyone else experiencing short battery life?  (Probably I was supposed to calibrate it initially by discharging fully and then recharging, but I didn't do that, so that could be the problem).

Second, on my Canon G3, I have it set up so that my normal recording settings are RAW w. Adobe RGB color space when shooting in aperture priority (or shutter priority or manual or Program), but when I flip it to "Auto," I have it set up for small JPEG and sRGB, so that when I need to shoot pics to email to people, I can just flip to Auto.  I can't figure out a way to do this on the A2.  I can put it in Auto mode and change the color space to sRGB and the image quality to small JPEG, but when I turn it off, it loses those settings and reverts to the default, which is fine JPEG (which is too big to email). The issue is that I have it set up for RAW and Adobe RGB (embedded) for highest quality shooting.  But pictures shot in Abode RGB look terrible if emailed without any adjustments and the Fine JPEG setting is too large.  I assume I can do this by assigning these settings to the memory function, but it would be a lot easier to just set it up like the G3, i.e., only one knob to flip (from AV to Auto).  

(3) Has anyone using Mac OS 10.3 succesfully downloaded and unStuffed the new firmware?  I downloaded the OS X firmware from the European site, but when I doubleclick to unStuff it, I get an error message saying that the system is trying to open OS 9.  Any help?

Thanls.[/font]

[william]

[font color=\'#000000\']Your battery performance seems poor, although it depends on how much viewing you did through the LCD and what distance your flash shots were. Lots of fiddling with the camera chews up battery. I'd take another couple of passes with the battery before I got worried.

As for settings, the A2 has your Canon all beat hollow. Set the camera how you want, then roll the upper big dial on the left side of the camera all the way Mset. You can save 5 settings, and restore them with the mode dial. See page 72-73 of the A2 manual.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']Thanks for your response.  I'll recharge the battery tonight and see how battery performance progresses.

Just realized from what you said and after re-reading the manual that saving and retrieving the custom settings is easier than I'd thought -- once they're saved using the MSET dial, it is indeed just a flip of one dial to retrive them (the MR setting on the same dial as my shooting modes).  I didn't want to have to be digging around in on-screen menus to pull up a saved set of parameters.

Oh, and I got the firmware upgrade to unStuff -- don't know why, but dragging the file on top of the StuffIt icon works, but double clicking the file does not.

Now, speaking of the firmware upgrade: has anyone seen better performance with the on-camera flash after the upgrade?  My first flash pics from this camera were horrible -- significantly underexposed and with a strong yellow color cast.  The review on dpreview.com mentions the same thing.  Does the firware upgrade seem to help?  (I can't install it yet b/c my battery's dead and the charger's at home).

I still can't believe this camera doesn't have an orientation sensor -- that alone may not get this camera taken back to the store, but that plus the flash issues might.  (OTOH, my 1Ds doesn't have an orientation sensor either, which is more absurd).[/font]

[DaveLon]

[font color=\'#000000\']Battery life : After a couple of charge-discharge cycles, I have never had to change batteries at less than 200 RAW - using EVF only and preview on for LCD.

Dave[/font]

[DaveLon]

[font color=\'#000000\'](3) Has anyone using Mac OS 10.3 succesfully downloaded and unStuffed the new firmware?  I downloaded the OS X firmware from the European site, but when I doubleclick to unStuff it, I get an error message saying that the system is trying to open OS 9.  Any help?

Thanls.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']Mac using 10.3.4

Downloaded the Mac version of the update and unstuffed - no call for system 9 (ie Classic)

Did you download the OS X version. ??

Dave[/font]

[squishyfish]

[font color=\'#000000\']Well, the battery is supposed to reach full capacity after a few charge/discharge cycles - but if you didn't fully charge it before first use you might have screwed it up a bit.. (I've had that happen with a new mobile phone battery - basically the same thing.)

The memory recall settings get even easier to use if you disable the built-in programs (portrait, action, etc etc) and replace them with your own.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']How do you disable the built-in programs and replace them with your own?

Cheers,

David[/font]

[timh]

[font color=\'#000000\']How do you disable the built-in programs and replace them with your own?[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']Page 4 of the menu in 'shooting' mode - first item "DSP set".. Change it to "Memory recall".

Now when you turn the dial, "MR" will be your first preset, "portrait" will be your second, "action" will be your third, etc..

Note that these positions will revert to their stored custom settings (if you see what I mean) when you switch to another program.. You still set them in the same way you did before - i.e. with the "MSET" function on the left dial.

It's good.. for example my "portrait" mode is ISO64, RAW, 2-second timer, manual mode with a grid on the viewfinder (basically my tripod setup), wheras my "nighttime" is a 3:2 standard jpeg in black&white at ISO800, soft sharpness, a slight contrast boost, centre-weighted exposure and P mode (I figure since the A2 is screwed in low light anyway I might as well make a feature of the noise!).[/font]

[timh]

[font color=\'#000000\']No problem.. took me a week or two to spot it myself [/font]