Introduction

The Minolta A1 and Konica-Minolta A2 are feature packed digital cameras that offer customizations and options typical of high-end DSLRs. Proper configuration of the camera makes it possible to be used effectively by a professional or advanced photographer in most any situation. The factory default settings generally do not work as well as those in some other cameras. Alas, you must make some changes. The following recommendations are based on the lessons learned during the past year with the A1 and over 10,000 exposures taken with it.

Avoid Green Auto--Exposure Mode Dial Recommendations

You know that green AUTO program on the Exposure-mode dial? Just like "Sam I Am, I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham", avoid this setting like the plague. Consider this to be "snapshots" only. File Naming falls out of sequence when you use this mode. It's better to use your own custom auto program mode or the "P" Program Exposure.

Go ahead and use the predefined subject programs (portrait, sports, sunset and night) for a few weeks, but once the newness wears off you'll be ready to actually define your own modes. These subject programs give you an idea of how the camera is able to adapt to different photographic opportunities. For the beginner photographer or somebody who probably won't do any post-processing, you can continue to use these modes but with the understanding that they only get you in the neighborhood, but are not of highest quality. Under the forth recording menu the first setting is "DSP Set". Change this from "DSP" to "Memory Recall". This allows you to save five different camera configurations instantly selectable without going through menus. To set a memory, select one of the PASM exposure modes, adjust ISO, file type, F-stop/Shutter speed (as applicable), saturation, filtration, white balance, display look/feel, flash mode, resolution, etc., and save using the MSET control on the left control dial. Now you will be able to bring back this setting just by turning to the desired setting on the exposure mode dial.

Mine is configured with three various RAW modes (auto, manual, B&W) while the forth is JPEG XTRA-FINE (single shot) and the fifth is JPEG FINE (continuous). But these settings do change occasionally. Whatever image quality mode is programmed into the "MR" position is used for the PASM positions, so if you primarily shoot in RAW mode, you will want a RAW mode programmed into the MR spot.

Aperture Priority

The GT lens of the Konica-Minolta cameras does have a "sweet spot" where sharpness, DOF (depth of field) and usability tradeoffs all converge to a most usable aperture. I've found this to be F5.6 on my camera. At F5.6, you get the least amount of purple-fringing (not like it's a problem, anyway), an excellent DOF to cover focusing errors and very little diffraction blurring. Most complaints about image sharpness with the A1/A2 is directly traceable to shooting in Program mode or Shutter-speed Priority mode. You need to use Aperture Priority mode to lock the camera into the prime aperture for your specific camera/lens combination. I will typically vary my aperture between F4 and F6.3 with only rare forays into other settings.

Control Dial Setup

Only recently have I changed the layout on my controls back to the standard set by other camera manufacturers. To me it made more sense to have the aperture control on the front dial and the exposure compensation on the rear dial when shooting in Aperture Priority mode. But, this was backwards to other cameras so in preparation for future acquisitions I did change the settings where my front dial is exposure compensation and the rear dial is aperture. In other modes, the rear dial remains the aperture (or shutter speed in Shutter Priority mode). Regardless, make sure that you setup the control wheels where the exposure compensation is configured to one or the other.

White Balance

Avoid AWB. It doesn't work in mixed lighting, nor with non-continous spectrum lights.

Shooting Menu 1

Image size is defaulted to 2560x1920. I use 2080x1560 for sports or fast sequence shooting.

Quality is set to RAW, EXTRA-FINE or FINE for sports or fast sequence shooting. TIFF files are identical to the EXTRA-FINE files.

Flash Mode is usually set to Fill-Flash. Occasionally I'll use Rear Sync, but Red Eye mode is to be avoided if you want to keep the response time of the camera to a minimum.

Flash Control is set to ADI Flash. This combines distance (using the autofocus) and, pre-exposure and a pre-flash to determine accurate flash exposures. It does remarkably well. I do use Manual Flash when using external flash units connected through the PC socket.

AEL Button I have set to Spot AE Toggle. This allows the camera to operate in a similar manner to my Olympus cameras where I press this button (located just to the right of the thumb) and I'm able to spot meter and HOLD that exposure until I press the button again. AE Hold will only apply the exposure to the next picture.

Shooting Menu 2

Specific changes to this menu would be Instant Playback which I have set to 2-seconds when shooting with flash. Otherwise, I have this off. Voice Memo is difficult to use as you can only record during instant playback.

Shooting Menu 3

Color Mode is a challenge to use. I have gone back and forth on this, and have found that Vivid gives the most pleasing results for outdoor photography, whereas Normal is best for portraiture and interior pictures. If you have a fully calibrated Adobe RBG workflow, feel free to use that. B&W is also quite good and I use that frequently. When storing the images in RAW mode, they do not change the file in any way. However Minolta's DiMAGE Viewer reads this flag and will alter the color environment during conversion. Most third-party RAW converters ignore this flag.

Sharpness is set to Normal. Noise Reduction is usually Off, unless I'm doing night photography.

Now comes the picky stuff that affects other things. Monitor amplification is set to Normal, Manual exposure is set to Display Priority when using flash, Exposure Priority when shooting without flash.

The Magnification button is set to FlexMagnifier as the digital zoom serves little useful purpose except in a pinch when you must zoom in and you do not plan on post processing. Digital zoom "crops" the image.

Shooting Menu 4

DSP set=Memory recall. This gives me five (5) custom settings.

Tracking AF=Off. It takes the camera too long to lock onto a moving target for this to be usable.

AE lock=Off.

Spot AE area=Flex Focus Point

Direct MF = On. This gives you the ability to fine-tune the focus after the auto-focus has locked.

Blue Shooting Menu 2

Custom Set=Color Mode, Quality or Flash control depending on my shooting situation.

File # Memory=On

Blue Shooting Menu 3

Turn the sounds OFF! There is no need to play nasty SLR type sounds or have it beep at you. The shutter is just loud enough and the display blanks out. You will not question whether or not the camera took a picture.

Power Save=1 minute. Unless I'm shooting in the studio or I'm doing something that is taking a few minutes to setup, then I'll set it to 10 minutes. With a short power save, you can shoot much longer as the displays consume a lot of power.

Blue Shooting Menu 4

Anti-Shake=Display+Exposure. When set to Exposure Only, it does add a slight delay when shooting.

Full-time AF=Off

Grip Sensor=Off

Color Notes:

The Minolta A1 is capable of bright, lively colors, but you have to work for them. The camera defaults to a more neutral setting which is quite beneficial for Post-Processing. However, it does force you to make custom settings to achieve snappy "out-of-camera" pictures.

The photograph, below, is an example of what is possible when shooting in RAW mode because it does give about an extra stop of latitude. I did have the contrast and saturation notched up to maximum when shooting this, but as those settings are just flags in the image file I was able to post-process the image any way I wanted. Other than some adjustment of the curves and noise control, this is what the camera captured.