I think Phil (dpreview) does his tests using JPEG mode. Michael uses RAW for his tests. Apples & oranges.

-Dave-

Frank, I think Phil made a major mistake in conducting his test.  He took his time but one thing he didn't do, was to swap the A2 for another as soon as he noticed such drastic performance gap with the other cameras in that group.  Michael went through 3 A2s before he was happy with the results, some other reviewers have since been sending A2s back for better results.  I think the A2 image quality with all the shots that we have already seen posted on the web prior to Phil's test is in par with the rest of the 8mp cams.  Like Michael he could have mentioned about QC issues at Minolta.  I think Phil has done the photographic community a great disservice by testing a sub par A2 unit. I still think Michael rocks in real life reviews. S

Yup. I sort of felt that Michael was being really kind to Minolta when he had to get 3 cameras to make a valid review. I would have made more of it.

By the time I read that he had to do that, I already bought the A2. I haven't had any serious problems, but I would have probably bought an alternative camera if I read that Michael needed three units to get one that worked. He was very kind to Minolta to say the least.

I consider myself lucky at this point.

I'm confused.  


Still don't understand the value of the Blur test.  The A2 came in last in resolution in the DPR review and first in the DxO blur test at LL.  Setting aside the difficulties in comparing different cameras with the Blur test what does it tell us if it does not measure resolution?

I believe that Phil uses default sharpening in JPEG and that Michael used the lowest sharpening available in JPEG.

Any digicam maker who sends Phil Askey defective cameras for review is asking for trouble.