Konica Minolta Dimage A200 – Dogging down Green Lane – Local Photo Walks, Pt1

This will be a sort of Local Photo Walk series. Probably a wee bit of inspiration or ideas for people who want some idea or excuse to enjoy their photography. With a banged up knee I’ve been unable to go anywhere and enjoy taking pictures, then I thought about documenting the area around where I live, but in a sort of visual walk style, something I haven’t done before. I regret not doing this in Walthamstow in London where I used to live, as that had much more going on, but I’ll return one day and give that a seeing to! A local walk can yield some interesting things to Photograph. I’d say the subject matter, area and time of the season, weather etc all will affect your choice of whether to take Film, Digital, Medium Format or Half Frame, Colour or B&W. Whatever you choose you’ll have some fun!

I’d heard the word “Dogging” and “Doggers” bandied around for years but never took any notice of it, I thought Dogging meant, or was a term to describe Dog Walkers or Dog fairs such as Crufts and such things, rather than extra curricula activities and nocturnal rendevous taken place by Adults in desolate carparks or beauty spots. It was only when a mate told to look up the word I typed it into a search engine and was strangely surprised that it had almost nothing to do with dogs. ok, I lied, the title is just click bait, but Dog Walkers do form part of my brief review here of the Konica Minolta Dimage A200, little brother to the legendary A2 Bridge Camera.

Now I bought this back in 2005, then sold it and about a year or so ago I saw a boxed mint one with all accessories including the wide angle attachment and other stuff for £45 – so I couldn’t resist and bought it.

Apart from a few snaps here and there I hadn’t gone on a Photo walk with it, to use it exclusively and to get the hang of it. I’ve had plenty of opportunities this last year, having been off with an injured knee and a knee operation, but the weather had been pretty shite and on the other nice days when I was able to do so, I had other cameras to shoot and enjoy (including a Kodak Easyshare Z950 I’ve been using for a while and yet to write about).

So today I was pretty free and in the mood for a walk, the weather was very fine, a lovely bright day in late April. April has gone so quick, it being my (and my late dad’s) favourite month – a month I wish could last forever!

I grabbed the A200, set it to RAW, ISO 100 and Aperture Priority (it has  the usual PASM dial with toggles to change aperture). and off I went, out of the house and onto my road which is more or less a dirt track with a Wood directly opposite with a lovely Rookery (which I’ve photographed many times). The wood isn’t particularly large but it does have a 1000 Year old oak called “Old Knobbly” and there is a nesting pair of Tawny owls which call out to each other, a sound I love as I sit on the porch listening with awe.

Turn right and it leads me down to where it merges onto Green Lane – the sort of road which you can’t really drive down without having a 4×4 – so cars avoid it almost totally. Green Lane is part of The Essex Way

The Essex Way is a path which starts in Dedham in Constable Country, along the Stour Estuary to finish at the port of Harwich some 11 Miles away from here.

It’s a nice walk, with birdsong all around. I’ve this App on the iPhone called Merlin Bird ID and today I had 14 different ones singing, chirping, tweeting, cooing and cawing away – including Goldfinches, Gold Crests, Wood Peckers and such, with a little Robin following me part of the way, fluttering from branch to branch and from one side of the lane to the other, head tilted. I soon left him behind and was surrounded by the songs of Song Thrush, Wrens and Blackbirds with the occasional Caw from Rooks flying overhead.

The Wood soon ends and there are meadows on either side, with metal Stile’s and Kissing Gates leading into them. To the right you’ll see St. Mary and St. Michael’s Church spire and the Edme Malt Works – the air over there by Stour the Estuary often smells of Horlicks and malt, almost like waking past a brewery!

Half a Mile and you’ll get to The Mistley Old Hall, a very picturesque old building surrounded by moss and creeper bearing walls, of a lovely reddish brick which look particularly nice when the sun is out. It’s an old building, Grade II Listed part of Historic England, dating back to the early C18th and has a lovely old charm about it. I’ve a feeling it’s haunted, so I’ll be sure to take my son out there on All Hallow’s Eve at midnight for some Trick and Treating! hehe!

Past that and you’ll see the entrance to Dairy House and Dairy Cottage, a beautiful farmhouse with a quaint Garden which is open to the public and surrounded on most sides by fields, meadows, woodland, brooks and ponds. The garden is full of Daffodils in Spring, but I got here quite late and they were beginning to wilt. But the spring leaves on the trees are lovely to photograph – they’re small light and almost translucent.

This is where I turned back as my knee started to get sore.

As for the camera, it’s fantastic. Considering it’s 21 years old, it’s lovely to hold with buttons and functions where you expect them to be. The zoom is a satisfying manual one. The EVF is very good, it’s large, detailed and bright – of course it’s not to modern standards (and inferior to the one on the larger A2 camera) but it’s good enough and to have a swiveling LCD is also a very nice touch.

It’s comfortable to hold, very well built – like a minature version of their DSLR’s. It looks great.

Changing aperture is as on a DSLR – I used f5.6 as I’d use f8 – f11 on larger formats. Opened up at long zoom it turns into a very nice portrait lens with soft out of focus areas. It’s sharp with a very nice rendering.

In bright light I had absolutely no issues.

The anti-shake is also very good, the camera hums as it works away, giving enough stablility to hand hold at full zoom at ISO 50. I tried both ISO 50 and 100 and wouldn’t bother going to 400 on this as you’ll get some noise. But the Anti-Shake makes up for it, enabling you to shoot as if you were at ISO 400.

You get easy access to exposure compensation and WB by using the 4 way control button, but there’s no ISO button – this is accessed by pressing the function key.

Focus is quick enough and precise and you can mess around with settings to have Auto focus as in the camera decides when to track and when not to. Everything just works and works well.

My only big hangup is the fact that the EVF isn’t Auto. You have to press a button to switch from EVF to LCD and vice versa, which can be annoying.

And lastly, being an old camera with a small CCD sensor, you’ll get the “CCD” look, but you’ll also get limited Dynamic range and if you’re not careful, blown highlights.

Getting back to the ranch I met the twins (son and cat) playing on the porch, I went in and immediately got to work with Light Room 5.

The photos when shot on RAW come out flattish, with little contrast, they also have a coldish White Balance. But this is to be expected and a good thing as it gives you a LOT of control when editing. The sensor likes Greens, it loves Green, which are too blue green for my liking so I guess I should’ve warned them up. It likes Blues and Reds. It’s not a big fan of Yellows though.

A few tweaks of contrast, levels and a slight warmth gives you the results I have here (with No extra sharpening). I notice a slight vignette gives small sensor digital images some depth.

This is a beautiful camera, it gives an almost painterly look to photographs and they’re all very pleasing to the eye.

So there we have it, The Konica Minolta Dimage A200, a shame Konica and Minolta are no more, the photographic world is lessened without them (along with Olympus, Bronica, Mamiya, Contax, Yashica, Roillei et al).

Anyway, I didn’t see any Doggers, nor any Dogging, I did see a couple of Dog Walkers though!

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