Elegant and packed with features

I have been taking pictures for around 30 years and have moved through the ranks of quality cameras from the Olympus OM1 (still the best of them all for my money) to my first proper digital, the Fuji S5000 (an absolute cracker).
I did miss the ability to use a more powerful flash and having a manual zoom. This made me start to look around at a good quality addition to my outfit and I looked at the current 8mp cameras including the Olympus and Canon SLRs.

Having always owned SLRs I seriously gave the current models some serious thought and believed that, at my time of life, I couldn't justify the huge financial outlay after I bought the additional lenses. Experience has taught me that the focal lengths that I use most often are included in the A200's zoom range so I narrowed it down to the high spec. models from Canon, Minolta, Olympus, Sony and Nikon.

The price, quality and features combination of the A200 is impossible to beat. Everything about the camera oozes quality and it is both complicated yet straight forward to use. The manual zoom ring has just the right amount of friction and the whole camera has a nice balance about it and it fits well in the hand. The lens is fast even though it only has a 49mm filter thread.

All controls and options make sense and are easy to access, there are no strange menus meaning that the instruction book (on disc) is there to confirm operations, although those who are new to photography will want to spend more time inside the pages.

I will need to spend time taking more pictures under a variety of situations so that I can assess things like shutter delay, the need for lens add ons and which exposure modes I prefer. I had positive reasons for opting for the A200 rather than the other models but would not want to state those reasons and I have no doubt that many people will be swayed by the Canon or Nikon brand name. This is my first Minolta and have been thrilled by the results so far.

PS Part of me still wishes that I had bought the E300 or the EOS 350D but they would have only been 'male jewellery' as I do not take the number of pictures that I once did. I have a feeling that the A200 could well get me shooting everything and everywhere like I did with my first OM1.