Originally posted by Magnus Wedberg
I would argue that Minolta's build quality is second to none. The 9 can go head to head with anything ever produced by any other manufacturer for an electronic AF camera, and the 7 hasn't got worse build quality than a comparable camera from, say, Canon. Previous generations of pro cameras (9000, 9xi) were also comparable to everything available at the time, even if they don't show the absurdly robust construction of the 9.
I agree that for sports, action and probably wildlife, Canon is king. The absence of a tilt/shift lens in the Minolta lineup makes the brand a bad choice for architecture photographers, too, but still -- these areas represents only a small amount of all pictures taken. Minolta, having the most limited lens lineup of all the "big 4", still has a very competitive selection of lenses for portrait, landscape and macro photographers if we want to seek specific areas where a brand excels. I think Minolta overall are very good in the mainstream range -- from 24 to 400 mm -- with a much, much worse selection when it comes to exotic lenses (no 400/2.8, no lens over 600mm, no rectilinear lens under 17 and no rectilinear prime under 20).
Not only that; Honeywell won the case, forcing Minolta to pay lots of money (and, some claims, affecting the results of the whole camera division until this day).
