Back when I was in high school, there were basically four major brands of 35mm SLR cameras - Canon, Minolta, Nikon and Pentax. Each brand had very loyal followers and competition amongst them could be quite fierce.
These days in the DSLR world it appears that Canon and Nikon are the only major brands and I'm left wondering if Minolta and Pentax are even worthy of consideration any more, in fact do those two brands even have any decent comparable consumer grade DSLR models and accessories?
I am just asking, posing this up for discussion. I do have a couple of ancient Canon DSLR's stored away as well as I believe I've still got an old Canon AE-1 SLR around some where - all have been collecting dust for a long time but I do sometimes rue not having a DSLR with me at unexpected opportune times where a cell phone camera just doesn't cut it. I don't care what anyone says, a quality DSLR will by far out perform any cell phone camera - the difference and choice in optics easily makes that do.
Maybe I've should just toss the old Canon DSLR in the back seat of my truck for those times when a great scene presents itself and I know that my cell phone camera just won't do it justice. Hell, I carry a tripod in my truck all the time for my laser level so not having a tripod for a better picture isn't an excuse in my case.
Anyhow, so what of Minolta and Pentax?