That's a pretty severe difference. The main difference in the machines would be the Minolta uses a cold cathode tube and the Nikon uses LEDs. My guess is that the author had some setting wrong with the Minolta. It's also interesting that the Nikon's color balance was warmer/ more yellow and a bit more saturated. It's possible that the sharpening was set too high, but I don't see any other evidence of it in the pictures.
BUTCH Each man had only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself. Hermann Hess (Demian)
