Customer Reviews

Minolta Dimage 5 3MP Digital Camera w/ 7x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This itineration of the Dimage series brings excellent quality and useful features to the buyer in the 'upper middle' segment of the digicam market. The Dimage 5 is almost identical to the Dimage 7, though it sells for roughly 1/2 the price, with the only difference being the 3.3 megapixel resolution of the Dimage 5 vs the 5 megapixel resolution of the Dimage 7. If you are not planning on shooting pictures ultimately intended to be blown up to poster size, 5 megapixels is not going to be worth the money.
This camera is well made, well balanced (though slightly large for my preferences) and features an excellent electronic viewfinder, great optics and a very powerful and accurate 7x optical zoom (bumped by a 2x digital zoom if needed). Its controls offer a lot of options for creativity, while the fully auto setting makes life simple for those who like it so. It does require the purchase of a much larger (128) memory card and a second set of batteries, but otherwise is ready to go as is. The main competitor, in my opinion, would be the Olympus 2100, which has a more powerful zoom (10x) and the highly desireable image stabilization.

I recently purchased the Dimage 5 after doing quite a bit of research on digital cameras in it's class. I bought my first digital camera 4 years ago (olympus 320d) and since then have been waiting for that moment when someone would produce an affordable, high quality digital camera that would give me the flexibility and control that my old Canon Ftb slr did. I have to say I am pleased with the results. The color rendering is accurate without being over saturated. The level of manual control offered and it's accompanying results are very good. The performance of the EVF is quite good even in low light situations. Placement of the controls are convienent once you get used to them. The ability to have 35mmSLR-like control of shutter speed, ISO, manual focus, and a manual zoom ring(not a fan of motorized zoom) is wonderful. Did I mention the lens accepts 49mm filters? I have not experienced what I would consider to be unusual power consumption as some have experienced. I am using 1600 mAh NiMH batteries purchased from the local Radio store. Of course I do take advantage of the power saving features such as setting the EVF to only come on when my eye is at the viewfinder and I rarely frame with the lcd panel. I use it mainly to briefly view a shot after I have taken it. Shooting maximum size shots at the fine setting I had no trouble getting 75 frames over the course of a 2 hour hike along the local river on one set of batteries. Whats missing? Image stabilization and built in noise control for high speed ISO settings and low light shots. Other than that I am completely satisfied with my purchase.

There was a review posted earlier with some serious errors. This review is to help you make an informed decision about this camera.

Yes, this camera is a battery hog. Most digital cameras are. So much that the set of four alkaline AA batteries that came with the camera were good for about 8 pictures. Yes, eight. However, a set of NiMH (nickel metal hydride) rechargeable batteries and a charger was included with my camera. The charger is an overnight charger, so you may wish to consider the purchase of a fast charger and another set or two of NiMH batteries.

The camera has several levels of compression when it stores the pictures. The superfine, fine, normal, and economy are in standard JPEG format that DO NOT need to be converted to any other format for use. The sRGB format does, however. This stores images in a 36 bits per pixel format. This is a professional-quality format that requires 9MB per image! If you are going to use this format, get a larger CompactFlash card (or IBM microdrive).

The download speed via USB is relatively slow compared to other digital cameras, including my older Toshiba PDR-M70. If you have a large CF card, you may wish to purchase a separate USB CF reader for faster transfer speed.

Well, there are the negatives. Unless you dislike a camera with a fast shutter-release speed, incredible levels of manual control (including program shift and manual white balancing capabilities), an incredibly sharp zoom lens, and future-proofing via firmware downloads from the Internet!

I've had 5 digital camera previous to this one. While the Minolta has some negatives, it is seriously superior to any digital camera I've owned before. Definitely worth a look!

I have had this camera for about 2 months now and love every bit of it. It takes amazing photos, the optical zoom lens is spectacular and the camera has all the manual options so that I can have complet control of the photos. The manual settings are NOT on a menu driven system so it is quicker to make changes (and uses less batteries by not having the screen on all the time).

POWER SAVING TECHNIQUES:
I bought PowerEx Rechargables and I get about 600 pictures per set... More than enough... A couple tips for longer battery life. Do not use the Large screen unless completly nessesary. Use the EVF on auto on. The View finder will turn on when you place your eye up to it. Also, do not use the continues focus option... It will kill the batteries in no time.

The best camera I've ever owned... Long exposure night shots... simply amazing.

This camera offers much in the way of flexibility... from point and shoot to full manual control. Its controls are easy and comprehensive after a short but necessary learning curve. The onscreen feedback is well designed and intuitive. The picture quality is great on "Fine" and up... don't bother with the lower quality settings unless you're seriously cramped for space. You WILL be disappointed, but then the lowest setting uses something like 75% JPEG compression, so it's to be expected. The "Super Fine" setting uses about 5%, "Fine" about 10%. Perfect for general and "photo" uses. The RAW format, which takes a very long time to save to media, has 0% compression and is a lossless format. It does require the proprietary software to download and use, but if you're looking for a way to store that "special" picture and don't mind the save-time, use it. I used it for a few on-the-couch family sittings from a tripod.

Battery life is ok to good using NiMH high amp batteries and skipping the use of the LCD. The simulated TTL EVF negates the need of the LCD for typical picture framing anyway.

The only two things that *I* have found to complain about this camera are:

1) It gets a little warm where you hold it with with your right hand after lots of pictures... I'm talking like 100 or more pictures right in a row. click, click, click, click... Average picture takers probably won't notice this, and I never did until I got serious the other night about tweaking and fine-tuning some of the manual settings for different lighting situations in my house. Again, I *only* noticed this due to the pretty much click-after-click use for about 100 - 150 pictures.

2) In non-flash "average lighting" situations, it tends to keep the shutter open longer than I would like, showing ghosting and trailing in *some* pictures. Sitting in my living room the other night with 3 lights on, not using the flash, I noticed the shutter speed was 1/3 while using the flash decreased shutter speed to 1/45 to 1/60. Those settings made for a MUCH more stable pictures. This problem was extremely noticable at my daughter's christening this past weekend when the priest's hands were constantly trailed... he's a very animated fellow.

Manually overriding the shutter speed is easy and works mostly well, but again, in some lighting situations, you'll find yourself tweaking ISO and/or f/stop settings. In short... use the flash if at all possible, even if only to fool the camera's computer.

Other than that, I give the camera a 4.9999999999999 stars. The shutter speed thing is the only thing stopping the flat 5 stars rating :)

Buy it, enjoy it, use it. You won't be disappointed.

ok, all people with power consumption problems need to realize the following,
1)alkaline batteries do not provide the same power curve as rechargeables do, why would you even sonsider using them, any good digital will use batteries at an astounding rate accept the olympus' which come with thier own specific lithium batteries, but expensive to replace.
2) rechargeable batteries when brand new need to be charged first or they will not operate at their fullest capacity, the manufacturer does not make them charged

also, this camera is awesome, i work in a camera store and the dimage 5 is always fun to play with, and has made some astounding pictures. the camera uses batteries at only a slightly higher rate than other brands, but is still respectable.

I too was frustrated at first when my camera chewed up a set of Nimh batteries. BUT!!! I looked into how a Nimh works and I learned something. The Mah rating is a detail that you don't want to miss. As of this day of this review that I'm writing the highest Nimh rating for a set of AA batteries is 1800 Mah.

Now, the set that I placed in my dimage5 was a 1200 Mah rating. (Fairly quick drainage) Then I went down to Wal-Mart and picked up 2 sets of 4 AA. This set was 1600 Mah and let me tell you that I noticed a huge increase of length of power.

Take a look on the side of the Nickel Metal batteries that you are using and see what the Mah is. Chances are you if your camera is chewing up batteries like my uncle Dave is with a turkey at Christmas then the rating is low.

A little advice for all of us Camera junkies. Get 3 sets and get a good fast charger. Rayovac sells a one hour charger and they sell an optional car cord online. I havn't used it yet but I'm thinkin' about it.

I had my Dimage 5 for about 4 weeks now and its given me more head ache than any other camera I've owned. The problem is, I absolutely love it and I absolutely hate it. And here is why:

LOVE
1. The pictures can be amazing. With proper operation, I got wonderful portraits, macro pictures of small shells on the sand at the beach or a 14x zoomed detailed picture of a Delta airplane flying over.
2. Manual controls over most features allow a lot of room for creativity.

HATE
1. After being used continuously for 10-15 min., the camera gets hot and stops focusing (even trying to adjust the focus manually doesn't work). So you are forced to turn the camera off and wait for 5-10 min. for it to cool down. This, as the Minolta tech support person told me, is normal. I am going on a vacation to Thailand next week and I'm dreading the moment when my Dimage 5 will miss that perfect moment of the elephants crossing the stream because it got too hot.
2. Image stabilization (which is present in even the lower-end cameras) is absent in Dimage 5. This means that unless you got a very steady hand, about 1/2 of your pictures will be blurry, especially the ones taken while you move.

So the bottom line is - don't buy Dimage 5 if you are looking mainly for a take-on-vacation point-and-shoot camera. Buy it if your goal is to make the best pictures possible regardless of how much time you spend adjusting the manual controls, re-taking the picture and waiting for the camera to cool down.

I gave this camera 5-stars because of the photos it produces. The one down side is the way it drains batteries, but I carry 5 sets of re-charageable with me all the time. Four sets are rated at 1600 Mah and one set is rated at 1700 Mah. One of the best sets is Quest. I've gotten as many as 60-65 shots in the daytime. The bottom line is I made an investment in the camera and I'm not going to let the battery situation change my mind. I bought my first Minolta camera (the Autocord twin-lens reflex) in Japan in 1956. I have several other Minoltas and two Mamiya's, but this camera can compete with all of them. It's rather nice to sit at my computer and produce pictures that are as good as those I produce in the darkroom. I've won some National awards for my photography over the years and I have taken some in the past month that are as good as anything else I have shot. People that have seen my new work are amazed. It's actually the camera that deserves the lion's share of the credit. If you're serious about photography, then grab yourself some re-chargeable batteries along with this camera and enter a new world of excitement. If you're not serious go buy a disposable camera.

I love everything about this camera except for the way it chews through batteries. If you buy this camera, make sure you invest in a good battery charger and at least 3 sets of good quality batteries.