Minolta Dimage S404 4MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom

Other products by Konica-Minolta

Product Details

Product Manual [1.42mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 5 x 2 x 3 inches ; 1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping: This item can only be shipped to the 48 contiguous states. We regret it cannot be shipped to APO/FPO, Hawaii, Alaska, or Puerto Rico.
• ASIN: B00005Y1S2
• Item model number: S404
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #13,121 in Camera & Photo (See Bestsellers in Camera & Photo)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 6, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

How do you make a good camera even better? With more pixels and more power. Think of Minolta's DiMAGE S404 as a "souped up" S304--there's a new 4-megapixel sensor, plus a faster processor for improved performance, but otherwise, it's virtually the same as their nicely designed 3-megapixel point-and-shoot.

An all-glass 7.15-28mm lens (35-140mm in 35mm equivalents) with 4x optical zoom offers more power than the 3x lenses found in most digital cameras. An anomalous dispersion element and twin double-sided aspheric elements work together to minimize chromatic aberrations and reduce curvilinear distortion, giving you crisp, accurate, edge-to-edge imaging. In addition to the optical zoom, the camera includes an additional 2.2x digital zoom. This feature merely crops the edges off your picture and blows up the remaining image, enlarging your picture at the expense of image quality. Most photo-editing software will let you do the same thing to your picture once you've transferred it to your home computer, so it's a camera feature that's not often used. To compose images, watch the 1.8-inch, 122,000-pixel color LCD monitor, or use the optical viewfinder for traditional image composition.

For professional results with the point-and-shoot operation of the S404, you can choose from five preset modes: macro, portrait, landscape, night portrait, and text. For more creative shooting, use a wide variety of adjustable features, including manual focus, selectable ISO, custom white-balance controls, exposure compensation and bracketing, and a digital-effects control that allows adjustment of color saturation, contrast, and sharpening. There's also a histogram function, a feature still found primarily on high-end digital cameras. A histogram is a graph displayed on the screen indicating the relative proportions of different levels of brightness in a shot you've taken, instantly letting you know if you've captured your shot with the correct exposure. A movable focus point allows for off-center compositions. Multisegment metering technology helps to provide accurate exposures. Four resolution modes cover the range from film-quality photographs to images for e-mail. Movie mode allows 60 seconds of live action and a voice-memo feature helps identify your work.

Four AA batteries power the camera (an optional AC adapter is also available if you're planning to do lots of studio photography). The benefit to using standard AA batteries instead of a custom proprietary battery is that AA batteries are widely available, so missing a once-in-a-lifetime shot due to dead batteries won't be an issue. The downside is that a digital camera will kill a set of alkaline batteries extremely quickly, especially if you're using the camera's LCD display. If you're an occasional photographer, you can get by with high-power disposables, but if you plan to take more than a handful of photos a month, a set of rechargeable batteries (scroll up to the Accessories section) is a virtual necessity.

For improved performance, the S404 has a 32 MB internal buffer for temporary storage of images. This improves shot-to-shot speeds and performance in continuous shooting mode.

The DiMAGE S404 comes complete with 16 MB CompactFlash card, A/V cable, USB cable, Minolta Image Viewer Utility CD-ROM, four AA alkaline batteries, lens cap, and neck strap.

Pros:

• 4-megapixel sensor captures filmlike detail in your photos
• Advanced features like shutter- and aperture-priority, plus histograms for more advanced photographers

Cons:

• No connection for external flash
• Included alkaline batteries are only a short-term solution

Product Description

At its core is a powerful 4.0 megapixel, 1/1.8-type CCD. And to maximize CCD performance, the DiMAGE S404 features two of Minolta's finest technologies: a superior quality GT Lens and CxProcess image processing with 12-bit A/D conversion. The result? A new level of 4.0 megapixel image quality is yours.Konica Minolta drew on its renowned optical expertise and the same GT Lens technology used for the top-of-the-line DiMAGE 7 to develop this sophisticated lens for digital imaging. Although compact, it boasts optical precision powerful enough to match the ultra-high-resolution CCD. And by reducing distortion and color aberration, the lens offers sharp, detailed images at all focal lengths. Even at telephoto range, you can get images with bright aperture value.The high-resolution CCD gives you the level of detail needed for truly impressive print quality - up to approx. 38.5 x 28.9 cm (15.2 x 11.4 inches) using an inkjet printer at 150dpi. As for color reproduction, the CCD has an RGB primary color filter to ensure natural-looking hues on each shot. Each of the red, green and blue color signals is converted by 12-bit A/D processing and provides 4, 096 color gradations. Compared to pictures from conventional 10-bit models, you'll see much greater detail - with a total of over 68 billion gradations.A unique Konica Minolta technology, the CxProcess controls important image factors such as sharpness, gradation and noise reduction for clear, vivid, natural-looking image reproduction.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

76 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not to go over the top, but this is a great camera!, April 11, 2002

By	Jennifer C (Sterling, VA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This camera is an upgrade for me and I'm embarrassed by how much I paid for so little camera last time around. So, I chose carefully and have not been disappointed.

Best shooting so far has been at the Tidal Basin last Friday just past the peak of the cherry blossoms. The camera took some amazing shots of the Washington and Jefferson monuments surrounded by the pink splendor. I displayed the shots on my big screen TV to the whole family without any problems. Color was perfect and the automation in this camera really frames the shots well. I'm a so, so photographer so this is a big plus.

Next I tried it out at the Dolphin show up at the National Acquarium in Baltimore. The results were excellent, especially the zoom. I caught the dolphins in the midst of almost every trick including the huge leap to the top of the auditorium to touch the ball. I also took some incredible photos through the glass of the seahorses. The exposure took some tweaking but I was able to figure it out with less than 10 shots. The family oohed and ahhed when they saw them.

For those of you who own Minolta and have grown used to the interface and quality of features, this is a no-brainer. For the price, I expected a bit less and have been consistently amazed by the quality of pictures it takes, especially in automatic mode. My SLR has been sent to the cabinet until I really need it for more complicated shots.

Be sure to have at least 2 sets of batteries and keep them in your bag. Each trip I exhausted the batteries and had to change them. Also, for the $$$, I recommend a 256MB card so you can take 100+ high quality images. That's what 4.0MP is all about.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great camera, May 7, 2002

By	J. Bianco (Berkeley, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am completely sold on this Minolta. It takes fantastic photos, is simple to use and a pleasure to work with. I have been taking photos seriously for over 15 years and have owned over 30 camera, from Canon 35mm to large format cameras. I have not been impressed with digital cameras, though I have used them, until now. This camera delivers crisp, clean images, comperable to a 35mm film camera, and features all the benefits of a digital camera. If you are thinking of a new camera give this one a shot. You can preview your shots, delete them, tweak them on your home PC, it offers it all. I have compared this camera to the Canon G2 (at almost 2x the price) and remain impressed with the Minolta. A few shortcomings - battery drain and a hard-to-see backpanel (in FULL daylight that is - otherwise it is fine) moderate my review from raving to complely impressed. Definately buy the rechargable batteries, Monster, the company that makes Monster Cable, makes some which are very good. I have seen people in these reviews complain that the digital cameras are not 'up to film' in the images they create, but that is a bit of a non-sequitar to me, if you want a film camera, get one. If you want a digital camera you cant do better than this one - literally - for the price.
Enjoy it...

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Camera for what I want to do..., June 1, 2002

By	M. Loomis "mloomisgeo" (richmond, va USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First of all know what you want from your camera... I wanted to be able to print at least 4x6 prints of every picture I took with this camera. That put me in the 4 mega pixel range. I was looking at the Canon G2, Canon S40, Olympus D60, and the Olympus C4040. I'd gone to the local retailers and tested them all out. Then the Minolta S404 came out and hit my personal price sweet spot -> [price]. All the other ones I was holding off on because I knew I would need to spend more money on extra memory and probably an extra battery pack. That put the others out of my price range.
I'm at best an amatuer photographer and this camera turns out to be a very good match for my skills. Most of the time I use the all auto feature, but I've many of the more sophisticated features including macro (real good close ups of plants and small animals), night shot, and portrait. I've worked with some of the more manual features such as black & white and the exposure settings. The camera is extremely easy to use including the menus one uses on the LCD. I'm a computer programmer, so using some of the features is almost second nature.
The photos have come out absolutely wonderful both on the computer screen and in print. I've had 4x6 and 5x7's made. There's an 8x10 on the way in the mail. I've taken this camera to a school field day, a company picnic, Baltimore (Inner Harbor and Aquarium), and Mount Vernon, Virginia. I've also taken it on tour of the neighborhood, where I used the macro function exclusively. I've kept the image settings mainly on 2272X1704 pixels (size)-fine (picture quality) and 1600x1200 pixels - super fine . From time to time I'll use 2272x1704 - super fine.
Using the biggest picture and the highest quality settings produces an 11 MB file. The image capture is excellent, but it takes 15-20 seconds to save the image to the compact flash. I thought I'd broken the camera the first time I took one of these large pictures. I don't consider this a draw back, just something to keep in mind.
The look and feel of the camera -- it's all there. It comes in a silver metal case and definitely does not feel like a light weight piece of trash. The brightness of the LCD can be changed by the user. All the way from off to super bright. When using the camera in bright sunlight don't expect to see the LCD too well. That goes for any machine with an LCD.
Batteries... This camera eats the alkaline batteries it comes with. They last long enough for you to test it out and decide whether or not this camera meets your needs. Buy at least 8 rechargeable AA batteries (the camera takes 4, so you'll have two sets). Get the highest rating possible - I have 1600, but I've seen 1800 too.
When I bought the camera, I also bought a 128 MB compact flash card. If you take pictures like I do, you'll need it. I also bought a compact flash reader. I've found it easier to use than the camera when downloading pictures to my computer. Not to mention, it saves the camera batteries.