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Philip Greenspun recently reviewed the
Minolta DiMAGE 7. There are such similarities
between the two cameras that it's suggested that you read Philip's review first,
then come back to this page and read my review. I've deliberately tried to avoid
being redundant.
There's not many differences between the Dimage 5 and 7 cameras. I'll quickly
list the differences for you here and then get on with the actual review of the
Minolta DiMAGE 5 based upon how it functioned when I took the camera to a small
church in New Jersey and used it to photograph the church and stained glass
windows. Remember, these are differences only, based upon the manufacturer's
specifications.
Description
Minolta DiMAGE 7
Minolta DiMAGE 5
CCD
2/3 inch-type interline CCD with a total of 5.24 million pixels and a primary
color filter
1/1.8 inch-type interline CCD with a total of 3.34 million pixels and primary
color filter
Number of Effective Pixels
4.95 million pixels (2568x1928)
3.17 million pixels (2056X1544)
Focal Length
7.2mm - 50.8mm (equivalent to 28mm - 200mm in 35mm format)
7.2mm - 50.8mm (equivalent to 35mm - 250mm in 35mm format)
Viewfinder
EVF (Electronic viewfinder) with ferroelectric .19 inch reflective liquid
crystal microdisplay with equivalent resolution of 220,000 pixels with automatic
monitor amplification and electronic magnification. Magnification of 0.31-2.1x.
90-degree variable position
EVF (Electronic viewfinder) with ferroelectric .19 inch reflective liquid
crystal microdisplay with equivalent resolution of 220,000 pixels with automatic
monitor amplification and electronic magnification. Magnification of 0.38-2.58x.
90-degree variable position
Having dispensed with that data, I will now tell about my experience of taking
this camera to a little church in New Jersey.
Those of you who have seen my work posted here on Photo.net know that I
photograph churches in and around the New York City and New Jersey areas.
The Church of Our Lady of Mount Virgin is located in Garfield, New Jersey.
It's an adorable little church with a mostly Italian membership. The church has
been going through a renovation which includes cleaning and resetting of the
stained glass windows. Monsignor Paul tells me the windows are from Germany.
Arriving in the church, the first thing I notice is that it's well-lit both
via the windows and overhead lighting. There appears to be mostly spot lights and
high intensity lights and no florescent (thank goodness). It was a sunny day
which usually causes problems with washed out images when one photographs stained
glass windows. I decided I was going to do close up shots of the windows, using
the multi-segment metering mode, figuring I would try to get an "averaged"
exposure reading and be able to better control the color saturation. Judge for
yourself if I managed to accomplish it. The images were recorded in superfine
mode (2048 x 1536) which produces a 24 bit TIF file in color or 8 bit TIF in
monochrome. Each image in TIF format was about 9 MB in size.
I set up my Manfrotto tripod, mounted the camera and connected the cable
release. Since I use mostly available lighting in my church images, exposures can
range anywhere from 1/15 down to 15 seconds (or longer) and none of these speeds
can be handheld without some camera shake entering into the picture. I set the
camera at ISO 100 and the White Balance at AUTO. The camera's tinker toy built in
flash is essentially useless for large interiors such as a church, especially at
the lower ISO ratings. No filters were used.
The camera has an electronic viewfinder which is not at all clear, difficult
to focus, has a slow refresh rate and has problems rendering accurate colors in
the images. I will say that the electronic viewfinder at least stays bright under
low light conditions. The LCD monitor is also inaccurate in its ability to render
colors. This became quite apparent when I was photographing the stained glass as
the colors were either not matching or totally lacking and I was therefore
guessing my way through this photo shoot. What's also odd is that the camera
gives you the option to set color saturation and contrast before taking the
picture but if the viewfinder and the LCD monitor are not accurate in rendering
the image how could the photographer possible make an accurate decision regarding
color saturation and contrast? The auto focus feature is flaky and slow on this
camera. On many occasions, the auto focus of the camera indicated the image was
in focus when in fact it was not so double-check the best you can to assure that
the image is actually in focus.
The camera has a QV (Quick View) button which allows you to review the images
at any time. Since you are viewing the images on the same LCD that you used to
take the pictures, you will have a hard time judging the quality of the image.
Unless the image appears grossly abnormal in the LCD, you really won't know that
it's out of focus or blurred until you open the file in Photoshop to get a better
look. What's nice about this camera is that you can disable instant playback and
just rely upon the QV button to review the images thereby freeing up the camera
for immediate use. Simply touch the shutter button and the QV image disappears
and the camera goes "live" in about 1 second or so.
The camera operates fairly fast (the above listed times seem accurate) but it
also eats batteries just as fast so bring perhaps two spare sets of batteries and
be sure to use the rechargeable type. Using super fine mode, I was able to take
about 26 images using two sets of batteries in a matter of one and a half
hours.
Not only does this camera eat batteries, it gets VERY hot during operation
especially near the CF card. If you have to remove the CF card be careful, you
could actually burn your fingers handling it. Additionally, the instruction
manual warns that when the battery indicator shows the batteries are getting low
on power, change them as soon as possible. My advise is that you follow the
directions in the instruction manual or risk having the camera LOCK UP on you.
Yes, this camera randomly CRASHES during operation (not to be confused with the
camera shutting itself off due to low power) and the crashes seemed to occur when
the battery indicator warned that the batteries were getting low on power. It
froze up COMPLETELY. Everything locked up on this camera and the only way I was
able to restart it was by removing the batteries and reinserting them. Luckily, I
didn't encounter any problems with the 256 MB Sandisk CF cards during these
crashes.
The camera is capable of taking movies at its lowest resolution. While the
file generated is an AVI format, it can only be read using Apple's Quicktime
player. The 7X optical zoom is actually pretty nice, the zooming ring was a bit
stiff for my taste. Manual focusing was pretty tough using the LCD monitor and
nearly impossible using the electronic viewfinder. As Philip pointed out in his
review of the DiMage 7, Image noise is abysmal (and not just at ISO 800). This
camera lacks an orientation sensor so be ready to spend a lot of time in
Photoshop rotating your vertical images.
Mixed Emotions: A camera that makes you think, about the wrong things
In my opinion, what makes photography so much fun and so interesting is that
it's a cross between art and science. Photography makes you think and forces you
to make decisions. Lighting, timing, depth of field, filtration etc., etc. What
bothers me about this digital camera is that I was being forced to make decisions
about things that I never had to think about in traditional film photography;
focusing errors and difficulties, erroneous colors in the viewfinders, hot and
overheating camera bodies, crashes and lockups, cheesy flash range, running out
of batteries, too hot to handle CF cards. On the plus side, this camera can be
fun for snapshots where lighting is very good and the subjects, while they might
be moving, their movements would be predictable. Additionally, a good contrast
image is what the auto focus seems to like. Low contrast images will send this
camera's auto focus into a tizzy whereas the camera will be unable to focus and
will then focus on infinity. I will add that the shutter is amazingly quiet and
therefore this camera is also very good for taking candid portraits of people and
children.
My first exposure to photography was at the ripe old age of about 2. My mother
tells me that I broke my father's old Zeiss camera by grabbing the strap and
pulling it off the windowsill. (Well dad, why did you leave it there in the first
place??) Anyway, by the time I was about 8 or 9, my father introduced me to
photography with that same old (repaired) Zeiss camera and I was hooked. By my
teen years, I was saving my baby sitting money (we were paid $1.00 an hour back
then) to buy my first 35mm camera; Honeywell Pentax SP500, which I still have.
That old Pentax was great and is responsible for all the pictures you see in my
presentation from my teen years, also posted to Photo.net. In high school I took
photography and got into black and white darkroom work. All through the years
I've used my camera time and time again. Occasionally, I've been lucky enough to
use photography to help others, such as in forensics. I recently earned a
Licentiateship with the Royal Photographic Society and I'm now the RPS
representative for RPS-Atlantic, the east coast region of the USA.
In real life I work for an attorney, the work is interesting.
While the electronic viewfinder ("EVF")does suffer from poor resolution, it makes the camera usable in brightly lit outdoor scenes where it is impossible to use the LCD monitor. Furthermore, the batteries can be made to last longer by using the EVF rather than the LCD monitor. Issues related to battery life and the camera getting hot are easily resolved by purchasing two or three sets of 1800mah NImH batteries and a charger. I have never noticed my Dimage 5 getting hot and it has never locked up. Don't waste money buying alkaline,nicad, or 1500mah NImH batteries for use in this camera.
I've been using the Dimage 5 for more than 6 months now and I must say that this review really misses the mark... completely ! I'm convinced that the camera used for this shot must have been defective : after 4000+ pics taken, my Dimage 5 NEVER EVER locked up, with one set of 1800mah NimH batteries, i can make about 80 pics in superfine mode, and I never experienced any excessive heating of the camera during operation. Sure, this camera isn't perfect; I could complain about the slow AF, inaccurate EVF/LCD (though not as dramatic as described in this article), the poor customer support Minolta offers its D5 users etc...
But even with its shortcomings, I've always had (and still have) the impression that the Dimage 5 is good value for money. In the mean time I had the opportunity to compare this camera to several other models (some even so-called "prosumer" 5 MP's)
I thought the same thing however when I took the camera back to Minolta here in New Jersey, they went over the camera and said nothing was wrong with it. The camera was not defective. I also tried numerous CF cards so it was not them either. This camera gets hot, especially when it has to write heavily to the CF card as during the writing of a TIF file. Also, Minolta did acknowledge that this camera would sometimes lock up.
Phil Askey's review of the camera (page 17 of the review) http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/minoltadimage5/page17.asp indicates that one of the "cons" of the camera is that it gets hot by the CF card area. In fact, if you read some of the postings in the Minolta Forum at Phil Askey's site, you will find that a few people have also noticed the lock up problem. Minolta indirectly acknowledges that the problem exists which is why they advise people to replace the batteries IMMEDIATELY when the low battery indicator starts to blink.
I must say I agree with most of what was said in this review. I havn't had much experience with other digital cameras, so I had assumed that these problems were normal. I have also found however, that sometimes I've checked the LCD after a shot, and seen that though a little under exposed the shot is acceptable. Then once downloaded to the PC it is so dark as to be unusable. Too late to go take it again!!
I really don't like the electronic viewfinder. Unfortunately most digital cameras in this price range have them, or else are not TTL viewing. Manual focus is a complete waste of time as it's complete guess work.
As for the Locking up, I've not used a single piece of computer equipment that doesn't lock up at some time or another!!
as far as the heating problem i found that a faster card all but elliminated the heat, i wondered if it wasnt from a drive anyway.
the only lock ups i have experienced were in moscow at night in the
cold at 7 degree's and 10 mph winds, it would seem to be overly slow writing to slower cards though, why i did it i dont know but i started buying the quicker memory cards and it reacted alot better, and was a joy on long shots. i sold my 7 for going to the 5 and havent been sorry, like someone said i carry four changes of batteries
in nimh and use the eye viewer rather than back panel,and have never
had to replace them in one shoot, beginning of next one yes
especially in superfine mode, and flash sparingly. i did two sets
of 30 shots portfolio with aux lighting in the same night, without
a complaint except the auto focus which will screw up on you and go out of focus rather than set more so on night shots with far of lighting. it wouldnt set small christmas light focus either in af,
so i use manuel in everything past dusk with it and still love it.
