Konica Minolta DiMAGE 5 - Expert Reviews

Review summary: This thoughtfully designed camera deserves serious consideration from film photographers and digital-photo enthusiasts, but casual shooters should look elsewhere.

Pros: Excellent camera controls; photo-enthusiast feature set; records both TIFF and RAW files; powerful optics; compatible with IBM Microdrives and many accessories.

Cons: Short battery life; awkward weight distribution; skittish manual focus.

Review summary: The Minolta Dimage 5 shares the same body as the much advertised Dimage 7. Minolta have b

Verdict: We've shown that the Dimage 5 has a lot of good points, however it has a large helping of failings too. What you must decide is if those failings are important to you, and whether the good points out weigh them. This is one of t

Pros: Good colour (once converted to sRGB) and tonal balance, metering generally good though occasionally needs compensation, Average three megapixel resolution, Big 7x optical zoom provides a lot of flexibility, good 250 mm equiv. telephoto reach, Lens is good

Cons: Sometimes slow AF can frustrate (and even miss, incorrectly indicating a good focus), Image noise levels higher than the 3 megapixel competition, Power hungry, requires multiple sets of spare batteries, Camera can get hot around hand grip (CF compartment

Verdict: As you can see I've given the DiMAGE 5 almost the same rating as the DiMAGE 7 (although each in their own resolution segment).

Review summary: Minolta Corporation is a traditional camera manufacturer of long experience, making a slow but calculated entry into the digital marketplace. Like its popular line of 35mm SLRs, the Maxxum Series, Minolta's Dimage Digital Cameras are developing a reputati

Verdict: The Dimage 5's electronic optical viewfinder (actually an EVF or Electronic ViewFinder) and LCD monitors produced markedly good accuracy during our testing, showing approximately 98 percent frame accuracy at wide angle, and approximately 100 percent accur