Picture Quality: 5
Ease of Use: 5
Features: 4.8
Cost - Benefit: 5
Overall: 5
I am absolutely satisfied with the product.


Overall a great unit, with only 2 concerns   March 19, 2002
 16 out of 16 found this review helpful

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.


Use the "Correct Batteries" and you won't be dissapointed...   February 4, 2002
 15 out of 15 found this review helpful

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.


Great features, great lens.   November 23, 2001
 14 out of 20 found this review helpful

This is my third dig. camera. I like it a lot. It has lots of great features such as 28 to 200 mm optical zoom, varies exposure controls, SLR with EVF....
However, if you are considering this camera you have to aware the following 3 points:
1)The viewfinder is electronic screen. It is fine but the subject is still cannot compare to optical viewfinder. If you need high detail view, then you need to consider.
2)All photos need to re-save with Minolta's own software in order to convert the file into the correct sRGB color space ( don't ask me what it is) according to some major dig. camera review sites. Yes, every single photos.
The above two points are acceptable as long as it produces fine photos. But...
3)Power consumption is unacceptably high. I put a fully charged NIMH cells in and it only last about 5 minutes and the battery icon started to blink. And the camera shut itself off.
I've heard that this camera is power hunger but don't know that bad.
I hope it was my camera that has a problem and I have to return it.
I still miss this camera.


Great Features, but HIGH POWER CONSUMPTION PROBLEM.   December 9, 2001
 14 out of 22 found this review helpful

I've done ample research on this camera and the product specs. are incredibly amazing...7x zoom, 3.34 megapix, high quality resolution. THE LARGEST DRAWBACK ON THIS CAMERA IS THE HIGH BATTERY CONSUMPTION. This IS NOT THE CAMERA TO PURCHASE FOR ROADTRIPS UNLESS YOU HAVE 4 SETS OF BATTERIES. This camera drains batteries like a Vampire drains blood on his victims. I purchased this camera and the alkaline batteries lasted only about 15 minutes. I then placed a new set of RECHARGEABLES into the camera and for some REASON the Battery Low INDICATOR lit up in only 5 MINUTES (SEE RAYMOND MOK REVIEW, NOVEMBER 22, 01 who had the same problem)and the camera shut itself off. Sadly, I returned this camera and purchased the Olympus 3040-C, my second choice. Like Raymond Mok said in his review also, I MISS THIS CAMERA.