davlee's Full Review: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z20 Digital Camera
The Z20 occupies a niche market with limited appeal - the "super zoom" digital camera. Far too bulky to be put in a pocket, super-zooms provide some of the performance of a "serious" DSLR-level camera at a third of the cost. HP, Olympus, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji and Konica-Minolta all have entries into this market. The Z20 is Minolta's latest offering, a 5 mega pixel, 8x optical zoom contender.
Who the camera's for
Someone buying a first digital camera probably wouldn't be looking at the Z20. I wouldn't expect my aunt to pull one of these out of her purse. Rather, the Z20 appeals to people who know what shutter speeds and aperture settings are. Though the camera has automatic settings, knowledge of the manual controls is necessary to take the best pictures with this camera.
It's a dorky looking camera, but the geekitude is functional. The camera is surprisingly comfortable to hold, and though its lighter than others in its class it feels solid, despite the plastic materials.
Unfortunately, it looks like a Soviet space capsule.
The specs
5mp CCD imager
8x optical zoom
16MB onboard storage; SD/MMC card compatible
USB 1.1; Windows Mass Storage Class device
Automatic and manual focus
Automatic and manual shutter/aperture/exposure settings
Automatic, preset, and manual white balance
Freakishly-long battery life with 4 AAs
1.5 inch LCD; same display can be flicked into an eyepiece EVF
Four image sizes; three JPG compression levels
Live histogram
Single & Continuous drive modes as well as multiple exposure (bracketing)
Movie mode @ 15 & 30 fps; no audio
NTSC/PAL video out
Inside the box (as purchased in SE Asia)
- Camera
- USB cable
- Video cable
- Decent full English manual
- 4 alkaline AA batteries
- CD containing drivers and imaging software
- lens cap (not actually attached to the camera)
- strap
My package also came with a case. This may vary in other regions.
Using the camera
Boot-up time is very fast for a digital camera. From pressing the power button to being ready for the first picture is only two or three seconds. This is sped up by the fact that the lens doesn't extend outside the camera body at bootup, unlike most digital cameras.
The camera features a fully automatic mode, which takes care of the exposure, flash, focus and white balance settings. It does an adequate job, but limitations of the hardware quickly make it clear that manual settings are necessary for the best photos.
Under good conditions and optimum settings, the Z20 can take excellent photos. But there are potholes to avoid along the way.
Major flaw #1 - CCD "noise"
The camera's photos show CCD noise (looks like little dots or flecks in supposedly solid colors), even at the lowest ISO 50 setting in broad daylight. At ISO 200 and higher the noise seriously affects the usefulness of the images. The automatic modes don't take this into consideration and tend to set the camera for ISO settings that result in way too much noise.
What to do? Manual mode, setting the camera's sensitivity for ISO 50 or 100. A drawback to this is the need for the camera to use slower shutter speeds, limiting the amount of light needed for a good flashless, tripodless photo. The Z20 lacks any image stabilization scheme.
Another solution is to purchase a decent noise-reduction software program like Neatimage. Unfortunately these programs remove noise at the expense of reduced detail.
Major flaw #2 - Rear display
At 1.5 inches, the LCD screen is way too small for a 2005 camera. On the other hand, this small LCD screen likely keeps the power consumption so low. On the "bright" side, the display is quite usable even in bright sunlight.
The screen doubles as a display for an electronic viewfinder (EVF) at the flick of a switch. However, the mechanism that pulls this off does not instill confidence, but Minolta has been using it for the last three years on the Z1 and offspring and seems to have held up. That said, I try to restrict the amount of flicking back and forth I do, mindful of the experiences other Epinion users have had with this mechanism.
Major flaw #3 - "dark" lens
I can only compare this lens to the 8x lens on my other super-zoom, the three-year-old HP850. That camera seems to require much less light to take good photos at faster shutter speeds. The optical quality of the Z20's lens is fine, but it wants a lot of light, a long exposure time + a tripod, or the flash.
Major flaw #4 - the lens cap
After taking the lens cap off to take a photo, what do you do with it? There's no tether to secure it to the camera. You put it in your pocket, or on a table, or on a rock... the opportunities for that lens cap to get lost are infinite.
The good news is that replacements can be found on the net for under $10US.
What's to love #1 - Color & image quality
The camera takes clear, well focused photos. Apart from the ISO noise at higher sensitivities, photos print well at enlarged sizes. The white balance does a good job, though I find setting the manual white balance helps things further, requiring less Photoshop effort later.
What's to love #2 - Battery life
If a set of alkaline AAs will take almost 500 photos, one can assume the camera will go for even more hundreds with decent NiMH rechargeable. I've never seen the "dead battery" indicator. I just swap and recharge every week or so.
The Z20 ends the tyranny of the short-lived digicam battery.
What's to love #3 - Speed & Focusing
Booting up is fast. Focusing is even faster, and this is helped along by a continuous focusing system that predicts where a moving subject is headed, keeping the focus locked. The time the camera takes to actually record the image when using the "press-halfway" focus-lock method is negligibly short. The live LCD image continues to display while focusing, unlike my HP850 which blacks out at capture time.
Manual focus requires diving into the settings menus, but once selected is reasonably easy to manipulate.
What's to love #4 - Intuitive settings
You NEED to read this camera's manual. But once read, the functions of the camera make total sense and further consultation of the manual isn't really necessary. There's a learning curve, but it's a couple of days, not weeks.
Conclusion
The camera's not perfect, and its idiosyncrasies are especially frustrating because the camera comes so close to greatness. Bargains can be had - I paid under $300US for mine in SE Asia - and the cheap cost has to be taken into consideration when evaluating the camera. For the money, it outperforms any other camera in its class.
A 256 SD card will hold almost 200 full-size photos at standard compression. The great battery life means I can take 8 film rolls worth of images on that one card with liberal use of the LCD and flash and not have to worry about power. Because the camera can actually use alkalines for hundreds of photos, backup power is only a drugstore or 7/11 away.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 270 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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