A buried treasure
Written: Dec 18 '05
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Pros: Wealth of features in an entry-level SLR camera
Cons: Smaller-than-average and lighter-than average weight
The Bottom Line: You can't find another camera with as many features for the same price.
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| pauly_long's Full Review: Konica Minolta Dynax 5 35mm Film Camera |
I seriously considered the Canon Rebel 2000 until I stumbled on a review in a photo review magazine that gave the Maxxum 5 a favorable rating.
I'd had an old Maxxum 5000 for years, and the prospect of being able to reuse the lenses, etc that I'd already accumulated forced me to seriously reconsider Minolta.
I found the size and weight of this camera to be a little disconcerting -- my old maxxum must be twice as heavy -- so I find myself babying this camera more than I ever did my old Maxxum 5000. The Canon I was considering was also incredibly light, so maybe I'm just not used to these newer light-weight models.
So, on to the good stuff. The great thing about this camera is that for the beginner, you can run the camera in fully automatic mode, and it takes great pictures. If you decide to tweak the settings and can't remember what you changed (or how to set it back), you can just push the "P" (panic?) button and return to fully automatic behavior.
For the more advanced photographer, the camera offers features that are not found in any other camera in its class: Depth-of-field preview, 3 frames/second continuous advance (all the other cameras I could find in this class had 1 - 1.5 fps) Max shutter speed of 1/4000 (the others in this class top out at 1/2000), 7-segment auto-focus and 14-segment exposure metering. Minolta uses the same metering system in this camera as in its top-of-the-line Maxxum 9.
There are many "techno weenie" features that are also supported by this camera, such as remote wireless flash, and a host of customizable parameters that allow you change the behavior of almost every major camera feature.
The only controls that I find hard to use are the spot metering and spot focus buttons. For starters, they're right next to each other, and when using a flash, the spot metering button "doubles" as a button to toggle between fast sync and slow sync. Their location is just below your right eye, meant to be pressed by your thumb. If you're not careful, you'll poke your eye out with your thumb!! :D
Everything else is well positioned, and quite easy to use.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): about 300
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Epinions.com ID:
pauly_long
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Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 0 members
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