The Minolta Dimage E201 is a Good Beginners Digital Camera!
Written: Dec 22 '02 (Updated Jan 17 '03)
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Pros: Easy to use and operate!
Cons: No sound with the movies!
The Bottom Line: This is a nice camera for the beginner or the person just wanting a point and shoot camera.
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| surferdude7's Full Review: Konica Minolta DiMAGE E201 Digital Camera |
The Minolta Dimage E201 is a good camera for the first time user or the person wanting an easy to use digital camera. It has a fixed lens, 1.8 inch Color LCD, takes movie clips and digital Photos for under $300.
It is a 2.3 million-pixel digital camera with a USB connection to upload your photos on to your computer. It has an attractive silver finish with very few buttons on it making it a simple easy to operate point and shoot camera. Included with the camera is Adobe photo deluxe for customizing your photos for that perfect touch.
The camera size is 4-1/2 inches Wide x 2-9/16 inches High x 1-3/4 inches Deep weighing 7 & 7/16 ounces without the batteries. The Dimage E201 uses a CompactFlash Type I card and comes with an 8-megabyte card.
There is a lever next to the lens that opens the protective cover and turns the camera on, no lens cover to worry about losing. Then point the camera on to your subject press the button on top and the photo is taken, simple as that.
You can make white balance control of Automatic, Manual, Daylight, Fluorescent and Tungsten.
Photos & Movies
The E201 lets you capture 320 x 240 video in Motion JPEG (AVI) for up to 60 seconds at a time. The only drawback to the movie clips is there is no built-in microphone so the movies are silent.
Photos can be taken in the JPEG and TIFF format with two-photo sizes to choose from, 1792 x 1200 pixels and 800 x 600 pixels. I prefer the JPEG format because the quality is good and it takes up a lot less memory.
The camera is Exif 2.1 (Exchangeable image file format), DCF-compliant and DPOF-compliant. (DCF is Design Rule for Camera File System, an industry standard for saving digital images based on the EXIF standard. DPOF Digital Print Order Format, lets you to send images directly to a printer, you control the quantity and order of the images being printed.)
The lens
The E201 lens is a fixed lens (No Optical Zoom) of 8.2mm (f/3.0 - 13), which is equivalent to a 38mm lens in the 35mm format. The lens does provide you a digital zoom that magnifies the photo 1.4 times and 2 times.
It is an all glass lens of 5 elements in 2 groups, including 4 aspheric surfaces.
The focusing range is 1.96 feet to infinity in normal mode and 0.98 - 1.96 feet in macro mode.
The ISO setting in the normal is ISO 85 and in high mode it is ISO 340. The shutter speed is 1/500 second to 2 seconds.
The View
There is an optical viewfinder similar to a 35mm camera with a center focus and framing guide.
You can also take photos with the 1.8-inch color LCD on the back. The color LCD is also used for Movie and Photo viewing plus making adjustments for the camera from a built-in menu.
On the top of the camera is another LCD, this is a monochrome LCD for status display.
The Flash
The E201 has a built-in flash for Autoflash, Fill-flash, Off, Autoflash with red-eye reduction, Fill-flash with red-eye reduction and Macro. In the Macro mode the flash is cancelled.
The Buttons
On top of the camera are buttons for the digital zoom control, the exposure compensation, the flash and the macro focus button.
Also on top is the firing button and a large Mode Dial button for Movie record, Setup, Continuous photo, Single photo, Self-timer photo (10 seconds) and PC connection. (USB hookup)
In back are a few buttons to navigate the menu in the color LCD.
The Power
Four AA batteries power the camera. (Alkaline supplied) It can use alkaline, lithium, NiCd or NiMH batteries.
I highly recommend two sets of NiMH batteries with a charger. With two sets of batteries you will always have a set charged when the other runs out.
Minolta offers an optional AC adapter if you wish to use one.
The TV
The E201 lets you view your photos on any NTSC-compatible TV with a supplied video cable.
Overall
The Minolta Dimage E201 is about as simple as it gets for a digital photo camera with a few options of adjustments.
The holding and handling of the camera is good with the buttons in easy to use placement.
The movie quality is fair, I wouldn’t buy it for this option. No built-in microphone is a big disappointment, why add a movie option without any sound.
The photo quality is pretty good though not excellent. The 1792 x 1200 pixels in the highest mode gives you the best quality.
Printing of the photos on a 4 x 6 in print produces a very nice photo, on an 8 x 10 it is fair. The 8 x10 prints look good a couple of feet away but if you look really close you can see the quality isn’t the best, though not too bad.
I recommend a larger CompactFlash Type I card and the NiMH batteries with a charger.
Here are some of my other camera reviews!
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Kodak DX4900 Digital Camera
Minolta Maxxum HTsi 35mm SLR camera
Minolta Maxxum 7
Minolta Maxxum 800si 35mm SLR camera
Olympus Camedia C-3000 Zoom Digital Camera
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Olympus C-4040 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-40 Zoom Digital Camera
Olympus Camedia D-380 Digital Camera
Pentax Optio 430 Digital Camera
Nikon Coolpix 900-s Digital Camera
Sony MVC-FD87 Digital Camera
Sony Mavica MVC-FD95 Digital Camera
Sony DSC-F717 Cyber-shot Digital Camera
Sony DSC-P2 Digital Camera
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 269
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Fool-Proof for Absolute Beginners
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