The Konica Minolta Dimage Z3 is a great camera for someone who enjoys their photography, but doesn't want to spend vast sums of money on an advanced camera.
The 12x optical zoom is obviously very useful, and the anti-shake system seems to work pretty well, although it can't perform miracles - at longer shutter speeds you'll still need a tripod or a very steady hand!
It seems to be pretty good on battery-use - I have high-quality rechargables and can easily take 250 photos before the batteries run out. I think I've taken over 400 on one set of batteries on some occasions.
The auto-settings work well in most situations, but the camera allows for pretty much fully manual operation, as well as numerous intermediate positions - e.g. just selecting the shutter speed. It is very handy that you can switch between some of these using the main dial on the camera, but you can also use even more facilities through the on-screen menu system. I've had this camera for a number of months and am still discovering combinations of settings that I haven't used before. I've lost count of the number of times I've thought "it would be useful if I could..." and discovered that there is a setting to allow me to do what I wanted!
One of the best features of the camera is the "super macro", which can make for some great photos, but I've found that the auto-focus doesn't always work on very close objects, so tend to use manual focus mode in that case.
Another fantastic feature is that as you are manually focusing (using up and down buttons on the keypad), it digitally zooms in on the image so that you can be a bit more precise in your focusing. This can often make the difference between having a perfectly sharp photo, or a shot which is irritatingly just out of focus.
However, the subject of manual focus is where my biggest (and only major) criticism of the camera comes. It is very, very slow to change it from infinity focus back to close-range focus and vice versa. Not a problem in many situations, but it can occasionally be annoying.
If manually changing focus in that way is something you think you'll do a lot, this camera is probably not for you, but otherwise I highly recommend it.
There is one other problem I've ecountered, but it has been very rare - when I've had the camera on for very long periods it has occasionally frozen up, and I've had to remove the batteries to restart it. Doesn't happen often enough for it to cause major annoyance though.
by (80%):
25.05.2006 23:18
How much did it cost? It sounds much better than my camera lol Welcome to Ciao, I hope you enjoy it here!
25.05.2006 10:24
A good first review ~ welcome to Ciao x
25.05.2006 03:51
I like the look of it!