Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3 > Reviews > Looking for more than a silver box of tricks?

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Good
Range & Quality of Features	Excellent
Ease of Use	Easy
Overall Look & Design	Good
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Great lens, light, fast, grip and features .
Disadvantages:	Build quality, lack of support .  .  .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought this camera because I was looking for a mid range point and shoot that was fast enough to capture my interest in motorsport and offer me the options of a more advanced camera for other situtations.

Overall I have to say that for what I wanted this camera has given me what I need but it hasn't been without its problems. The good bits first, I like motorsport and this camera has a very quick start up and some good sport shooting modes which can capture fast moving bikes with ease. In daylight the picture quality is good but suffers the usual grainy look when shooting in the dark although the flash is pretty effective in an average room, I would guess up to 6 metres. The lens is great with a quick zoom and image stablisers that work pretty well at all but the longest zoom. I particularly like the SLR type grip and all the necessary buttons are within easy reach. The screen is pretty good but use of the digital view finder leaves much to be desired with a frankly poor pixlelated view offered. The preprogrammed modes will offer most users all the options that they might need but a pretty advanced user mode is available for those David Bailey wannabees with a large number of adjustments on offer. I didn't bother with the software and just used the lead or SD card in a reader to get the images over to the computer. I have a had a couple of problems with the camera, I took it on my honeymoon to Mexico and it stopped working in the humid conditions with the lens jamming although it righted itself once in cooler climbs and the build quality is a worry with the body feeling cheap with the door flap for the sd card being a particular worry, i bought the official bag to protect the camera and so far its protected it well.

If you want a good long zoom camera then the Dimage Z3 is a good budget bet but with new cameras appearing on the market all the time I'm sure you will be able to find all the features of the Z3 for less in a better built body.