I purchased my Minolta Dimage 5 at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, and having had about 6 weeks of use, and still not used all the features, although I think I am just about ready to write a review about the camera. Buying at Schiphol took over EUR 200 off the price – EUR 885 instead of EUR 1085 (shop price when I purchased it), although this soon went on two extra 96Mb memory cards.

The 7x manual zoom was another thing which attracted me to this camera, with this being the equivalent of a 35-250mm zoom lens. Whilst there are more powerful digital zooms around, the Digital zoom effectively will pixellate your pictures to achieve this. There is a macro feature and a macro lock (very useful if you are using the camera for close-ups).

Taking mainly flash photos I usually get about 60-70 shots out of a set – so I always take two fully charged sets with me. I was a bit aggrieved at having to shell out for a charger and batteries – four batteries cost about EUR 18 a set, although ultimately, the fact that you can use a separate charger and also can using ordinary rechargeable batteries rather than proprietary ones made especially for the camera means the outlay is not as bad as it could otherwise be. The batteries are loaded into the back of the camera beneath the LCD display, and the battery chamber is locked/unlocked using a lever (it is not easy to accidentally flick this open).

To get your pictures off your camera and on to your computer, the camera connects via USB, thus necessitating Windows 98 or later, and the camera is then recognised as a removable drive (it comes up as f: on my desktop computer) and you can drag and drop as you want in order to get the pictures off the memory card. Under Windows XP (I run this on my laptop) there is built in syncing software, which allows you to chuck all pictures across due to plug and play – great for when you are on the road. For users of Win98 it should be noted that you must use the desktop icon in the systray to shut down the camera, otherwise you can lose data by disconnecting the camera without doing so. The camera will also work with Mac OS 8.5 and later, and there are drivers supplied on the accompanying software CD.

You can of course view your photos, and delete those you don’t want, by hitting the Quickview/trash button once or twice respectively, and you are asked to confirm that you want to delete the picture before actually deleting it, so you won’t accidentally delete your shots. The info button allows you to see thumbnails of your prints (very useful when searching through the contents of the memory card) as well as colour distribution. The LCD display is fixed (unlike for example the one on the Canon G-1 or Canon G-2), although the eyepiece is moveable. There is a zoom function to allow you to check the detail of a shot, which is a toggle control, also on the back of the camera.

- Size of output (from 640x480 up to 2048 x 1584 pixels)
- Quality (four settings and “RAW” mode)
- Motordrive (e.g. time delay photography, time lapse photography
- White balance (useful in artificial light e.g. strip lighting to ensure you don’t get dark yellowy/green prints)
- ISO (Film speed – 100-800 or Auto)

The lens, which is a Minolta lens, and is like the case made of a magnesium alloy casing for lightness comes with a lens hood, so that you can avoid the problems that can beset you if shooting with the sun at a strange angle, and the lens hood has a screw thread to attach it to the lens – you will have to remove it to take shots as the zoom ring is covered by it when it is on. The lens also comes with a lens cap, and being threaded, you can use filters with the lens if you want to – any 49mm diameter screw thread filter can be used, and there are also adapters available if you want to use other diameter filters. There is also a focussing ring which you only need to use when in Manual Focus mode (selectable via a button on the left hand side of the camera body).

The movie clip feature allows clips of up to 60 secs in duration, although cannot handle sound, although ultimately this is a feature I would not anticipate using a great deal. Saved movies can also be sent to the computer via the digital out (next to the mains adapter slot). Movies are at 320x240 resolution, so theoretically you could use this as a very expensive webcam! (Tongue very much in cheek there!) There is also a socket for a remote control (not supplied) and a mains power supply (also not supplied!).

There is a learning curve to this camera, and indeed I still take about three times as many photos as I would with a normal film camera, but at least I can get rid of any photos I don’t think are good enough. There is a "Getting started" printed guide, which will get you out and snapping, but for the full manual you will have to open up the PDF manual supplied on the software CD - a bit annoying that they didn't include a paper copy really. Of course for the camera to offer all it does, the weight is going to be of course heavier than most cameras, however the camera is still easily carriable.

- a professional digital camera (stick a zero on the price tag for one of those!)
- for your typical “holiday snaps” photographer
- a compact camera for taking out on nights out
- a digital video camera