Herbyturns Technical! (Minolta Dimage S414)

Member Name: herby30

Product:	Minolta Dimage S414
Date:	04/06/04 (329 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Review

Disadvantages: None

Whilst we were in Florida recently, we decided to take advantage of the weak dollar rate as well as of course Florida?s cheaper prices and succumb to the digital era, yes we bought a digital camera, a Minolta Dimage S414 4 million mega pixel version to be precise, which would normally retail here in the UK for around the £200 mark, but we managed to get a bit of a bargain and bought it for a mere $199.99 (around £110), not bad eh?

Not being the most technically minded person, it?s hard to know where to start when writing a review such as this, so for the benefit of people like me out there, I will try to make it as simple as possible.

The Appearance

It is slightly bulkier than your run of the mill 35mm camera only there is a lot more buttons to learn about and although the outer casing of the camera is made from lightweight aluminium, I still find it to be quite a bit heavier than I am used to which is not ideal for a novice like myself, so I?ll just have to be extra careful when handling until I manage to familiarise myself with it, although I did have a little accident on holiday, I foolishly dropped it but luckily the camera was okay and Craig never noticed so it?s obviously very durable but I am not so brave as to repeat that incident, so don?t ask me okay?

The Features

LENS:

It?s equipped with a 7.15 to 28.6mm optical zoom lens, which is equivalent to a 35mm ? 140mm zoom lens on a 35mm camera meaning it?s ideal for wide angle photography (close up to around 1.6ft distance) and telephoto photography (3ft distance and over) making distant subjects appear to be closer, the lens is easy to operate, even by my standards, simply by the touch of a button and of course the LCD monitor makes it easier to get your perfect picture without wasting half a film.

CAPTURE MODES:

Manual allows you to adjust the settings helping the budding photographer to capture that perfect image: focus lock, focus signa
ls, exposure, white-balance, image processing (to suit weather conditions), Macro (used for close-up photography producing what can only be described as exceptional quality), Portrait (used for re-producing soft skin tones and defocusing on the background scene), Landscape (used to produce sharp and colourful landscape images), Night Portrait (obviously for photography at night), Text (for the crisp reproduction of fine art and black text.

Auto obviously does it all for you after some simple settings from yourself, the camera will adjust to requirements which is ideal for novices like myself.

It can also act as a video camera but it depends on the memory card you use determining the amount of footage you can capture.

FLASH MODES:

Auto flash: where the flash fires automatically in low light and backlit conditions.

Fill Flash: where the flash fires with each exposure regardless of the amount of ambient light. Fill flash can be used to reduce harsh shadows caused by strong direct light or sunshine.

Flash Cancel: the flash will not fire. Use this option when flash photography is prohibited (at concerts etc), when natural light is desired to illuminate the subject, or the subject is beyond the flash range.

Red-eye Reduction: the flash will fire twice before the main flash helping to reduce red-eye, it?s best to use in low light conditions when photographing people or animals.

DRIVE MODES:

Single Frame Advance: Suitable for snapping single images.

Self-Timer/Remote Control: Handy for when no one is around to snap the image you cannot manage yourself and even for group shots where no one has to be left out because they are taking the picture. Although remote control does not come with package, it is available for purchasing separately.

Continuous Advance: For snapping multiple images, easy to use simply by holding down the shutter release button.

Bracketing: For the
more adventurous photographer perhaps, used for snapping a series of three images with differing exposures.

VOICE MEMO:

Allowing you to record a 5 to 15 second audio track with a still image.

DATE IMPRINTING:

The ability to capture the memories of that special day with a date on your images, a piece of advice here if you have set this up and don?t wish it to continue with every pic you take, remember to switch it off again.

This wonderful camera even comes with a guide to photography in the instruction manual and of course a troubleshooting guide as you would expect.

It also came with rechargeable batteries which so far have done rather well, I reckon a good 11 hours so far and an 11MB memory card, obviously that will not hold many pictures, we were told in the shop that approximately it will hold 11 in it?s memory bank, but we have managed to get 24 held so far, but we do plan to upgrade to a larger memory card on the next visit to Jessops.

The camera connects to your PC using a USB cable making it rather easy to download images.

The camera came in a large box with a rather hefty fact filled manual, 4 off AA rechargeable batteries, neck strap, lens cap, Compact Flash card, AV cable AVC-100, USB cable USB-600, a CD full of drivers and software and of course a warranty card (1 year).

So all in all would I recommend it?

That answer to that would have to be a definite yes, like I said before I am no David Bailey so the ability to delete rubbish images can only be a plus without having to waste a small fortune developing films that in the end you are disappointed with, the quality of the pictures are superb and it does seem to be very well made, I think I got a bargain at £110 but to be honest I probably would have paid £200 and still thought it a good price.

Thanks for reading, take care, Heather :o)

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