Konica Minolta Dimage S414

Comments:
Bought camera, the camera was adequate. For the price and the cost of some extra CompactFlash cards, I could live with the excessive amount of blurry pictures the camera took and the slow recovery time beteween shots. Bought rechargeable batteries because the batteries do go quick and picture quality quickly diminishes in less than perfect lighting conditions. In the twelfth month I owned the camera, I went to Florida on vacation camera stopped working and began corrupting all my CompactFlash cards. The 12 month manufacturer's warranty expired while I was on vacation. I returned home and immediately phoned Minolta. I was 5 days out of warranty. They would not assist me under the warranty and got nasty with me during my inquiry as to why. What was I supposed to do? Cancel the rest of my vacation? I will never purchase another Minolta product ever again as a result of this. I took the loss and purchased a Fuji S7000. Love the new camera and the Fuji customer service has been great. Oh, and Lexar replaced all 4 of my CompactFlash cards that S414 corrupted for free. Under Lexar's own warranty.

Comments:
PLS do a lot of research before you select it. i feel very upset after i tried out this product. i feel cheated by the saler. Because the quality of the photo is bad. the color is not sharp at all... only suitable to take photos in the sunny day... otherwise poor quality. Battery life is short... and it's heavy to bring along

Comments:
Internal processor speeds the camera up and produces great photo's. A great point and shoot, but also gives me control. Camera eats batteries, but is good on Ni-MH's.You have to be really close to get good flash shots without grain. Should've bought the faster memory, a filter and remote.

Comments:
Difficult to take pictures of the fireworks. The macro zoom works well when taking pictures of a full moon. Batteries can last up to 1 hour with the LCD off and try not to view the pictures unless the AC adaptor is within reach. Always carry extra batteries just in case.

Comments:
I now have 3 digital cameras,1 Olympus C1, a Olympus C 5060, and This Minolta S 414.

The C1 is a rather old by new standard, but used as a snapshot it still works for me. I bought the bigger ( and far more expensive Olympus C5060) because I realized that I needed a more flexible camera with a Optical zoom (Digital Zoom stinks!)

Then I Saw The Minolta S 414, and the price made me think - What the hec! It could be good to have a camera,with optical zoom, 4 megapixels that my family and I could use on our fishingtrips and so on. AND if it breaks and can't be repaired it's no horrible catastrophic economic loss! A real toss and bump camera. That what was I had in mind!

But to my suprise I found, that I got quite fond of this camera! And my family loved it! AND the user handbook... Aaah! It was written, for us non space engineers, and not by some Korean fellow, trying to translating a Dutch manual into English. Very easy to understand! Good pedagogics there Minolta!!

I also liked it for the warm and living colours and the Macro is VERY good! A pity I can't show you the Macro pictures I took yesterday of fishing flies!

Some cheaper digi cams have problems with the red balance,as they tend to be hard and Blueish but this is'nt the case here. and the overall pict quality is just fine! Really Liked the possibility to Go manual on shutter/time. Often you only find that possibilty on more luxious digi cams! It makes chances taking good photos on for ex. sunny winter days (Under expose) and non flash photography ( Long Shutter time, using tripod stand and ISO 200-400, for higher light sensitivity), in evenings out / indoors much better!

And the metal houseing felt solid and good.The weight (435 grams), makes it more steady to hold.So, it's no breastpocket camera due to size.

A bulky camera is preferable! The designer of the camera can put in more powerful and sturdy electronics without compromizing because lack of space. I can for sure, understand that many people whant that credit card sized cameras because it is easy to take along. But you will find it hard to hold steady, buttons will be smaller and come closer together. And it will almost be impossible avoiding pressing the wrong button by accident! Especially if you got big fingers. AND you will have some trouble reading the much smaller menues.

I recommend you to pocket the neck strap and buy a wriststrap instead, (And attach it to the opposite side of card door) their'e cheap and you save yourself a lof of swearing! The placement of the strapholders, tend to make the neckstrap gets in the way of the card door (Among other things). And IF you plan to use a tripod stand often, make sure to get a fairly steady one. Because the mount of the tripod is located on the right side, wich means, that if you use a mini-tripod or stand, the camera have a tendency to overbalance!

One very positive thing, is that you can get a filter adapter! That means you have the possibility to use a Polaroid filter ( Only the ones, made by Minolta for this camera unfortunatly, because it have special size 35,5 mm).The Polaroid filter makes it possible to reduce unwanted light, and reflexes in pictures taken in sunlight for example, in snowy landscapes. Or when taking pictures of water in bright sunlight etc. Just be aware of this: When using such a filter, if U have been outdoors coming in. You can't start taking photos indoors right away! The polaroid filter needs a couple of seconds to adjust to the amount of light, just like Polaroid sunglasses does. And You really should get a UV - Filter. It's cheap, and just not only blocks out unwanted Ultra Violet-rays, it protects the lens from scratches too!


O.K! The Minolta Dimage S 414 does'nt quite reach up to my Olympus C 5060. But it's close enough for me to belive, that if U don't have a real high end digi cam. to compare with you won't be the least dissapointed.
And both the happy amateur and the more experienced photographer, will find many things about it to enjoy. And for you , who does'nt whant to put big bucks in a prestige digi cam. Or for you, who just discovered the joy of taking pictures and is at the treshold to buy your very first digi cam, the Minolta Dimage S 414 is a real bargain!

The only things I wished for the Minolta S 414,is this: Less battery consumption! It's 4 of them, but its AA - batterys so they are easy to find in most stores, and you can buy rechargeable ones.( Best choise!). Besides, turning off the display helps some. Would liked to have a attached lens cap! Far to easy to loose! Belive me, I have lost some in my days! + maybe a slightly bigger memory card. 16 mb IS a VERY small card. At least 32 mb I think that Minolta can afford to Throw in to the start set, without risking bankrupthcy... hmmm?! But it's adviceable to buy a 128 mb from the start, if you feel that you can afford it.

To conclude: I Can heartly recommend this little fellow! Both for it's price, overall picture quality and for its features. I have Used it for some weeks now, and I find it a good camera for most uses. And It strangely enough more in use in day to day photography, than my C 5060.

A small extra tip: Later on, buy a more flexible software to edit the pictures! The one that comes with the camera is not Adobe Photoshop! Buy for instance ACDSee, It's very easy to use, and it have the possibility to edit and enhance pictures in small ways. And ACDSee 6.0 have a very nice catalogue feature.
If U whant a much more editing oriented photo software, Ulead Photo Impact XL will be the one to get. By the way, check the net, for free LEGAL photo edit software! There are some wich is quite good.

Gran Andersson. SWE

Comments:
I first saw this camera at a camera show last year and was very impressed with the quality of the pictures. As soon as the price came down to 199, I bought it. Thinking I had the best deal, I realized as soon as I put the batteries in, just how horrible the battery life was! I wish I didn't purchase the camera; that's how bad the battery life is. Thankfully, Wolf Camera, allows their customers to trade in/up within 30 days. I'm so grateful I could do that!

Comments:
Great picture quality. The battery life could be better. Would have liked an external flash, but it is a point and shoot, after all. A serious warning about some of the dealers out there. 1 Stop Camera & Electronics offered a great price and had some decent customer reviews. First I got up-sold really aggressively, then they wanted me to pay extra for the manufacturer's warranty, and finally there was a 7 insurance charge for shipping it to me-- and this was on top of the actual shipping fee. Suddenly I was paying almost 100 more than their advertised price. The camera they shipped me didn't even come from them, it came from another dealer with horrible online reviews. Don't take my word for it: I went to the Better Business Bureau (bbb.org) online and found out they had more than a dozen complaints filed against them, and half of them had never been resolved. The BBB also has them doing business as Fotoconnection.com.

Comments:
I researched a lot of digital cameras before buying this one.You see, this is my first one and I wanted to get the most bang for my buck.I thought that when it arrived that I would be out snapping away. Boy was I mistaken. For you digital camera first timers, this is not a camera you will know how to use right out of the box.The instruction book is not easy to understand in many topics.I noticed that it was difficult to use because it showed so much camera shake.The lense barrel is slow opening and closing.So many features to memorize. It produces very quality pictures. I've had it about a year now and even though I don't use it a lot,I have to go back to the book to become familiar with some of the procedures.Overall it is a nice camera and it takes nice pictures. Tim

Comments:
I bought my camera because I had had various Minolta 35MM Cameras and was always satisfied with their quality, durability and photo quality. When I decided to go Digital, I gravitated to Minolta. The price at the time was 499 which I happyly paid. However after a couple of months I noticed that every picture I took in the program mode was under-exposed. I took some sample shots with another camera (my son also bought a Minolta Dimage after he saw mine) and sent the camera and pictures back to the factory for repairs since the camera was still under warranty. When I got it back, it worked alright for 3 or four months and then the same problem arose. I contacted Minolta and was told that the camera was no longer in warranty. My grandaughter took pictures inside a museum in subdued light without a flash with 2.5 megapixels Canon. Clear as a bell. All I got was a dark screen. I've tried taking pictures with more exposure but when I view in my computer, I get a mottled (Moire) pattern. I'm switching to Canon or Olympus. By the way, I worked as a free lance Photographer for over ten years.

Comments:
I owned it for about a mounth. Took about 1000 pix. Great macro, great night pix. Really flexible if you have the patience to adjust it in manual mode. Pix are sharp, nice coloured. Dot't be affraid to experiment the white balance in manual mode esp. the custom WB. I just miss the panorama mode but for that price it's just excellent. Purchesed it from buydig for 310 including case, cleaning kit and 128MB card