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Minolta Dimage S404 4MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom
Manufacturer: Konica Minolta ProductGroup: Photography Binding: Electronics  Digital Cameras
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4 to 4.9 Megapixels
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4x Optical Zoom & Up
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ASIN: B00005Y1S2 |
Amazon.com Product Description
How do you make a good camera even better? With more pixels and more power. Think of Minolta's DiMAGE S404 as a "souped up" S304--there's a new 4-megapixel sensor, plus a faster processor for improved performance, but otherwise, it's virtually the same as their nicely designed 3-megapixel point-and-shoot.An all-glass 7.15-28mm lens (35-140mm in 35mm equivalents) with 4x optical zoom offers more power than the 3x lenses found in most digital cameras. An anomalous dispersion element and twin double-sided aspheric elements work together to minimize chromatic aberrations and reduce curvilinear distortion, giving you crisp, accurate, edge-to-edge imaging. In addition to the optical zoom, the camera includes an additional 2.2x digital zoom. This feature merely crops the edges off your picture and blows up the remaining image, enlarging your picture at the expense of image quality. Most photo-editing software will let you do the same thing to your picture once you've transferred it to your home computer, so it's a camera feature that's not often used. To compose images, watch the 1.8-inch, 122,000-pixel color LCD monitor, or use the optical viewfinder for traditional image composition.
For professional results with the point-and-shoot operation of the S404, you can choose from five preset modes: macro, portrait, landscape, night portrait, and text. For more creative shooting, use a wide variety of adjustable features, including manual focus, selectable ISO, custom white-balance controls, exposure compensation and bracketing, and a digital-effects control that allows adjustment of color saturation, contrast, and sharpening. There's also a histogram function, a feature still found primarily on high-end digital cameras. A histogram is a graph displayed on the screen indicating the relative proportions of different levels of brightness in a shot you've taken, instantly letting you know if you've captured your shot with the correct exposure. A movable focus point allows for off-center compositions. Multisegment metering technology helps to provide accurate exposures. Four resolution modes cover the range from film-quality photographs to images for e-mail. Movie mode allows 60 seconds of live action and a voice-memo feature helps identify your work.
Four AA batteries power the camera (an optional AC adapter is also available if you're planning to do lots of studio photography). The benefit to using standard AA batteries instead of a custom proprietary battery is that AA batteries are widely available, so missing a once-in-a-lifetime shot due to dead batteries won't be an issue. The downside is that a digital camera will kill a set of alkaline batteries extremely quickly, especially if you're using the camera's LCD display. If you're an occasional photographer, you can get by with high-power disposables, but if you plan to take more than a handful of photos a month, a set of rechargeable batteries (scroll up to the Accessories section) is a virtual necessity.
For improved performance, the S404 has a 32 MB internal buffer for temporary storage of images. This improves shot-to-shot speeds and performance in continuous shooting mode.
The DiMAGE S404 comes complete with 16 MB CompactFlash card, A/V cable, USB cable, Minolta Image Viewer Utility CD-ROM, four AA alkaline batteries, lens cap, and neck strap.
Pros:
Cons:
Product Description
At its core is a powerful 4.0 megapixel, 1/1.8-type CCD. And to maximize CCD performance, the DiMAGE S404 features two of Minolta's finest technologies: a superior quality GT Lens and CxProcess image processing with 12-bit A/D conversion. The result? A new level of 4.0 megapixel image quality is yours.Konica Minolta drew on its renowned optical expertise and the same GT Lens technology used for the top-of-the-line DiMAGE 7 to develop this sophisticated lens for digital imaging. Although compact, it boasts optical precision powerful enough to match the ultra-high-resolution CCD. And by reducing distortion and color aberration, the lens offers sharp, detailed images at all focal lengths. Even at telephoto range, you can get images with bright aperture value.The high-resolution CCD gives you the level of detail needed for truly impressive print quality - up to approx. 38.5 x 28.9 cm (15.2 x 11.4 inches) using an inkjet printer at 150dpi. As for color reproduction, the CCD has an RGB primary color filter to ensure natural-looking hues on each shot. Each of the red, green and blue color signals is converted by 12-bit A/D processing and provides 4, 096 color gradations. Compared to pictures from conventional 10-bit models, you'll see much greater detail - with a total of over 68 billion gradations.A unique Konica Minolta technology, the CxProcess controls important image factors such as sharpness, gradation and noise reduction for clear, vivid, natural-looking image reproduction.Customer Reviews:
Excellent value.......2007-02-23
Intermediate Great Camera.......2005-01-16
Good Good and Better.......2004-07-03
I love it. Its point and shoot (for novices like me). USB image transfer is straightfoward. It uses regular AA batteries (no proprietary stuff). Images are very good (as long as I take the picture at the right time, as I said I am not such a great photographer... beautiful picutres of people with their eyes closed or looking away...
In any case... its snappy (no real awful delays) its not too expensive, its easy to use, does mini-movies w/sound and just works. Not too small, has a nice grip. Doesn't weigh too much (I caried it around Renisiance Festival all day no trouble). I know it has a lot more features but I don't use them (I will tweak digitally on the computer a bit but not on the camera). Preview is a great but that is true of all good digicams. Resolution is great, color is great, and in general contrast is very good (a bit dark but I keep messing with the flash settings and I can fix it on the PC), when I leave it alone it seems to be much better).
The zoom is easy to use but it can REALLY zoom (both optical and digital) so be careful. The multi-shot is great, the flash seem good and seems to reduce red-eye.
Things to think about:
1. Get a large CFRam card (I have a 128) and get a few hundred shots.
2. My CFRAM card is a little slow (check the speed when you buy).
3. Get good rechargable AA batteries (2 or 3 sets). Spend a few more bucks on good ones, you won't regret it (and make sure to get a car charger for trips).
4. In "automatic" mode make sure you focus on what you want your picture focused on (its very easy but I miss the target once in a while and focus is out).
5. Watch the zoom (optical is great) but you can't see for sure through viewfinder with digital zoom (of course) so keep it in mind you need to look at LCD display when digital zooming.
6. You might want a stand (tripod) for family pictures and such.
Overall 5 stars!
Great All Around Camera!.......2004-06-25
The 4 MPs and optical zoom were both very important in my decision. The quality is absolutely great. You can use it right out of the box as a point and shoot with the automatic setting and most of the picture come out excellent. The best thing though is that the camera also allows the a wide range of manual settings. As I learned more and more about photography the camera grew with me and allowed me to tweak my pictures more and more. For me, that's where the camera is the strongest: It can take quick and easy automatic shots when you want them, but it is very flexible and customizable when you are trying to take more professional or tricky shots.
The battery life is decent. I use two sets of rechargable batteries, and if I bring both sets, I've never needed more. And I take a lot of pictures on an outting. If you use the highest quality setting, the save time can get a bit long, as it creates large 5 or more megabyte .tiff files, but if you're worried about that, you can step down a quality setting to jpegs, which are still excellent quality.
All in all, this camera has grown up with me, and has served for everything I need, from quick shots at group functionings to closeup shots for professional nature websites I've worked on. I would highly recommend it to anyone.
Good camera but very quirky.......2004-01-08
Average customer rating:
|
Minolta Dimage S404 4MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom
Manufacturer: Konica ProductGroup: Photography Binding: Accessory All Digital Cameras
| Digital Cameras
| Camera & Photo
| Categories
| Electronics
4x Optical Zoom & Up
| Digital Cameras
| Camera & Photo
| Categories
| Electronics
Point-and-Shoot Digital Cameras
| Digital Cameras
| Camera & Photo
| Categories
| Electronics
Digital Cameras
| Used Photo & Camera
| Specialty Stores
| Camera & Photo Features
| Electronics
Product Features:
ASIN: B000063VYI |
Product Description
At its core is a powerful 4.0 megapixel, 1/1.8-type CCD. And to maximize CCD performance, the DiMAGE S404 features two of Minolta's finest technologies: a superior quality GT Lens and CxProcess image processing with 12-bit A/D conversion. The result? A new level of 4.0 megapixel image quality is yours.Konica Minolta drew on its renowned optical expertise and the same GT Lens technology used for the top-of-the-line DiMAGE 7 to develop this sophisticated lens for digital imaging. Although compact, it boasts optical precision powerful enough to match the ultra-high-resolution CCD. And by reducing distortion and color aberration, the lens offers sharp, detailed images at all focal lengths. Even at telephoto range, you can get images with bright aperture value.The high-resolution CCD gives you the level of detail needed for truly impressive print quality - up to approx. 38.5 x 28.9 cm (15.2 x 11.4 inches) using an inkjet printer at 150dpi. As for color reproduction, the CCD has an RGB primary color filter to ensure natural-looking hues on each shot. Each of the red, green and blue color signals is converted by 12-bit A/D processing and provides 4, 096 color gradations. Compared to pictures from conventional 10-bit models, you'll see much greater detail - with a total of over 68 billion gradations.A unique Konica Minolta technology, the CxProcess controls important image factors such as sharpness, gradation and noise reduction for clear, vivid, natural-looking image reproduction.Customer Reviews:
There is a learning curve........2007-01-19
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