Minolta Z1 Owners - are you happy with your camera?

[typhoon]

Hi,
I am really, really keen to get the z1 - but I am hesitating because of the reviews. But these are real photography gurus, who have eyes for details that I cannot see. For fairly inexperienced users like me who is very keen to take good pics and am learning to do so, what do you guys think of the dimage z1? Especially those who own one - would appreciate it greatly if you can answer the following questions:

a. are you happy with it so far?
b. is there alot of tweaking (setings) to be done before you can get good pictures? Are the pictures taken on auto setting bad?
c. do you notice the audio/video asynchrony? is it bad?
d. is the purple fringing (ca) very noticeable?
e. understand photos taken come 'soft' - not sure what 'soft'means is that a bad thing?

I am keen to get the camera for the following reason:
a. 10X zoom and able to perform manual controls , yet a fairly small and light camera to bring around.
b. design is superb - looks supercool (i know for you photographers that's secondary) ...
c. video capture at 30fps and fairly large size - BUT if a/v asynchrony is bad - this is useless, right?
d. do you feel 3megapixels is good enough for the occasional printouts and also posting on the net.

I am someone who is keen to pursue this hobby but is fairly inexperienced. So want to be able to point and shoot at times, and manipulate some controls to experiment as well. Do you think once I get into the hang of 'photography'', this camera will be considered as 'low end' pretty quickly? Or that there is much to learn about photography using this camera?

I've written to people at dpreview forums too but got v. few replies. Please do help , cos I am hoping to get this weekend, unless I get bad feedback from you lot.


Thanks a million.

Ping (singapore)

 

[frisky]

Somethings to take note for a 10x-12x zoom is that CA is common in most if not all of them. All lens designs are compromise, for a long zoom, do expect more compromise. The issue is whether the amount of compromise is ok for you.

Soft means not sharp. Big problem is sharpness can be subjective. So, the important thing is that it is sharp enough for you. It could also means the camera has problem focusing on subjects accurately. You should check out on this more.

I am keen to get the camera for the following reason:
a. 10X zoom and able to perform manual controls , yet a fairly small and light camera to bring around.
c. video capture at 30fps and fairly large size - BUT if a/v asynchrony is bad - this is useless, right?
d. do you feel 3megapixels is good enough for the occasional printouts and also posting on the net.

a. I know what you mean, I used a FZ1 for a trip and love its weight, size and reach. Of course, I am shooting animals/birds on foot, other types of shooting may not require this range/portability.
c. Right
d. 0.5 MP is big enough as a screensaver on 800x600 screen, about the biggest accepted for many non-photographic web galleries, too big for general posting on web. 3MP is 6x that. For printout 3MP is more than enough unless you want to make huge printouts. If you love to do cropping/post processing or simply love quality, then higher MP might be for you.

Frankly, in most case, unless you get a camera that restrict you severely, you are likely to find that the most important thing to improve is still yourself.

 

[typhoon]

HI Frisky
Thanks for your post - appreciate it alot. Especially your last advice - very apt.

Regards

 

[HydroPoP]

So Z1 owners,

Do u have any problems with the camera so far? E.g. switch finder reliable?

 

[toddy]

So Z1 owners,

Do u have any problems with the camera so far? E.g. switch finder reliable?

i have have it and sold it.(S$600)
1)find that the picture is on the soft side.
2)very weak in low lighting condition unless use flash.
3)A/F, so so only. not really that fast

next to look at will be the kodak 6490. (S$800)
1) much better feel and solid then the Z1
2)other than that, same as the above.

anyway i have had the above 2 that i have mention above and sold them both.
i really think in this 10x zoom range, the olympus c2100uz or e100rs are the best. don just look at pixel count, the uzzi or ezi are much better in all ways expect they are bigger in size, not so handy. i have sold my Uzzi to try the above 2 and regret badly now.....

this is how i personally felt......