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Minolta Dimage S414 4MP Digital Camera w/ 4x Optical Zoom

Minolta Dimage S414 4MP Digital Camera w/ 4x Optical Zoom

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I Can't Stop Taking Pictures
Review: I really enjoy this camera. It is easy to use and the downloading of images is easy. I highly recommend rechargeable batteries. This camera will suck the life out of regular batteries in minutes. This camera is great for one who wants quailty and performance, it will last forever. Be sure to order this camera before the free memory card offer expires.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Battery Issue
Review: The specs don't tell all... Rechargable batteries must be removed for recharge. After a year or two of replacing batteries, the battery case cover will wear out. The 6 volt DC input connector can be used to operate the camera for downloading to your PC, but not for charging the batteries. Non rechargable Alkaline batteries supplied with the camera are only good for about 15 shots, so buy a 24 pack of them. Other manufacturers have cameras with built in chargers.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I am happy with this camera
Review: After a disappointment from Minolta Dimage Z1, I finally settled for Minolta S414.
I considered 1> Superior Optics 2> Robust all aluminum body 3> 4X optical zoom 4> 4 mega pixels 5> All this at an incredibly low price (Yes I got it for $260 shipped!).

After a week and some 100 pictures, I am quite happy about my purchase. (I still miss the 10X optical zoom but...) I am getting very sharp pictures with excellent colors and tones. Every time I handle S414 I feel its robustness and excellent build quality, this camera is going to last for years to come.

Although its Auto mode is more than sufficient for my current requirements (and for many point-n-shoot users) I am sure that its (somewhat limited) manual controls will certainly take care of my demands in future.

One more point I wish to stress is that this camera has got true optical view finder (zooms along with lens) which is much better than the fancy EVF with many Digicams, this is more significant while shooting either in very bright sunlight or low light conditions.

Lens mechanism is silk smooth and noiseless. There is no lens wobble and rattling sound as observed in many mega zoom Digicams.

Movie mode is rather mediocre and limited to 60 seconds but that is acceptable, for real movies I would rather use a video camera and for some quick clips this camera does its job well.

Flash is not powerful and neither we can attach any external flash, but for me this is not a big issue.

S414 has a separate LCD panel for technical details and separate buttons for scene mode selection, flash (selection and options) etc. I found this very convenient.

While optical zoom is Okay, the digital zoom is useless (and this is true with any Digicam for that matter).

All controls and menus are well designed and buttons provide some good tactile feedback.

A nice photo finishing software comes along with this camera, although not a high-end photo processing suite but still offers more than sufficient capabilities for beginners like me.

But there are some things that might bother 1> Center button of 4 way control switch is rather hard to operate 2> Mode dial has less resistance for movement which means it may rotate and power on the camera accidentally while keeping it in a case / shirt pocket. 3> the battery compartment gets hot after some continuous use.4> In comparison to other digital cameras this one is rather power hungry and a good set of rechargeable Nimhs is a prerequisite. (I got Ripvan Lighting charger with JetCell 2200 mAh packs)

Well these are not really important issues for me, the main job of any camera is to take nice pictures and S414 does it effortlessly every time, zero defects.

Now the camera is available below $300 (at least through Internet) I think it is a deal or should I say a steal?

By the way, you might have a look on Canon A70 also (I dropped that because of its dreaded E18 error) or if you really don't want any manual controls one economical (but technically sound) option is Nikon Coolpix 2100 (or 3100). Do not get carried away by mega zooms, this feature that feature, this much of mega pixel and so. Carefully analyze your exact requirements and stick to your budget. Expensive camera does not automatically means nice pictures!

Hope this helps, have a great day.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Good price for a 4mp but some drawbacks
Review: Positives:
1. It is 4MP and only $350- So a great price for a 4MP digital camera!
2. Great quailty pictures

Negatives:
1. The on/off dial easily turns to 'on' when you put it in a camera bag, which means that when you need it most you take it out to find out the batteries are dead!
2. You need to buy good quality rechargable batteries like the monster powerpack because this drains normal batteries only after several photos.
3. The place on the camera where you put the batteries is often difficult to shut properly.

Overall it is a good digital camera for the price but because the drawbacks really got to me I returned it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Value for the Money
Review: I know nothing about digital cameras, but bought this one after reading nearly every comment or review written about it from actual users in several forums. I can see how you might easily pay more for less and more for more, so you really need to determine what you're going to use it for, how often, and what your skill level is. I think this one is a less for more value. For the price, the 4MP is excellent. Unles you are going to be making professional large prints, I don't really think you need anything bigger. For average printing, this is fine; better than fine for strictly electronic viewing.

The reason it doesn't get 5 stars is two-fold: Manual focus is difficult and I haven't been able to figure it out yet. And, I can usually figure out anything. Also, I read a review that said the camera "loses" pictures in downloading directly from the camera, but the pictures aren't "lost" if you use a card reader. Darned if that isn't right. I didn't lose any pictures, but pictures I know I deleted from the camera I found on the card when I used a reader. I don't find this at all bothersome because I was going to use a reader anyway to both reduce wear on the camera and to occasionally use the card as a jump drive for my PC.

I really like the fact that it uses regular AA batteries instead of some odd proprietary battery, so in a pinch you can operate the camera with a quick trip to 7-11, but I can tell you they last for fewer than 20 flashes. I bought with my camera, and recommend, the Kodak charger with 1850 rechargeable batteries. I researched that as well, and found most people prefer the Kodak batteries and the charger ramps them up in three hours, and they last a LONG time. I haven't found it necessary to get a second set of batteries, but it's probably a good idea. To complete my camera outfit I bought a 256MB card, which will hold over 300 images in standard mode, and 1000 on economy. You can get by with the included 16MB, but on a vacation, you may never have to download images until you get home with a larger card.

I bought a Case Logic leather bag at Sears to stash it all in, and I couldn't be happier.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Delivers as promised
Review: Its an excellent camera for the price in its range. Lots of positives, however let me list out some few negatives that I can think of :

* Battery compartment is little difficult to close (with batteries inside it) and looks a little fragile.
* It gets hot around battery region after around 6-7 shots.
* In automode outputs noisy image for night landscape (probably because it switches automatically to ISO 400)..However changing to ISO 100 rectifies this.
* Drains away the battery quite quickly.
* A little on heavier side.
* Once in a while it just hangs and needs to be resetted.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Easy to use, compact, great quality photos
Review: Definitely buy a larger memory card.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Nice pictures, a bit slow to respond
Review: Nice camera for those of us who like the 35mm feel. Made of good quality Aluminum. Excellent lens system! Lots of modes for the novice and advanced user. No "special" batteries - just AA. If the camera was just a bit faster focusing, it would have been perfect! RC3 remote works well.
The old RC3 part number 8782-100 works with this camera as well and costs about half of the current RC-3 remote. It even looks exactly like it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXELENT CAMERA
Review: It is a powerful maquina very easy to use, excellent clear photos and shining I had cameras Olympus canon, fuji but dimage s414 is the best one by its quality and price is a very fast maquina and needs suitable for any type of photos .Insufficient memory CF for a camera of 4 Mpixels

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: I loveeeeeeeee it
Review: I love my new camera the installation was so simple and taking pictures is a snap. Already I have taking some pictures of my daughter the picture came out beautifully. One word of consion if you are planning to download into a floppy space is too small. You have 2 options 1 you can burn the pictures onto a dvd-rw/cd-rom/rw. For those who do not have that option you can purchase a zip drive which is external and it hold more info that a reg 2 hd floppy.


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