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Summary: Minolta Batteries
Review: Hello, I purchasesd this camera recently and enjoy it. I have little experience with cameras, and this is my first digital camera ever. It is easy to use, with a fully automatic setting. I did a lot of research before purchasing this camera. As said before by others, this camera packs the most bang for its buck!! PROBLEM: BATTERIES (or is it?). I believe this can be resolved!! I have looked at all kinds of batteries, but reccommended by Minolta are their re-chargeable "gold" batteries that their professional cameras come with. I believe these are the best batteries I have ever used. These are probably the most versatile batteries I have ever used. Alkalines don't last 1/2 as long!! They are 1800 MaH "platinum" batteries. Most nickel metal hydride batteries lose their charge after a few hours out of their chargers. I have used these Quest batteries and they hold a charge for at least 2 days. There are "gold", "standard" and "platinum" batteries available. I use only the best... I believe its not only a great investment, but an essential purchase. Let me know if this helps anyone:) ji_inc@hotmail.com
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Summary: Great camera
Review: I am completely sold on this Minolta. It takes fantastic photos, is simple to use and a pleasure to work with. I have been taking photos seriously for over 15 years and have owned over 30 camera, from Canon 35mm to large format cameras. I have not been impressed with digital cameras, though I have used them, until now. This camera delivers crisp, clean images, comperable to a 35mm film camera, and features all the benefits of a digital camera. If you are thinking of a new camera give this one a shot. You can preview your shots, delete them, tweak them on your home PC, it offers it all. I have compared this camera to the Canon G2 (at almost 2x the price) and remain impressed with the Minolta. A few shortcomings - battery drain and a hard-to-see backpanel (in FULL daylight that is - otherwise it is fine) moderate my review from raving to complely impressed. Definately buy the rechargable batteries, Monster, the company that makes Monster Cable, makes some which are very good. I have seen people in these reviews complain that the digital cameras are not 'up to film' in the images they create, but that is a bit of a non-sequitar to me, if you want a film camera, get one. If you want a digital camera you cant do better than this one - literally - for the price.
Enjoy it...
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Summary: good deal @ Target
Review: I began looking for digital cameras 2 weeks ago and the s404 was one of the first cameras I liked. Target had it for .... After numerous trips to other stores looking for something better and reading these helpful comments I decided the s404 was for me. I just got back from Target where they no longer had it on display but when I asked for it they still had it and it came up at $.... I bought it quick without asking a lot of questions. Much cheaper than anywhere online (other than ebay). So thanks to all, I have not used it yet but by the way these reviews sound I think I will not be disappointed.
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Summary: Another great product from Minolta
Review: I have always been using Minolta cameras. So I am very familiar with its navigation system. I consider myself a serious amateur photographer and have a Minolta 35mm SLR. This is my first digital camera. So far I am very satisfied with it. The picture quality is outstanding. With 4x Optical zoom, this camera is soooo much lighter than my QTSi with 100mm lens. I probably going to store my SLR for a while until I need to use it for more complicated task.
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Summary: Warning! - You Must Use Quicktime Software To Play Videos
Review: I have owned the S404 for about six months and will agree with all those who have said the many good things about this camera, BUT.. I would like to point out one thing about Minolta in general that has me kind of annoyed.I have found that when you use the S404 to take short videos (.AVI files), then save the videos on your computer, if you try to play the videos back using any media software other than "Quicktime" - you will see superimposed over top of your videos (in LARGE WHITE LETTERING) the words: "PIC Video" and "www.jpg.com" (the words appear above and below your videos actually covering some of your recorded image). I called Minolta's Customer Service about this and basically they said "Yea, that's right.. you can "only" use Quicktime to playback videos made on this camera" - "If you try to use the Windows Media Player or the Real Video Player or even a video editor like Adobe Premiere, you will see those words." I would imagine that you are probably not going to purchase this camera strictly for its video ability.. but even so, I thought that you might want to know about how Minolta will force you to use "Quicktime" (like it or not) to view any videos that you make on this camera.
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Summary: Excellent Camera, Good Price, Nice Pictures
Review: I have owned this camera now for about two weeks and have taken about two hundred photos with it. The pictures are sharp and the color vibrant. I have used it in both day and night settings and the results have always pleased me. I stongly recommend the use of high quality Ni-MH batteries though, as the camera will devour normal batteries. Two sets of batteries is a wise purchase.
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Summary: A Wonderful 4 Megapixel Camera
Review: I have used this camera for two weeks now and I feel compelled to write about my experiences. I find that the pictures that this camera takes are superb! I have printed them on both glossy and matte finish photo paper and the prints look beautiful. This camera has wonderful detail in the high-resolution setting. But, the 16 MB CompactFlash card that comes with it is woefully small. You MUST buy at least 128 MB CompactFlash card to make it really useful. With the 128MB card, you can get 61 full-sized high-resolution photos. Also, don't even bother trying to use standard AA batteries. Buy some high-quality rechargable Ni-Mh batteries because this camera, like all other digital cameras, chews through batteries very quickly. I have, and would continue to recommend this camera to anyone I know (or in this case, to anyone reading this!)
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Summary: Minota get's it right
Review: I just got the Minolta Dimage s404 today and decided to do a quick comparison against my 2 other digital cameras, the Nikon Coolpix 990 and the Canon Sureshot s300. I took the cameras to Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco and shot a few images of the flowers, buildings and waterfalls. The Minolta handled itself well giving just slightly more detail than the Nikon (3.34 megs) and noticeably more than the Canon (2.1 megs). But that's what I expected for a 4 meg camera. In terms of speed, it really shined, with a boot up speed about half again faster than the Nikon and about equal to the Canon. It processed 2 meg images slightly faster than the Canon's typical <1 meg files and nearly twice as fast as the Nikon's 1.2 meg files. It's color were good comparted to the Nikon except it couldn't reproduce the blues of periwinkles or the reds of geraniums very well. The Nikon held the blue of the periwinkles but also rendered the geraniums orange-red. The Canon handled both colors much better, but had some problems with purples. As for the Minolta's flash, it seemed to be a little bright, giving better renditions at 1/3 stop under. I found the Minolta quite easy to use, since I haven't even opened the manual at the time of this writing. I only have a couple of complaints, one is the macro, which is more close up than macro. It also doesn't allow focus past a certain range, so if you forget to take it off, your images of landscapes etc will be blurred. The other minor issue is that the lens didn't retract when I the camera off while it was processing an image. That said, it didn't have any difficulty turning back on after re-powering up, so it is more of a curiosity than a serious problem. ...
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Summary: Second thoughts
Review: I posted back in April but I would like to note some second thoughts about this camera. I did make one mistake. I said that in Auto you only could shoot in next hightest pixel density.
I discovered a few days later that you can shoot in any of the four pixel density selections. I also had the time to shoot some pictures and there is a lot of flexability to this camera once you get to used to it. I shot some macro pictures of my day lilies and got good results. I still wish that there was a cable release instead of having to use a timer, especially if its a little windy, so that I could snap the shutter immediately as soon as the wind setted for a second. Using the timer release, I had to hit the sutter button and hope that the wind didn't start blowing again before the shutter tripped. However, I was still able to get some fantastic shots. The picture were just a bit grainy on 8 x 10's with the immage size about 125-150% of actual size. Remember that this can happen with film cameras too. If you are running PhotoImpact, you will not be able to download you camera directly to the program. This is easy to get around, however by just down loading into a Microsoft folder and then using PhotoImpact to open the files in that folder.
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Summary: Love my new Minolta digital camera
Review: I purchased a Minolta Dimage S404 about a month ago after spending nearly a month doing research on digital cameras. I have taken pictures for years with a Canon AE1 but wanted to get into digital photography. I have not been disappointed. Though I admit the first couple of times I took pictures at my son's high school football games, I shot with both cameras to make sure I had pictures.
The Minolta has a fast enough shutter speed to catch the action during daylight football games. The flash is not good enough for action after dark, but I knew that would be the case.
I bought a 128 card and a card reader which both work great. One of the reasons I bought the Minolta was because it uses AA batteries. Yes, it eats the regular ones, but I've had very good luck with the two sets of rechargables that I bought. At least you can always find AA batteries if you're in a bind.
Since I have a Macintosh computer at home, I was a little concerned about how the camera would work with it, but I've had no problems. The photo software I already had on my computer works great and the prints are wonderful.
I've also taken the card from the camera and used it in the Picture Maker at a local store just to see how that works or if I'm short on time and it makes wonderful prints.
This is a camera I highly recommend.
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