Minolta DiMage 5 Digital Camera


Image by Capt Kodak
Manufactured 2001 by Minolta Camera Co. of Osaka, Japan. An “SLR-Like” 3.3 Megapixel digital camera. It used a Minolta GT 35mm to 250mm (equivalent in 35mm film camera) f/2.8-3.5 lens and a 1/1.8 inch CCD to produce a 3.3 Megapixels or 2048×1536 pixels image. Storage was to Compact Flash cards or MicroDrive. It had a TTL metering system selectable to either 256 Segment Metering, Center-Weighted Average or Spot mode. This supported operation modes of full Program, Aperture preferred automatic, Shutter preferred automatic and fully manual. It also had special program “Scene” modes: Portrait, Sports, Sunset, Night and Text. It simulated ISO ratings of 100 to 800. It was NOT interchangeable lens, but did give the feel of a small 35mm SLR. It could shoot continuously for at approx. 1.1 fps for 4 images and supported shutter speeds up to 1/2000 of a second. There was no optical viewfinder—it used an electronic viewfinder using a Ferroelectric LCD (4.8mm, 71,000 24-bit color pixels) that could be swiveled upwards through 90 degrees, provided a frame coverage of 100%, had diopter adjustment and an automatic mode to detect locality of eye to turn it on. In short—you could see all the information that would normally be displayed on the 1.8 inch TFT LCD on the back of the camera in the viewfinder—even in bright sun! It used high end Minolta accessories such as dedicated flash units and wired remote controls. It could focus as close as 4 inches in macro mode. It had a small built-in flash which could perform red-eye reduction or do fill flash outdoors. It used contrast detection to focus, allowing the user to select from 3 "wide area" auto selected zones or a Spot AF – flex focus point (movable focus point). Manual focus was provided by an electronic "focus by wire" ring at rear of lens barrel. In short—you could do just about anything you could do with a high end 35mm SLR on the market at that time EXCEPT change the lens. It was powered by four AA cells—your choice of Alkaline, Lithium or NiMH rechargeables.

Two items of note: First the lens—what a lens! It’s the Minolta GT lens made up of 16 glass elements in 13 groups, 2 anti-dispersion elements, 2 aspherical elements and was multi coated. This lens proved to be a real winner for Minolta. It graces not only the DiMage 5, but the 7, 7i, 7Hi, A1, A2 and A200.

Second, the DiMage 5 and 7 have the distinction of NOT having a UV filter permanently affixed to the front of the CCD sensor. What does this mean? With the application of a Dark Red 092 (89B) Infrared filter to the front of the camera, you can take true infrared pictures!

See also: www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Konica_Minolta/minolta_dim…

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