Minolta Dimage G400 Review
The Minolta Dimage G400 is a four megapixel digital camera with a 3x optical zoom lens. It is a neat, stylish, shiny silver camera that will fit into a good sized pocket or a small bag, so you have no excuse for not having it with you when a photo opportunity arises.
It's pretty straightforward to operate and you can start taking pictures with the Minolta Dimage G400 almost as soon as it is out of the box.
The pictures that it takes are of good quality and in terms of its features there is a good balance between making the camera attractive to those who want a simple point and shoot camera and those wanting to have a little control over the final image without becoming an expert photographer.
Image Quality
Overall I was impressed by the picture quality of the Minolta Dimage G400. It passed nearly all the tests I set it and the only area where I would say it struggled was indoors when the lighting was poor. The resulting shot failed to measure up to some of its rivals. Outdoors it performed well and the quality of the macro images was also fine.
Features
Cameras that focus more on style have less features as a rule than a standard digital camera. Although the Minolta Dimage G400 offers you a range of preprogrammed scene modes it is not as fully featured as a standard digital camera. Some people may actually view this as an advantage as a lot of owners of digital cameras only use their cameras in automatic mode and extra features can make it hard to find your way around the menu system and the number of buttons and dials on the back of the camera can become confusing.
You do get control over White Balance settings and Exposure Compensation. There is also a choice of ISO settings. These vary between 50 and 400. Continuous shooting is available and you can shoot pictures in black and white or with a sepia tinge. For photographers who are a little more advanced you have a choice of metering, and bracketing is available for focusing and exposure.
You can also select the picture size. This is useful if you are looking to save space on the memory card or you want to take pictures that can be loaded to the Internet or sent by email.
You can playback your images on the LCD screen, either viewing a single image or as nine thumbnail images at a time. You can also zoom into the image on the LCD to check detail of specific areas of the image. One point that I did find irritating was that when I deleted the Minolta Dimage G400 would then display the last image that I had shot on the LCD screen. This became rather irritating when there were a large amount of images on the memory card and I wanted to delete a couple on the middle or towards the beginning.
Start up and shutter response times are very good for a camera in this bracket.
LCD screen becomes very dark when you are shooting some indoor shots or shots in relatively poor lighting. In fact for one of the test shots I would describe the LCD screen as more or less unusable and the shot wasn't particularly dark.
Ease of Use
The Minolta Dimage G400 would score highly for ease of use, but it only comes with a printed Quick Reference Guide. If you really want to get to grips with the camera then you will find the remainder of the instruction manual on the accompanying CD. It's not the end of the word, but it can be handy to have the instruction manual with you when you are out and about.
Aside from that gripe the camera is easy to get to grips with. I would say that it scores above a lot of its rivals in terms of the layout of the controls. All the buttons that I like to see on a digital camera are there and their function is clearly defined.
The menu system is one of the easiest I have seen. The Minolta Dimage G400 has four modes, automatic, scenes, manual and movie. It is easy to change between each one and each one has its own simple menu that is easily accessible and simple to understand. It is very difficult to get lost and it is as straightforward as it can be to find the any particular setting that you want to change.
Cost
You will need to pay around £200 for a Minolta Dimage G400. That is a little cheaper than it's main competitors in this bracket.
Style
This camera is all about style. The Minolta Dimage G400 is a little slimmer than some of its competitors and comes in a shiny, silver colour.
Batteries / Memory Cards
The Minolta Dimage G400 is powered by a proprietary Lithium Ion battery. A recharger is supplied with the camera. The drawback of these batteries is you have to buy a spare if you are planning to use the camera a lot. Otherwise you always run the risk of a run down battery at the crucial moment and you can't just pop in a fresh set.
As for memory cards you can choose between a Secure Digital (SD) Card or memory stick. As with all digital cameras the memory card supplied with the camera will get you started, but you will need to buy a second card with a larger capacity.
Conclusion
Minolta Dimage G400 is a pretty good value for money camera as far as stylish digital cameras go. It is straightforward, has a good set of features for this type of camera and produces good quality images. It is a little rough around the edges in places, but I think that is more than taken account of in the pricing. Click for: Specification
