Minolta DiMAGE S304 Review, Phil Askey, August 2001

Review based on a pre-production DiMAGE S304, firmware v024j

The DiMAGE S304 was announced at the same time as the DiMAGE 5 and 7 at PMA on 11th February this year. The S304 has a 3.3 megapixel CCD (3.14 effective - 2048 x 1536) and a 4x optical zoom lens. It shares much of its functionality and features with it's "bigger brothers" the DiMAGE 5 and 7.

The S304 is part of the new range of Minolta DiMAGE digital cameras, it marks a definite advance in features and resolution for the compact end of the Minolta range. The S304 is one of only two three megapixel digital cameras with a 4x optical zoom lens, the other of course being the Nikon Coolpix 995 and it will therefore be our benchmark for comparison in this review.

This review is based on a pre-production S304, we hope to update the review with results from a production camera as soon as one is made available.

If you're new to digital photography you may wish to read the Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this review (it may help you understand some of the terms used).

Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions. Images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (normally 960 x 720 or smaller if cropped) image in a new window. To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or select it from the navigation bar at the top. DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.

This review is Copyright 2001 Phil Askey and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact: Phil Askey.