Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D (Dynax 5D) review
I've had this camera for about 4 weeks now and I've taken some 500 pictures with it. I love it!
It's loaded with both basic and advanced features, but that doesn't mean it's difficult to handle. I had no problems getting used to the controls and dials. The menus are very intuitive and most of the settings you need to change more often are quickly accessible through the press of a single button or dial. Buried in the menu are just those things you don't need to change very often.
Image quality is excelent, although I prefer to set sharpness to +1. Color rendering, in my opinion, is usually better than that of Adobe Camera Raw/Photoshop (in default mode), especially for blues and reds, which come out more natural. The metering system is usually accurate, though sometimes it underexposes, with or without flash (it seems to never overexpose). But there's always exposure bracketing if you are unsure of the results!
I bought the 3600 HS (D) flash and it works wonders, especially in the wireless, off-camera mode, just as my older flash did with my Maxxum/Dynax 5 xi. The only difference is now I can experiment with light a lot more. I love digital!
The kit lens is a superb value for the money. It's light, focusing is really fast and accurate, and its zoom range will do for most shooting situations. I also bought a Minolta 100-300mm 4.5-5.6 lens that is very fast and sharp. My older Sigma 24-105mm 2.8-4.0 lens also worked very fine with the 5D. The kit lens, by the way, seemed to work fine with my film SLR. I know they say it's not supposed to...
No need to mention anti-shake. It is fabulous! When I add to it the ISO range up to 3200, I can almost retire my flash and tripod!
All in all, I can't believe I got all this for only 600 bucks!
Problems:
As I'm a left-eye shooter, sometimes my nose bumps into the control dial, which is a little annoying. But I realized that just twisting the head a little more to the right minimizes this problem. This control dial, by the way, is the only thing that looks a little cheap in this camera. It's a little noisy when you press it.
The bright display may be a little disturbing when you shoot in low light, but you can always decrease its brightness or shut it down altogether.
At first I didn't like the fact that when you want to review the picture you took, the first press of the zoom button zooms all the way in the picture, and only then lets you zoom out. But later I realized it's actually good for fast focus check.
There should be a removable protector for the large display screen. I'm worried it will eventually get scratched.