Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D (Dynax 5D) review
I bought this camera about a month ago together with the supplied 18mm-70mm Minolta lens. In the last 25 years I have always used Minolta SLR cameras, so I can describe myself as a "weathered Minolta User".
I have just returned from a holiday to Spain and have taken hundreds of shots with this camera in about every mode setting it has to offer.
Yes, lots of features and pretty good performance.
But there is a problem: Every picture, and I mean every picture taken in Automatic Mode or in one of the Digital Settings is underexposed. This exact problem has also been highlighted by a few professional reviewers on the internet. It is easily corrected in post production though (I am using ADOBE Photoshop), but it should not be that way.
The underexposure is about 2 stops and in my opinion should be rectified by a firmware update. It should be an easy software tweak. In all manual modes this problem does not happen at all.
The Antishake system works extremely well.
All my other Minolta Lenses do work well with this camera, although they are only so called "Consumer Lenses".
My old dedicated external flash unit will work; but this time the camera does overexpose, and again you have to correct that in post production.
But Minolta did mention that fact, and it is not a problem.
The screen is pretty poor, but I only use it for data display. I only view the pictures on my computer, and be warned ! they are very different (better) from what you see on the backscreen.
This camera is good, but in my opinion the software engineers at Minolta should have spent a bit more time before releasing the firmware, but I suppose they were under a lot of pressure to bring this camera onto the market.
In essence I can only confirm what the experts say about the KM 5D: A very nice DSLR with lots of features and performance, but because of the mentioned problems not on par with a Canon or Nikon.
Problems:
Underexposure in Automatic (point and shoot) and all Digital Program Settings.
I first thought that I had purchased a dude, but there are quite a few reports on the net and in Photo Magazine Tests mentioning that problem.
And after all - they are the experts -
I am just a user.