Konstantin Kostenko
Member
I've read a lot of reviews and forums about 4Mpix compact digital cameras before making a final decision what to buy. I needed a _compact_ and light camera since I got used to put my old (now broken) film camera into the camcorder case. I've been considering Canon Powershot S40, Sony DSC P9 as well. After reading Sony, Minolta and Canon forums, imaging-resources.com reviews and browsing through people's pictures I finally purchased Minolta DiMAGE F100 and I am really happy about my choice. 
After reading forum discussions I purchased Maha 204H charger (thomas-distributing.com) and SanDisk cruzer (buy.com) with 128M SD card included as well. The soft case from my old film camera matched Minolta size almost perfectly, so I decided not to buy an extra case.
Man, I love this camera! Picture quality is great, I've showed my pictures to my friend who is a semi-professional photographer and he praised them. Colors are very natural and with white balance, shutter priority and other camera settings you can adjust picture quality for almost any condition. I like object tracking feature - I have a 1 year daugther so she is running/walking/crawling everywhere and most of the time object tracking works quite well. It was surprise for me, but I've found that a picture quality in the low-light conditions satisfies my needs as well. Flash is not too strong, but remember - this is a compact camera and I don't think s40 or p9 have a better flash. Man, once again - what a beatiful pictures this camera makes in a sun-light conditions!!! wow!
Overall, I am very satisfied with this camera and recommend it for everybody who likes compact and light cameras. I think that value/price ratio for F100 is a very very high.))
Problems:
Knob is may be too easy to turn so it can be accidently turned in the pocket. I would suggest to use a soft case (always a good idea for any camera I think!) with the camera.
In some situations you might see a barrel distortion.
Lenses are a little bit slow.
After reading forum discussions I purchased Maha 204H charger (thomas-distributing.com) and SanDisk cruzer (buy.com) with 128M SD card included as well. The soft case from my old film camera matched Minolta size almost perfectly, so I decided not to buy an extra case. Man, I love this camera! Picture quality is great, I've showed my pictures to my friend who is a semi-professional photographer and he praised them. Colors are very natural and with white balance, shutter priority and other camera settings you can adjust picture quality for almost any condition. I like object tracking feature - I have a 1 year daugther so she is running/walking/crawling everywhere and most of the time object tracking works quite well. It was surprise for me, but I've found that a picture quality in the low-light conditions satisfies my needs as well. Flash is not too strong, but remember - this is a compact camera and I don't think s40 or p9 have a better flash. Man, once again - what a beatiful pictures this camera makes in a sun-light conditions!!! wow!
Overall, I am very satisfied with this camera and recommend it for everybody who likes compact and light cameras. I think that value/price ratio for F100 is a very very high.
))Problems:
Knob is may be too easy to turn so it can be accidently turned in the pocket. I would suggest to use a soft case (always a good idea for any camera I think!) with the camera.
In some situations you might see a barrel distortion.
Lenses are a little bit slow.