Minolta DiMAGE S304 Review
Compact Flash Compartment
The S304's Compact Flash compartment is located in the
side of the hand grip. It's opened by pressing down on a small lever,
the large door then springs open (on a pretty good mechanism) to reveal
the Type I compartment, A/V out connector and USB port. It's interesting
that this also reveals the cameras metal substructure (which carries on
into the CF slot itself). The CF eject mechanism is good and the card
is pushed well out of the camera, thumb lip facing the back. I won't harp
on about it but the strap eyelet can get trapped in the door when closing.
Connections
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All of the S304's connectors are to be found on the right side
of the camera (from the back), behind the CF compartment door are
the A/V out (supplied cable ends in two RAC jacks) and USB connectors
(cable supplied), below this (but exposed without opening the door)
is the DC power-in connector.
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Lens
Once more the lens used is labelled as a 'Minolta GT
Lens', all glass and derived form their "G series" SLR lenses.
This compact lens provides an impressive 4x optical zoom with a 35mm equiv.
range of 35 mm to 140 mm. What's a little disappointing is the relative
slowness of the lens, with a maximum aperture of F3.0 (at wide angle)
to F3.6 (at full telephoto). However, that does make it faster at the
telephoto end than Nikon's Coolpix 995 (F2.6 at wide angle, F5.1 at telephoto).
Base / Tripod Mount
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I'd better get this off my chest before I go much further.. Has
ANYONE seen a worst position for a tripod mount on ANY other camera?
Sorry Minolta but there's simply no excuse for this... Shooting
(or tryiing to) our resolution chart the camera was several degrees
off on both axis because of the location of the tripod mount.. Ok,
so it's metal, still no excuses.
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Internal flash
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The S304's flash is located in the top right (from the front) corner
of the camera, just like the DiMAGE 5/7 it has a noticeable yellow
filter glass. The manual states the flash range as (ISO 100) wide
angle: 0.7m - 2.4m (2.3 ft. - 7.8 ft.), telephoto: 0.9m - 2.1m (3.0
ft. - 6.9 ft.).
Full details of flash range at different sensitivities can be seen
in the table below.
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Flash range at different sensitivities (from the DiMAGE S304 manual):
Sensitivity |
Flash range (wide angle) |
Flash range (telephoto) |
AUTO |
0.9m - 3.5m (3.0 ft. - 11.5 ft.) |
0.9m - 3.0m (3.0 ft. - 9.8 ft.) |
ISO 100 |
0.7m - 2.4m (2.3 ft. - 7.8 ft.) |
0.9m - 2.1m (3.0 ft. - 6.9 ft.) |
ISO 200 |
0.9m - 3.5m (3.0 ft. - 11.5 ft.) |
0.9m - 3.0m (3.0 ft. - 9.8 ft.) |
ISO 400 |
1.3m - 4.9m (3.7 ft. - 16 ft.) |
1.1m - 4.3m (3.6 ft. - 14.1 ft.) |
ISO 800 |
1.8m - 7.0m (5.9 ft. - 23 ft.) |
1.6m - 6.0m (5.2 ft. - 19.6 ft.) |
Supplied in the box
Supplied in the box are:
- Minolta DiMAGE S304 digital camera
- Lens cap
- 16 MB CompactFlash card (Lexar branded)
- 4 x AA Alkaline batteries
- Neck Strap
- Audio/Video Cable (ends in two RCA jacks)
- USB Cable
- Software CD-ROM (Minolta Image Viewer utility, ArcSoft PhotoImpression)
- Manual
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Sep 4, 2001
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Feb 11, 2001
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Aug 26, 2004
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Aug 26, 2004
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