Konica Minolta Dimage Z6 Digital Camera ( 6MP , 12 x Optical ) 2.0" LCD , Antishake , Silver

Well, I searched and searched and read every review possible--so I thought--during the summer once I decided to put down my Kodak dx4530 and graduate to something with a little more "umph". I made a decision on the Canon S2. Due to some confusion my order was cancelled and I had to pick something else quickly. I did--the Dimage Z6. This camera does everything imaginable! I am not going to rehash in detail the previous reviews. If you have the money and want fantastic pictures--this is a GREAT investment! The instruction manual is a little jumpy but with patience you will get it. The features on the Z6 are never-ending. Buy & Have fun!

This camera literally blew me away when I started using its zoom feature. First of all let me start by saying I am a practicing amatuer astromoner, and quite familiar with quality..This camera posesses an APO lens..Apro chromatic for those who care. I took a picture of a distant mtn in NM, of a feature called "turtle back".
I was zoomed 12X and after examining the photo on my laptop, I discovered I had captured a pair of hawks in flight against the mountain. In the second photo, one of the hawks was framed perfectly aginst the turtle's front foot, and I was able to blow it up on my laptop further where I could actually see feathers on the wingline, and the hawk's beak with little or no pixel distortion..The 6MP really works. I would recommend this camera to any amatuer photographer

I have a digital SLR camera in a different and higher class than this camera. We bought the Z5 for my son and I found myself drooling over some of the functions in his camera. Don't let the term son fool you. Although 10, I was brought up by a photographer who never cut the corners on photo for him nor the family despite not being well off. My son has taken fabulous pictures on the Z% and the new six has very few if any changes. It did not need them.
The new Z6, is an absoloutely incredible machine with for me, only one major drawback, which is the manual need to lift your flash. As a semi or part time pro I have my flash attachment on all the time and even though this camera can change, by a convenient push of a button, thru several flash modes, the manual pulling up of the flash would be hard for me but may be due to habit. You would just have to always have it up and rember to turn off your flash if you ever want to. Fill flash is measured with the ambient light in the Z^ so the heavy shawdows are removed or the shade of darkness of he face by the brim of a baseball cap or the shade of tree branches in some of a person's face is gone. Right there your picur will be much more pro looking. There is a hot shoe for a flash attachment if desired. The perfect next step up from the pocket cameras and even if boasting 7 or 8 megapixels the optical zoom of this camera and the speed of the compressor chip are far more important.
The zoom is to 420 (yes I said 420 and in old film talk) and an automatic feedback as to whether you just took a picture within the correct ecposure. Also a little camera icon shows when you are zoomed to far out on your subject or to little light, showing you you need a tripod or do not take. The macro and fine macro modes are fabulous allowing you to take that flower or anything from your puppies face close up. No lens filters make it so your lens is suseptible to scratching but is well incased in the lens covering. The features of this camera including the use of the histogram, the editing features within the camera will probably never be used by some but who cares at this price.
Smaller cameras will never match this in terms of optical zoom and also the portrait, landscape, and sports functions all work while still in automatic focus. This means you can hold your finger on the button and take one shot after another of your kids stealing first base and be in focus. I took my daughter jumping from a high dive on rapid spots fire and the water splashing back up is just gorgeous and in perfect focus as is she and her varring expressions as when climbing the ladder and coming down. The camera will stop if it does not detect enough motion and will chage back to a more normal state of autofocus which in most cases means you have to keep hitting the button versus holding your finger down on it.. Perfect for the multi use camera shooter. Can zoom in from a distance and can take moving so perfect for sports filming, portrait filming and landscape as well. Only those of very high calibder photography experience or ones activley photographing architecture or landscape may feel they need a wider angle lens and yet if this is a move up for you, this is not and will not be a problem. Most people feel a 28 lens to be wide angle to begin with and it may start at 17 I am not sure. I just dont shoot wide angle. Don't let Dimage fool you, even I a Cannon loyalist would never buy the Cannon in this league over this camera.
The camera uses print image matching so works great with almost every photo printer which for those newer to digital means the information on the s-disk talks to the printer when you are printing so your shots are clearer, moe detailed and the colors more accurate to what was taken or seen on the screen. Don't let the featrues scare you. They are there but a very great point and shoot camera as to the quality and the abilty for the camera and a photo printer to do it for you.
If buying the camera consider the best charger and best recharageable batteries as more expensive but better on batterey life and yet if you aare one to swear away anything but lithiom batteries this camera does extremely well when my husband's dimage of 3 years ago is an energy hog. If picking up in a store, remember you can take pictures through the large two inch LCD screen or the veiv finder. The veiw finder has vision adjustment so if it does not look good at first please adjust this. The Z6 gives one more megapixel than the z5, basically incresing you cropping ability as you probably wont be printing 24 by 24 posters. The processor somewhat faster then the z5 as well making what you snap your finger at what you take as no delay of notice. The z6 is about 1/5 more efficient battery wise which in some cases can save you. Not much better than the z5 as the z5 was and is a wonderful camera and was acually $100 more. It did not need changing.
The z6 has a Sleek new disign with the same size but looks gorgeous. Try not to use as a garbage can as it will use more energy and yes, there is a reson that some disks are cheaper than others. Do not go cheap on you disks. Nice battery feature in which the camera shows no batterey when plenty of juice, then a battery when about at the half way mark and one more with a little juice left. Draws your attention to it as it appears vs. changes. Stop at the last symbol of closly after that. A digital will never work it's best when low on power nor getting completley full on a card. At the highest shooting level at which all people should be on or buy a two megapixel to begin with a 516 chip has room for around 320 pictures. No case is made specifically for the camera and yet we found a great promaster for $35 that is cushioned and can be worn as a fanny pack or over the shoulder. MY moms smaller credit card canon fits in the front part of the case as altough this a "small camera to me" she feels otherwise and wants to take both on her upcoming cruise so she can slip the other in her evening bag. I myself would love this camera for a second one of lighter weight and yet under many situations could get the same as my SLR of much higher price,features and therefore quality. Although it hurts me to say it, computer leary people could add to this with the epson picture mate 4 x 6 printer with the lCD could never use a computer and still get bettter than costco processed disks. The HP and ohers would also work and yet he new epson at $250 but $200 onlin with a rebate has many more ediining functions. IF a previous camera uses a compact flash and you have to change over adding to the expense so be it. They are better, the way of the future and will last mush longer.
I can not say enough about this camera and I would never thought I would be suggesting anythig over a canon. Anoher nice feature which sounds like a gimic but is not is the anti-shake mechanism. It actually does help to lower the effects of a less than steady hand and so your pictues wiil be more likely to have the just right focus. If planning for an event please buy early and practice however whether you have experience or not. Due to the incredible zoom power you do need to have practice keeping your eye on things as the camera will not beep if a not a good shot and yet this camera wll tell you why so easy corrections can be made. The beep the camera makes when the camera locks into focus when pressing half way down is quiet and a good guide. It can easlily be shut off say at weedings, plays etc. Beep, solid white circle, press down, look at LCD for proper exposue OK and a glance at the picture and within a couple of seconds on to the next.
The camera has a playback mode to check pictures with magnigication to check for focus at the molecular level practically but a waste of time as you may be missing the next shot. Rapid fire is available and 3 consecutive quick shots so getting 3 but each slightly different. As with all cameras and with all kids, dont use the red eye reduction. This means the flash puts out usually 3 small flashes and then takes the pictue wih a bigger flash. You wiil have the kids in the next room and far to long for candid and making people look at you insread of getting that perfect side portrait veiw. Although a fine camera and a tendency of many of us to tend towards protection plans due to chips and complexity keep in mind the cost. The best of warranty plans and some worse than this do not cover theft and althogh they will tell you for even dropping the camera you must have a significant part of the broken up camera and must have the serial number intact. If you drop over the edge of the ocean, off the side of a cruise ship or inside indiana jones at disneyland are you actually going to go back and get the camera or jump off the cruise ship?
Using the stap is a much better insurance policy! You will be more upset about the pices than the camera so consider that when puchasing your s-disks. Better to have all shots on one card in the camera but if you lose the camera all gone or better for a few smaller so that all is not hopefully lost.? Depends on the person. JUST GET GOOD ONES. Also take a ton of pictures. This is what digital is about and at the hightest setting. Do not try to get more pictures by setting the camera at a lower resoluton. If you feel conscious of not having enough memory consider buying some thing like an IPOD with the capability of carrying pictures for you whille on a trip. This way you just have a great time with your camera and then can clean out on computer as should be when you get home. If intimidated get a hired person for $89,00 an hour in California to come, set up your system between your camera or card reader, your computer then to your photo printer. IF you use a printer for regular documents then this is your normal printing and can easily tell the printer to gear up the color and ink for a photo. Writ it down and do it.
Phot editing Programs can be hard but those in the high hundreds to the 2000 dollar range. For fifty dollars you can be storing, cropping, edtiting and burning to disk fun slide shows and burn them to dvd to watch and store forever. Remember the kid running bases, set the digitlal photos to a one second show and it will look almost like a movie in your slide show.
Playback on the camera is also in the version of slide show if you wish, so if traveling with friends or at grandmas house and the disk has been cleaned up they can see the ones you took that morning and haven't had the time to even go home and download to computer. Buy a good high speed charger, THE BEST BATTERIEs AND TWO SETS and good memory cards, a cushioned case and go for it. IF not there, the ability and faith of digital will grow. Then the passion comes and you would never dream of having anyone but you print your pictures. Much more fun to have a file and slide show of each Chistmas for a few years, a little of each, with music and typed christmas lists and now if you want can record the annual reading of twas the night before Christmas and have that play on DVD while your pictures show. Hard. NO. Need to learn. YES. For those hesitating come on over to the other side and join the speed and abitlity of the reality and reason for digital, Never again will you pick up the doubles you ordered with only one good shot for $25.00 and for the others with a slower processor, less meagapixel or less optical zoom digital camera you will always be frustrated with the quality of your pictures as your dont have the resolution to crop and get rid of uncle Harry and his eyes shut. This is truly the best camera in it;s class on the market and I have tried the Canon. I have reserched this to the extreme, macworld agrees with me as does several of the digital photo mags that rate cameras. Buy and enjoy. Use it as a point and shoot if you want and learn a new feature one at a time. Also , forgot a wondrful feature increasing where you can take pictures. It has the ability to change the exposure of light while still remaining in autofocus so can get great shots in say museums, the monterey aqauriam and other places not allowing or appropriate for flash, IF you are debating this camera over a $300 one becasue of size or money you don't know digital cameras!!!! Sorrry for any poor spelling. Ill and numb hands makes tuping hard. IF you are questioning the 400 camera, the 35 dollar case, the 100 on two good 256 s-disks and the 50 for the battery charger nd the 15 for the extra batteries you are fogetting all the pictures you have in envelopes blurred and no good as you did not throw our or go look at them. IF you ex whatever wasnt in the picture because you could now crop them out would you like it better? Do you have fair haired kids with bright red dots staring back at you looking like aliens. Do you have a garbage can on the side of perfect shot of the family all together for once and dressed up. Is it slightly out of focus. All of those would be good if digital and all that money spent for all those prints that need thrwoing away would be gone and would you enjoy some occasionally if you had a slide show of that child now older and driving you crazy, would you like to havw on the tv via DVD pictures showing for a while you can walk by and remember whar once was also deinving you crazy and thru time brings out you oooh and ahhhs while they play to your or their favorie child hood memories. Or how about the trip to Hawaii you are still doing laundry from and yet seems so far away flash by you on your computer at work. Within minutes you can have 50 pictues with the same or different titles or comments on the web with notices to all the family that the baby is here. Young or old, digital is so enjoyable and you can even buy programs to make your bes freinds faces all distorted to play at a party or at a 3oth the person growing up and the growing old to 80, This camera will get you to what ever you want as so easy and so good. You will want to show off your pictures. Have fun. Start saving money and get those pictures out and going.

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