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"Picky Details" for the Minolta DiMAGE G500 digital camera
(Timing, Power, and Storage Info)

Timing
I measure both cycle times and shutter delay times, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the DiMAGE G500:

Minolta Dimage G500 Timings
Operation
Time
(secs)
Notes
Power On -> First shot
1.6
Lens telescopes out before camera can shoot. Quite fast.
Shutdown
2.32
Lens retracts. A bit faster than average.
Play to Record, first shot
0.7
Time until first shot is captured, after switching to Record mode. Quite fast.
Record to play
0.68/2.28
First time is to display a large/fine after the image has been fully processed. Second time is for switch to playback mode immediately after capture. Quite fast.
Shutter lag, full autofocus
1.30/1.45
First time is for wide angle, second for telephoto. Both times are very slow. (Average is 0.8 to 1.0 second.)
Shutter lag, prefocus
0.197
Time to capture, after half-pressing shutter button. Fairly fast.
Cycle Time, max/min resolution
4.32/3.73
First numbers are for large/fine files, second number is time for small/basic images. Rather slow, by current standards.

While it starts up quickly and displays images fairly quickly when switching from record to playback mode, the G500 is on the whole a rather slow camera. Its shutter lag times are among the worst (eg, slowest) I've measured in recent memory, and its cycle times are also very slow by current standards. Definitely not the camera to pick for sports or action shots...

Power
The G500 uses a 3.6v lithium-ion battery pack for its power source, or the bundled AC adapter. As the camera's AC adapter employs a "dummy" battery to connect to the camera, I could not perform my usual power measurements here. I'd definitely plan on buying a second battery along with the camera though, since the G500's battery life seems only average for a compact camera model. (Which means "short.")

Storage Capacity
The Dimage G500 stores its photos on either SD/MMC memory cards or Sony Memory Sticks, and has 2MB of internal memory. The camera comes bundled with a 32MB SD card, but I strongly recommend buying at least a 64MB memory card, to accommodate the camera's large resolution setting.) The chart below shows how many images can be stored on the included 32MB card at each size/quality setting.

Image Capacity vs
Resolution/Quality
32MB Memory Card
Fine
Normal
Full Resolution 2,592 x 1,944 Images
(Avg size)		 13
2,462 KB		 22
1,422 KB
Approx.
Compression 		6:1 11:1
2,048 x 1,536 Images
(Avg size)		 23
1,391 KB		 37
853 KB
Approx.
Compression 		7:1 11:1
1,600 x 1,200 Images
(Avg size)
40
800 KB
70
457 KB
Approx.
Compression
7:1
13:1
VGA Resolution 640 x 480
Images
(Avg size)
140
228 KB
281
114 KB
Approx.
Compression
4:1
8:1

 

Download Speed
The G500 connects to a host computer via a USB interface. Downloading files to my Sony VAIO desktop computer (2.4 GHz Pentium IV, running Windows XP), I clocked it at 174.8 KBytes/second. This is one of the slowest download speeds I've seen in the last year or so. If purchase a G500, plan on buying an external card reader along with it, to use for downloading files.

 

G500 Review
G500 Test Images
G500 Specifications
G500 "Picky Details"
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