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Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 By: Dave Etchells & Mike Tomkins Konica Minolta existing Z3 model gets an updated sensor, larger LCD and slightly updated control layout. Select a topic Reference: Datasheet Z5 Sample Images Z5 Imatest Results Z5 Photo Gallery! --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Comparison with previous DiMAGE cameras 3. Camera Overview / Field Test 4. Design 5. Viewfinder 6. Optics 7. Exposure & Flash 8. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 9. Operation & User Interface 10. Camera Modes & Menus 11. Image Storage & Interface 12. Video, Power, Software 13. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on Z5 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Video, Power, Software :(Previous) | (Next): Reference: Datasheet>> Page 13:Test Results & Conclusion Review First Posted: 03/28/2005

In keeping with my standard test policy, the comments given here summarize only my key findings. For a full commentary on each of the test images, see the Konica Minolta Z5's "pictures" page.

• Color: Fairly accurate color, but less saturated than that of most consumer digital cameras. Like the Z3 before it, the Z5 produced good color overall, with proper saturation and generally accurate hue in most cases. Where most consumer digicams artificially pump up their color saturation to produce bright, snappy-looking prints, the Z5 takes a more conservative and therefore generally more accurate approach. Whether you like the results or not will be a matter of personal preference: Most consumers like the artificially bright color of typical consumer digicams. (That's why the manufacturers make them that way.) More advanced photographers on the other hand may prefer the less saturated, more realistic color of the Z5, although its saturation levels in the spectral range of green through yellow were a bit lower than the technically correct values. Besides its lower saturation, the Z5 does also have some minor hue errors, most notably shifting deep blues and purples in the cyan/blue direction. The Z5's white balance system tended to leave slight color casts in some images, but for the most part they'd be hard to detect without having a corrected version of an image available for an A/B comparison. Indoors, the auto white balance struggled with Incandescent lighting, but the Incandescent and Manual settings did very well indeed. Overall, the Z5 produced good-looking images throughout my testing.
  
  
• Exposure: Average exposure accuracy, but more compensation needed in my indoor shots. The Z5's exposure system responded like fashion to the exposure systems of most digital cameras I test, requiring roughly average amounts of exposure adjustment. The one exception to this was the very large amount of exposure boost it required on my "Indoor Portrait" test under household incandescent lighting. Its default tone curve was rather contrasty (as is the case with most all consumer digital cameras), but its contrast adjustment control helped somewhat in holding onto highlights under harsh lighting. I would have been happier though, if the contrast adjustment extended a bit further in the low-contrast direction, through the addition of another step or two. Shadow detail was typically moderate, with moderate levels of image noise.
  
  
• Image Noise: Low levels of image noise, but a fair bit of subject detail traded away, particularly at higher ISO levels. Image noise is a little high on the Z5, though the ISO 50 setting does a pretty good job of keeping noise down. However, at ISOs 100 and 200, image noise increases and anti-noise processing obscures the finer details, especially in the shadow areas. At ISO 320, image noise is quite high and distracting. As is usually the case though, image noise is much more evident when viewed on-screen, pixel-for-pixel than it is when printed at smaller output sizes. In the case of the Z5, the noise in its ISO 320 images was somewhat distracting in 8x10 prints from our Canon i9900 "reference" printer, but was quite acceptable (to our eyes, anyway) in 5x7 prints, and all but invisible in 4x6s.
  
  
• Resolution/Sharpness: Good resolution, 1,150 lines of "strong detail." Some softness with the default sharpening setting. The Z5 performed about average on the "laboratory" resolution test chart for its 5.0-megapixel class. I found "strong detail" out to at least 1,100 lines vertically, 1,200 horizontally, although aliasing artifacts were pretty strong in both directions at those points. "Extinction" of the target patterns didn't occur until about 1,600 lines. In its photos of natural subjects, the Z5's images looked slightly soft out of the camera. Shooting with the internal sharpening set to its lowest value, and sharpening after the fact in Photoshop revealed excellent detail though.
  
  
• Closeups: About average macro performance in normal mode, in terms of size, but good definition and sharpness, from corner to corner. A very tiny area in Super Macro mode, however. Flash performed well in normal mode, but was blocked by the lens in Super Macro mode. The Z5 tuned in about an average performance in the normal macro mode, and captured a minimum area of 2.75 x 2.07 inches (70 x 52 millimeters). However, in its Super macro mode, the camera captured a much smaller area, measuring 1.15 x 0.86 inches (29 x 22 millimeters). Resolution was very high, with strong detail visible in the dollar bill, coins, and brooch. Details were also pretty sharp throughout the frame, with only a trace of softness in the corners. (This is pretty impressive, most digital camera lenses produce images with soft corners when shooting in their macro modes.) The Z5's flash throttled down pretty well for the macro area, and only slightly overexposed the shot. In Super mode, you'll need an alternative light source, as the shooting range is too close.
  
  
• Night Shots: Decent low-light performance under average conditions, but will need the flash for darker situations. Pretty good autofocus performance in dim lighting. The Z5 produced clear, bright, usable images down to about 1/8 foot-candle (1.3 lux) light level at the 320 ISO setting. At ISO 200, images were bright down to the 1/4 foot-candle (2.7 lux) light level, and at ISO 100, images were bright to about 1/2 foot-candle (5.5 lux). Finally, at ISO 50, images were only usable at the one foot-candle (11 lux) light level. Color was good at one foot-candle, but the color balance turned warm at the lower light levels. Noise was moderately high, even at ISO 50. With each increase in sensitivity, noise increased as well, with very bright pixels at ISO 320. The Z5's autofocus system was able to focus down to light levels a bit below 1/4 foot-candle, pretty good, particularly considering that the camera has no autofocus-assist light. Since city street-lighting at night generally corresponds to a light level of about one foot-candle, the Z5 should perform well at that light level, but will likely require the flash for anything darker.
  
  
• Viewfinder Accuracy: An accurate electronic optical viewfinder and LCD monitor. The Z5's electronic optical viewfinder (EVF) was very accurate, showing approximately 99 percent of the final image area at both wide angle and telephoto zoom settings. The LCD monitor turned in the same results, since it's essentially the same view on a larger screen. Given that I like LCD monitors to be as close to 100 percent accuracy as possible, the Z5's LCD monitor and EVF performed well here.
  
  
• Optical Distortion: Average barrel distortion at wide angle, very little at telephoto. Higher than average chromatic aberration and corner softness at telephoto, very good at normal and wide angle focal lengths though. Geometric distortion on the Z5 was about average at the wide-angle end, where I measured approximately 0.8 percent barrel distortion. The telephoto end fared quite a bit better, as I measured approximately 0.07 percent barrel distortion (about two pixels' worth). Chromatic aberration varied greatly with focal length, from rather low levels at normal and wide angle focal lengths, to quite high levels at the telephoto end of the lens' range. Likewise, the corners of the Z5's images were unusually sharp at normal and wide angle zoom settings, but quite soft at the extreme telephoto end of the range.
  
  
• Shutter Lag and Cycle Time:  Mixed results, but generally fast for its price point and zoom ratio. The Konica Minolta Z5 is a bit of a mixed bag in the speed category, but the news is generally good. Startup and shutdown are on the leisurely side, but shot to shot speed is fairly good, and full-autofocus shutter response is very good indeed. (Particularly impressive for a long-zoom model, as long zooms tend to focus rather slowly.) Continuous-mode cycle time is good, but buffer capacity is low both there and in single shot mode. A lower-resolution Ultra High Speed mode delivers up to 20 shots at 1024x768, at ten frames/second, an impressive accomplishment. There are faster cameras on the market, but the Z5 does well for a long-zoom model.
  
  
• Battery Life: Really excellent battery life. I still recommend purchasing a couple of sets of high-capacity rechargeable AA batteries and a good-quality battery charger, but the Konica Minolta Z5's battery life is much better than average, at over three hours of continuous use in record mode with the "standard" 1600 mAh battery capacity I've settled on for the sake of comparison of digicam battery life across multiple generations of cameras. - With modern 2000+ mAh batteries, usable battery life should come close to 4 hours, a very impressive figure indeed.
  
  
• Print Quality: Slightly muted color, but good prints to 11x14. High ISO shots noisy at 8x10, acceptable at 5x7, excellent at 4x6. Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5000 here in the office. (See our Canon i9900 review for details on that model.) As noted above, the Konica Minolta Z5 adheres to a more professional view of "correct" color, not oversaturating colors the way most consumer digital cameras do. As a result, prints from it lack the sometimes artificial vibrancy of those from many competing models, but will appear more muted to people who prefer snappier-looking color. As usual, we found that image noise that was quite obtrusive on-screen (at ISO 320) was much less evident in average and smaller-sized prints. At an 8x10 print size, the Z5's ISO 320 photos were a little rough, but might be suitable for display on a wall or other locations where they'd be viewed at a slight distance. At 5x7 though, they became entirely acceptable, and image noise ceased to be an issue entirely in 4x6 prints.
  
  

Conclusion

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The Konica Minolta Z-series of long zoom digital cameras have consistently led the market in features and value in the long-zoom category. While the market has become more crowded, Konica Minolta has maintained their place, and the DiMAGE Z5's only real competitors currently are Panasonic's FZ5 and FZ20 models. (They being the only long-zoom cameras equipped with anti-shake technology anywhere near the Konica Minolta Z5's price point.) The Z5 handles well, its anti-shake greatly extends the utility of its long zoom lens, and it's just plain fun to use. (Surely a critical factor in any camera purchase decision.) It produces good-looking prints up to about 11x14 in size, and you can extract a fair bit more detail from its images if you're willing to shoot with the in-camera sharpening set to "low" and then do some unsharp masking in Adobe Photoshop(tm) or a similar image-processing application. As noted in the review, the Z5's color saturation is lower than that of many consumer cameras. While technically more accurate than consumer cams with pumped-up color, and therefore perhaps more pleasing to advanced shooters, some consumers may find its images a little dull in comparison. Image noise is also an issue, with the camera trading away significant subject detail at ISOs of 200 and above. It's important to take into consideration how you intend to enjoy your pictures: While the image noise is glaringly obvious when viewed on a CRT pixel-for-pixel, at print sizes of 5x7 and below, the noise is quite acceptable, and at 4x6 print sizes, it entirely ceases to be an issue. All in all, the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 offers a tremendous amount of "bang for the buck," packing a long zoom lens, fast shutter response, anti-shake technology, and a host of "enthusiast" features into a compact package at an affordable price point. If you're in the market for a long-zoom digital camera with a wealth of features, the Konica Minolta Z5 should be on your short list of candidates.