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Back to Full Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 Review
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	*	5.0-megapixel CCD delivers uninterpolated images as large as 2,560 x 1,920 pixels.
	*	Powerful 12x optical zoom lens covers a 35-420mm equivalent focus range.
	*	Integrated anti-shake system greatly extends usefulness of long zoom lens in lower light.
	*	Large 2.0" LCD monitor makes it easier to share just-captured photos, or confirm fine details.

Konica Minolta's DiMAGE brand name carries with it a tradition of quality and technological innovation, covering an array of digital cameras designed to suit a wide range of experience levels and price points. The newest addition to the pack is Konica Minolta's DiMAGE Z5. Like the Z1, Z2, and Z3 models before it, the Z5 offers a strong feature set, pared down only moderately from those of Konica Minolta's higher-end models like the A2, but still offering a full range of exposure control and a long-ratio 12x zoom lens, with an easy to learn user interface, all at an affordable price. Compared to the DiMAGE Z3, changes in the Z5 include a higher resolution five megapixel CCD image sensor, larger and higher resolution LCD display, and the return of the movie editing feature found on the earlier DiMAGE Z1 and Z2 models. There are also a handful of minor design tweaks, mostly related to the higher resolution imager, such as a reduction in the longest shutter speed and maximum ISO sensitivity.

Shaped much like a miniaturized 35mm SLR, the Z5's body is very similar to that of its predecessor, though with the rear panel controls rearranged slightly to accommodate the larger LCD display. Other design changes include a new SD card access lamp at the bottom of the rear panel, and a new brushed metal finish for the top of the Exposure Mode dial. Made up mostly of the lens and a tall, stylized hand grip, the plastic body is understated and sophisticated, and sports only a few external controls. Measuring 4.3 x 3.1 x 3.3 inches (109 x 80 x 84 millimeters), the DiMAGE Z5 is a little too bulky for shirt pockets, but should slip into larger coat pockets and purses without trouble. The camera's plastic body helps keep the weight down, despite the large 12x zoom lens, weighing in at 16.2 ounces (460 grams) with the batteries and SD memory card - ever so slightly more than the Z3, likely due to the larger LCD display. A neck strap accompanies the camera for easy toting, but I'd recommend picking up a small camera case to protect the matte finish of the plastic body panels when traveling.

The front of the Z5 is dominated by the large lens and handgrip. When powered on, the lens extends just under 1.25 inches from the camera front. A plastic lens cap clamps onto the lens for protection, and tethers to the camera body with a small strap. A set of filter threads around the inside lip of the lens barrel on the body of the camera accommodates Konica Minolta's accessory lenses via an accessory adapter. Konica Minolta's optional accessory lenses extend both the camera's wide angle and telephoto capabilities. Also on the front panel are the Self-Timer LED lamp and the sloping, oblong Shutter button which angles down from the top of the handgrip. A substantial handgrip provides a firm hold on the camera, with plenty of room for your fingers to curve around the grip. While it offers plenty to grab onto, the handgrip is also small enough to be comfortable for users with smaller hands.

The right side of the Z5 (as viewed from the rear) is blank apart from one of the neck strap attachment eyelets and a rubbery textured panel that wraps from the rear of the camera.

The opposite side of the camera is curved to echo the shape of the lens barrel, and features the second neck strap eyelet. The camera's USB/AV and DC-In connector terminals are located on this side of the camera, in a compartment protected by a rubbery, flexible flap that remains tethered to the camera.

On the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5's top panel is the pop-up flash compartment and external flash hot shoe, as well as the Shutter, Macro, and Flash buttons. The pop-up flash does not have a release mechanism. Instead, you simply pull up the flash from both sides (which automatically places the flash into Auto mode). A three-hole speaker grille and tiny microphone are side-by-side behind the Shutter button, which slopes downward toward the front panel. The camera's Exposure Mode dial is also located on top of the camera, and features a new brushed metal finish on its top surface.

Most of the changes from the Z3 are found on the rear panel, which contains the remaining camera controls along with the electronic optical viewfinder (EVF) eyepiece and 2.0-inch color LCD monitor, somewhat larger and higher resolution than in the past model. Directly to the right of the LCD monitor are the Four-Way Arrow pad and Menu, Quick View/Erase, and Information buttons. The Power button and Mode dial are just beneath the LCD monitor, and are now located side by side, rather than the design of the Z3 which featured a Power button centrally located in the Mode dial. At the very top of the right side is the Zoom lever. The EVF - which is also slightly higher resolution than in the previous model - is centered above the LCD, and has a diopter correction wheel to the right. It has a noticeably shorter eye relief of 16.9mm (the Z3 had a 20.8mm eye relief), meaning that your eye must be closer to the image to see the whole image. In my own case, I found that I had to really press the lenses of my glasses up against the viewfinder bezel to be able to see the whole viewfinder frame. Finally, a new addition is located at the very bottom right of the camera just inside the protrusion at the rear of the handgrip - the Access lamp, which lights when the SD card is being accessed.

The Z5's bottom panel is fairly flat, with a plastic threaded tripod mount centered under the lens (a good position for people interested in panoramic photography), a battery compartment at the base of the handgrip, and an SD card compartment between the two. The SD compartment door could be made a little more secure than the current spring loaded design (with no latch), but it works well enough. The tripod mount is just far enough away from the battery compartment to allow quick battery changes while working on a tripod, but is too close to the SD card compartment to allow a card change. While I am glad that the battery slot is accessible while working on a tripod, I would like to maintain access to the SD card slot as well, as I change memory cards more frequently than batteries while working in the studio. The previous Z2 model had this capability, so I'm at a loss as to why the camera's designers would have moved the SD slot from its previous location on the left side panel to the new location of the Z3 and Z5.

The Konica Minolta Z5 features an electronic viewfinder (EVF) which offers a true, through-the-lens (TTL) display, courtesy of a 1/3-inch LCD display with 114,000 pixels. A dioptric adjustment dial accommodates eyeglass wearers, letting them adjust the viewfinder optics across a range of -3.0 - 1.0 diopters. As noted earlier, at 16.9mm, the viewfinder eyepiece has a noticeably lower eye relief (the distance from which the entire viewfinder image can be seen) than the DiMAGE Z3's 20.8mm. In my own use of the camera, this meant that I had to press the lens of my eyeglasses right up against the body of the camera to be able to see the full frame without moving my eye around.

The electronic viewfinder has the exact same resolution as the camera's main LCD display, and for the most part can show the same menus and information overlays as the LCD can. The information which can be shown in Record mode includes camera mode, exposure mode, flash status, exposure compensation (if a compensation adjustment has been made), white balance setting (if something other than "Auto" is selected), image size and quality setting, drive mode (single, continuous, movie, etc), and number of shots remaining on the memory card. If the information overlay is enabled, aperture and shutter speed are reported when the Shutter button is halfway pressed. The current battery level also appears on-screen, with a graphic to indicate the amount of charge. An optional live histogram overlay can be enabled with an additional press on the Info button. In Auto mode, a set of icons appears across the top of the screen, to indicate that automatic scene mode selection is active.

While the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5's Mode dial only offers a Record mode option for the electronic viewfinder, it is in fact possible to use almost all Playback mode features on the EVF, with the sole exception of the Playback menu. Instead of switching the Mode dial to Playback, you must instead press the Quick View button to call up the most recent image. The camera is now actually operating in Playback mode, and you can use the normal controls to browse through all captured images and movies, zoom and pan around in images, or play and edit movies. Half-pressing the Shutter button, or pressing the Menu button, returns you to record mode (and hence, you cannot access the Playback menu on the EVF).

I must confess, I'm not exactly sure why Konica Minolta has chosen to implement playback in this way. It would seem to make more sense to either add another option to the Mode dial to allow playback on the electronic viewfinder, or to simply offer two options (Record and Playback) on the Mode dial, and then select the output device (viewfinder or LCD) with a separate button. With that said, once you're used to this design quirk it likely won't bother you much in day-to-day use - it just seems to me that some users will never actually realize that they can access playback mode on the EVF.

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Equipped with a 5.83-69.9mm glass lens with two aspheric elements, the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5's lens is equivalent to a 35-420mm lens on a 35mm camera (the lens barrel proudly reports these equivalency numbers, a nice touch, to my way of thinking). The 35mm wide angle setting equates to a moderately wide angle, and is pretty much the standard amongst similar long-zoom cameras. The 420mm tele setting is likewise almost a standard amongst 12x zoom digital cameras, and offers a very useful telephoto length that will let you tightly crop the image to your subject when you can't get close in person. It's almost certainly longer than most folks can comfortably hand-hold without image stabilization, but thankfully Konica Minolta's Anti-Shake feature helps greatly on that score. Like most digital cameras, the lens zoom operates courtesy of a rocker switch controlled motor - allowing single-handed operation, but with less precision than you might be used to if you're coming from a film SLR camera.

The lens consists of 13 elements in 10 groups, including two AD (anomalous dispersion) glass elements and two aspheric elements. All that dispersion/aspheric mumbo-jumbo is by way of explaining that this is a very high quality lens: In my testing, the camera showed good corner to corner sharpness at all focal lengths, and low levels of chromatic aberration at wide to normal focal lengths (though this did increase to a rather high level by the time I got to maximum telephoto.) Aperture control can be either manual or automatic, with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 at wide angle and f/4.5 at telephoto. Focus ranges from 2.0 feet (0.6 meters) to infinity in normal mode. Activated by a small button on the top of the handgrip, a Macro focusing mode focuses in on objects as close as about 3.9 inches (10 centimeters) to the lens surface at wide angle, and 47.2 inches (120cm) from the lens surface in telephoto mode. A Super Macro mode, which locks the lens at a focal length of 10.45mm (equivalent to approximately 62.8mm on a 35mm camera), offers focusing as close as just 0.4 inches (1cm) from the lens surface - very close indeed, although it will require care to ensure the lens itself doesn't cast a shadow on your subject matter. In my tests, the Z5 captured a very tiny minimum area of just 1.15 x 0.86 inches (29 x 22 millimeters) in Super Macro mode, with very little of the softness in the corners of its images that I've come to expect from digital camera macro modes. A plastic lens cap with a spring-loaded catch holds onto the front of the lens barrel, protecting it from dirt and scratches. The lens cap has an eyelet for attaching an included strap, to prevent it from being accidentally lost.

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 provides both manual and automatic focus control. The camera's specification sheet describes the autofocus system as a "Video AF system," but it isn't clear whether it uses phase-detection focusing technology as did the Z3, or the much more common contrast-detection system. I'm suspecting that it in fact uses phase detection because it's so fast focusing, and the focusing time doesn't vary much at all as you move from wide to telephoto focal lengths. (The Z5 had full-autofocus shutter lag numbers ranging from 0.60 - 0.62 second in my tests.)

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5's autofocus system offers both Single-Shot and Continuous AF settings, with a Full-Time AF option, as well as a Manual focus setting - all selected through the camera's menu system. In Single-Shot AF, the camera only sets the focus when the Shutter button is halfway depressed. In Continuous AF mode, it adjusts focus at all times while the shutter button is half-pressed, continuously keeping the frame in focus. When Full-Time AF is set, the camera continuously adjusts focus when powered on. Full-Time AF is automatically disabled when the battery warning icon is illuminated.

The DiMAGE Z5 lets you determine the area of the image the camera uses to set the focus from, by selecting one of two autofocus options: Wide Focus Area, or Spot Focus. The default option is Wide Focus area, indicated by a set of two widely-spaced brackets in the viewfinder image. By pressing and holding down the center of the Four-way Arrow controller pad, you can switch between Wide Area and Spot Point autofocusing modes (the latter indicated by five horizontally overlapping squares in the viewfinder). Wide Area AF bases its focus on the most prominent subject detail in the portion of the image that falls within the AF brackets, and in Single-Shot AF mode displays the chosen AF area with a red square. In Continuous Mode AF, the camera is constantly focusing, so no positive AF indication is given before shutter release. In Spot Point AF a grid of five AF points is displayed, from which you can select the desired AF point with the left or right arrow buttons. In the Program, Aperture-Priority, Shutter-Priority and Manual modes, this AF point remains selected until reset by the user. In the Auto and Scene modes, the AF point will remain selected for that mode until the camera is powered off.

In Manual Focus mode, the up/down arrow keys adjust the focal distance of the lens. Since the Manual Focus keys are the same as those used for Shutter speed (in Manual exposure mode or Shutter Priority mode) or Aperture (in Aperture Priority mode), in these modes the center button switches back and forth between the up/down arrow keys being used to adjust Manual Focus or Shutter speed / Aperture as relevant. As you focus, a distance readout reports the current focal distance in meters or feet at the right of the LCD monitor (or EVF), above the MF icon. The scale runs from either 0.1 to 1 meter, or 1 meter to infinity, The LCD monitor also shows a magnified view from the center of the image area that fills the entire screen, so that you can more easily fine-tune focus. The manual-focus focus-assist magnification disappears after about three seconds of inactivity, or as soon as you half-press the Shutter button.

In addition to the 12x optical zoom, the DiMAGE Z5 offers a 4x "interpolated" Digital zoom in 0.2x steps. When enabled through the menu system, pressing the Zoom rocker on the top of the back panel will first use the optical zoom, and then (after a brief pause) switch to the digital zoom. Keep in mind that digital zoom simply enlarges the central portion of the CCD image digitally, rather than magnifying it optically and, as a result, image resolution decreases in direct proportion to the magnification achieved.

A set of filter threads around the inside lip of the body around the lens barrel accommodates Konica Minolta's ZCW-300 Kit, which consists of a 0.75x wide conversion lens. A menu option is used to indicate to the camera that the lens is in use. With the lens mounted to the camera, a maximum wide angle equivalent to a 26mm lens on a 35mm camera can be obtained, quite a wide angle indeed.

Anti-Shake System
Originally introduced on the high-end Minolta A1, Konica Minolta's very effective vibration-reduction system made its Z-series debut in the DiMAGE Z3, and appears once again on the Z5. Konica Minolta's anti-shake technology is unusual in that it actually moves the CCD assembly to counteract camera movement, rather than the more common approach of moving an optical element inside the lens. In earlier tests comparing the performance of the DiMAGE Z3's anti-shake (AS) system against that of the Panasonic DMC-FZ15, I found that the Panasonic anti-shake system performed a bit better overall, but that the Konica Minolta approach gave a better viewfinder display without penalizing AS performance, and was also somewhat better at dealing with low-frequency vibrations. (As from your heartbeat, breathing, etc.) The Z5's anti-shake system appears to be just as good; in an informal test, I ran the camera's zoom all the way out to full telephoto, then turned on the focus-assist magnification on the LCD. With Anti-Shake turned off, it was virtually impossible to keep the resulting LCD image stable when holding the camera by hand. When I activated Anti-Shake, the results were immediate and dramatic. The image quieted down by what had to be a factor of four or more.

Anti-Shake does appear to be automatically disabled when battery life is running low. I couldn't see this mentioned in the manual anywhere, but when the battery warning icon is illuminated on the LCD, you are still shown the menu options for anti-shake, but attempting to enable them has no effect. The manual also mentions that in high ambient temperatures, the Anti-Shake system is automatically disabled during image framing, and is used only during the actual exposure. Presumably, the Anti-Shake system itself generates some heat, and if used for an extended time during image preview in high ambient temperatures, would adversely affect image quality. The manual also notes that the camera may also use a lower ISO sensitivity than selected when Anti-Shake is used at high ambient temperatures. Finally, do note that Konica Minolta recommends that Anti-Shake is disabled altogether when using the camera on a tripod.

I don't know how much of a premium the Anti-Shake function adds to the cost of the Z5, but it doesn't seem to be a lot, given the camera's affordable retail pricing. Optical stabilization makes a huge difference in usability of longer telephoto focal lengths, but is a feature that has found little support from a price standpoint in the past. (Other cameras incorporating optical stabilization have generally not fared well against cheaper competition lacking the feature.) I'm hopeful though, that the range of sophisticated user that the Z5 is so obviously aimed at will understand and fully appreciate the value of Anti-Shake technology. - It really adds a new dimension to your photography, making possible a whole range of photos that would be impossible otherwise.

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The DiMAGE Z5 offers good exposure control, with the ability to adjust image attributes including contrast and sharpness. The Mode dial on the rear panel selects the basic operating mode: Record mode (with the display routed to either the LCD or Electronic Viewfinder), or Playback (routed to the LCD display). Within Record mode, the Exposure Mode dial selects the camera's exposure mode. Choices are Manual, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, Program AE, Auto, Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Sunset, and Night Portrait modes.

In straight Auto mode, the camera controls everything about the exposure, except for flash, zoom, anti-shake and focus point. Program AE mode keeps the camera in charge of the exposure, while you have control over all other exposure options. Aperture Priority mode lets you select the lens aperture setting, from f/2.8 to f/8 depending on the zoom setting, while the camera selects the most appropriate corresponding shutter speed from 4 seconds to 1/1,000. In Shutter Priority mode, the user selects the shutter speed, from 1/1,000 to 4 seconds, while the camera chooses the best corresponding aperture setting. Switching to Manual mode gives you control over both shutter speed and aperture from 4 seconds to 1/1,000. In modes where you have control over the Shutter speed and/or Aperture, this is set using the Four-Way Arrow Pad. Since the Manual Focus keys are the same as those used for Shutter speed (in Manual exposure mode or Shutter Priority mode) or Aperture (in Aperture Priority mode), in these modes the center button switches back and forth between the up/down arrow keys being used to adjust Manual Focus or Shutter speed / Aperture as relevant. With the maximum shutter speed of four seconds, the DiMAGE Z5 is rather more restrictive than its predecessor the Z3, which allowed shutter speeds as long as 30 seconds using its bulb mode. Image noise was likely the reason for reducing the shutter range, perhaps because of the higher-resolution image sensor.

As described above, the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 also offers five preset scene modes (referred to as Digital Subject Programs), accessed via the Exposure Mode dial. Portrait mode produces better-looking people shots by enhancing skin tones and decreasing the depth of field (to create a slightly blurred background). Sports mode provides faster shutter speeds to freeze action, and switches the camera to continuous AF mode. Landscape mode uses a smaller aperture to keep both background and foreground in focus. In Sunset mode, the camera employs slightly slower shutter speeds to let in more of the ambient light, and lets you record the warm colors of the scene without compensating for them in the white balance system. In Night Portrait mode, the camera also uses a slower shutter speed to allow more ambient light into the image, however it also records true black values and preserves the bright colors of artificial lighting.

The Konica Minolta Z5's default metering mode is a 256-segment evaluative system, which takes readings throughout the image to determine exposure, taking into consideration both contrast and brightness. Center-Weighted and Spot metering options are also available. Spot metering is useful for high-contrast subjects, as it bases the exposure reading on the very center of the image, letting you set the exposure based on a small portion of your subject. Center-Weighted metering also bases the exposure on the center of the image, but the camera takes its readings from a much larger area in the middle of the frame.

The DiMAGE Z5's light sensitivity can be set to Auto, or to ISO equivalents of 50, 100, 200, or 320. This is unfortunately not quite as high as the ISO 400 maximum of the Z3. While the Z3 offered an optional noise reduction feature, this feature cannot be disabled on the Z5. The camera decides when to apply noise reduction for longer exposures and higher ISO settings, reducing the amount of image noise that would otherwise result, but in the process also reducing fine subject detail somewhat. Exposure compensation is adjustable from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third-step increments, and an auto-bracketing option can snap three shots in rapid succession, varying the exposure between each in steps of 0.3 or 0.5 EV units. Exposure compensation is adjusted by pressing the left or right arrows on the Four-way Arrow pad, which displays the Exposure Compensation adjustment scales. The Auto Exposure Bracketing option is enabled through the camera's menu, and you can set the bracketing step size once you've selected Bracketing mode.

The DiMAGE Z5 offers good control over white balance, and some control over tonal range. Its white balance system offers a total of seven options, including Auto, Daylight, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Cloudy, Flash, and Custom, which is the manual setting. The Custom Set mode determines white balance by snapping a picture of a white card. The camera then adjusts its color balance to render the white card with a neutral hue. Contrast is also adjustable in three steps through the camera's menu menu. The Contrast adjustment worked well for me, but I'd really like to see its range extend a bit further in the low-contrast direction. The Color Mode option of the Record menu offers Natural and Vivid color modes, as well as Black and White, and Sepia settings. Vivid color boosts saturation of the image for a snappier look, while the Black and White / Sepia settings offer a little extra creativity, particularly useful for anybody wanting to make prints without using an image editor on a PC first. The record menu also offers a three-step Sharpness adjustment, for controlling the amount of in-camera sharpening applied to an image.

Drive Modes
The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 features several Drive mode settings, again accessed through the menu system. As well as shooting in single-shot mode, you can choose between Standard and UHS (Ultra High Speed) modes, as well as Progressive Capture and Self-Timer modes. In standard Continuous Advance, the DiMAGE Z5 captures a maximum of three frames at approximately two frames per second. UHS mode captures up to 20 1,024 x 768-pixel images at about 10 frames per second. In either continuous mode, focus is locked with the first frame, regardless of the focusing mode.

The Progressive Capture mode operates similarly to the UHS continuous advance mode, but buffers images at ten frames per second for as long as the shutter button is held down. When the shutter button is released, the last twenty images captured are saved to the flash card - essentially allowing you to begin shooting before the action happens, and be sure you don't miss anything. (An incredibly handy mode for those of us with slowing reflexes!)

The Self-Timer fires the shutter either two or ten seconds after the shutter button is pressed. The shorter delay is very handy when you need to prop the camera on something to take a photo in dim lighting, and don't want the pressure of your finger on the Shutter button to jiggle the camera. The ten-second delay is long enough that you can run around to get into the photo yourself. An LED lamp on the front of the camera blinks and the camera beeps as the self timer is counting down, the blink and beeps becoming faster in the last few seconds.

Auto Exposure Bracketing mode captures a series of three images (one at the metered exposure, one underexposed, and one overexposed). You can set the exposure variation between exposures to 0.3 or 0.5 EV.

Movie Mode
The Konica Minolta Z5 has a Movie mode that records moving images with sound, with clip length being limited only by available flash card space, and battery life. The amount of recording time appears in the LCD or EVF monitor display, and varies with the resolution and frame rate of the movie, the available Secure Digital card space, and the speed of the memory card. With a fast memory card, (a 32x Lexar SD card worked fine for me), the Z5 can record at any resolution/quality setting for as long as the card has space remaining, with no limitation based on buffer memory, etc. The Z5 is also unusual in that it lets you operate the zoom lens while a movie is being recorded, something most digital cameras that record movies with sound won't allow. Movies are recorded at either 640 x 480 or 320 x 240-pixel resolutions, with frame rates of approximately 15 or 30 frames per second. Through the Record menu, you can set the movie mode to Standard or Night modes. Night mode records black and white movies in low lighting situations, and is far more effective in dim lighting than the vast majority of digicam movie options I've seen.

Another useful feature of the Z5's movie mode is that, when playing back a movie, you can pause it at any time and extract the currently-displayed movie frame as a still image, saved as a separate file on the memory card.

Flash

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 features a built-in, pop-up flash, which operates in either Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Fill Flash or Slow-Sync modes. To release the flash from its compartment, pull on the two small tabs on either side of the casing and lift up the flash head. Close it again by simply pushing the flash head back down. The Flash mode can be changed through the Record menu, or by pressing the Flash Mode button on the top of the camera's handgrip. In Auto mode, the camera decides whether the flash should be fired as the image is metered. In Red-Eye Reduction mode, the camera meters the scene and if flash is necessary, fires a series of small pre-flashes before firing the flash at full power for the exposure itself. This makes your subjects' pupils contract and reduces the occurrence of the Red-Eye effect. In Fill-Flash mode, the flash fires with every exposure, regardless of lighting conditions. Slow-Sync mode times the flash with a slower shutter speed, firing the flash at the beginning of the exposure. The flash is in the Off position when it's closed.

The Konica Minolta Z5 also includes a top-mounted hot shoe for attaching an external flash unit. The shoe design and contact arrangement are set up for Konica Minolta's own dedicated flash units, but I imagine that compatible models are available from the major third-party flash manufacturers (Sunpak et. al.). Konica Minolta's own Program Flash models 2500(D), 3600HS(D), and 5600HS(D) work with the DiMAGE Z5, . Konica Minolta also makes an adapter (part number PCT-100) that takes the proprietary hot shoe contacts to a standard PC-style sync connector, but from all I've heard, this accessory is virtually impossible to find at retail. The hot shoe is protected by an included accessory shoe cap, which on my review camera was actually rather difficult to remove, at least without risking bending a fingernail. Presumably with use, this would become a bit easier - and on the plus side, you're not likely to lose the cap!

When you press the shutter release on a digital camera, there's usually a delay or lag time before the shutter actually fires. This time allows the autofocus and autoexposure mechanisms to do their work and can amount to a significant delay in some situations. Likewise, the delay from shot to shot can vary greatly, and is also important to the picture-taking experience. Since these numbers are rarely reported by manufacturers or reviewers (and even more rarely, reported with accuracy), I routinely measure both shutter lag and cycle times using an electronic test setup I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled timing, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5:

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.

With only a handful of external camera controls and a well-organized LCD menu system, the DiMAGE Z5's user interface is straightforward and easy to grasp. The Mode dial on the rear panel controls the camera's main operating mode (as well as whether the LCD display's image is routed to the rear panel or the EVF eyepiece, image playback only being possible on the LCD), while the Exposure Mode dial sets the level of exposure control you have. Though only a few exposure options can be controlled externally, the Z5's efficiently laid out LCD menu system is easy to understand and relatively quick to navigate. Each menu is divided up into pages with tabs at the top of the screen, so you can quickly scan each page without scrolling through a long list of options. Given the camera's straightforward setup and user-friendly design, most users should be able to operate the camera right out of the box, referring to the manual only for more complex operations.

External Controls

• Auto: Puts the camera in charge of all the exposure variables, including aperture and shutter speed. The user controls only flash mode, zoom, macro mode, and file size and quality settings.
• Movie: Indicated on the Exposure Mode dial by a black film camera icon, this mode records moving images with sound.
• Program AE (P): This mode puts the camera in control of aperture and shutter speed, the user retaining control over all other exposure variables.
• Aperture Priority (A): Here, the user controls the aperture setting, while the camera selects the best corresponding shutter speed.
• Shutter Priority (S): The opposite of Aperture Priority mode, this mode lets the user choose the shutter speed setting while the camera selects the lens aperture.
• Manual (M): This mode provides complete user control over the exposure.
• Night Portrait: Marked on the Exposure Mode dial with an icon of a person with a star above them, this mode sets up the camera for capturing portraits in low-lit situations. Because the camera is using a slower shutter speed here, a tripod is recommended for the best results.
• Sunset: Indicated by a beach scene with a setting sun on the Exposure Mode dial, this mode adjusts the white balance system to preserve the warm colors of a sunset without compensating for them. It also biases the exposure system to produce a slight underexposure, to prevent the sky colors from being washed out.
• Landscape: This mode is indicated by an icon of a pair of mountains with a person in front on the Exposure Mode dial. Here, the camera uses a smaller lens aperture, so that both the background and foreground will be in sharp focus.
• Sports Action: Marked on the Exposure Mode dial by an icon of a running person, this mode uses faster shutter speeds to "freeze" fast-paced action.
• Portrait: An icon of a woman's head indicates this mode on the Exposure Mode dial. In Portrait mode, the camera employs a larger lens aperture setting, which decreases the depth of field. This produces a sharply focused image of the subject, in front of a slightly blurred background.

• Record 1
  • Drive Mode: Sets drive mode to Single, Self-Timer, Continuous, Progressive, or Bracketing. The Continuous option calls up a display where you can select either Continuous Advance (indicated by three large overlaid squares) or UHS (Ultra-High Speed) Continuous Advance (indicated by five small overlaid squares).
  • Image Size: Adjusts the image resolution to 2,560 x 1,920; 2,048 x 1,536; 1,600 x 1,200; or 640 x 480 pixels.
  • Quality: Specifies the JPEG compression level for still images. Options are Fine, Standard, or Economy. In Movie mode, options are 640 x 480 Fine; 640 x 480 Standard; and 320 x 240 Standard.
  • Frame Rate: (Movie mode only.) Sets the movie recording frame rate to 15 or 30 frames per second.
  • White Balance: Adjusts the overall color balance of the scene. Options include Auto, Preset (Daylight, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, and Flash), Custom Set (manual adjustment), and Custom Recall.
  • Movie Mode: (Movie mode only.) Sets the movie recording mode to either Standard or Night Movie. (Night Movie mode uses slower shutter speeds to cope with dim lighting conditions, but as a result will produce blurred images of quickly moving objects.)
  • Focus Mode: (Scene modes only.) Selects either Autofocus or Manual focus.
  • Anti-Shake: Enables the Anti-Shake mode, which minimizes blurring due to camera movement when the lens is at full telephoto or during long exposures. You can opt for the effect to appear live in the LCD monitor when the Shutter button is half-pressed to assist with framing, or enable only during image capture to save battery life. You can also turn Anti-Shake off.
  • Auto DSP: (Auto mode only.) Enables or disables the camera's Automatic Digital Subject Program Selection feature, which attempts to select the appropriate scene mode for you. When disabled, the camera functions as if in Program mode, but Program mode options such as exposure compensation are not available.
  
  
• Record 2 (Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Manual and Movie modes only)
  • Focus Mode: Selects either Single, Continuous, or Manual focus control.
  • Color Mode: (Movie mode only.) Chooses whether the camera records images in Natural Color, Vivid (highly saturated) Color, Black and White, or Sepia tones.
  • Full time AF: Turns the Full time AF option on or off. If on, the camera adjusts focus continuously whenever the camera is in a capture mode.
  • Flash Mode: Sets the flash mode to Auto, Auto Red-Eye Reduction, Fill, Fill with Red-Eye Reduction, or Slow Sync modes.
  • Flash Compensation: Adjusts flash power from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in 1/3 increments.
  • Metering Mode: Designates how the camera meters the exposure. Options are Multi-Segment, Center-Weighted, and Spot.
  
  
• Record 3 (Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual modes only)
• Sensitivity: Sets the camera's sensitivity to Auto, or to 50,100, 200, or 320 ISO equivalents. When using the Auto setting, the camera selects an ISO sensitivity of 50 - 160 automatically.
• Color Mode: Chooses whether the camera records images in Natural Color, Vivid (highly saturated) Color, Black and White, or Sepia tones.
• Sharpness: Adjusts the in-camera image sharpening. Options are Normal, Hard, and Soft.
• Contrast: Controls the level of image contrast, with choices of Normal, High, and Low.
• Key Function: Assigns a function to the Flash key. Options are Flash Mode, Drive Mode, White Balance, Focus Mode, Color Mode, and Sensitivity.

Playback Mode: This mode allows you to review captured images on the memory card, erase them, protect them, set them up for printing, etc. Pressing the Menu button displays the following options:

• Playback 1
  • Delete: Erases the current frame, all frames, or marked frames from the memory card.
  • Format: Formats the SD/MMC memory card.
  • Lock: Write-protects the current image, all marked images or all images, preventing them from being manipulated or erased (except via card formatting). An option also exists to Unlock images.
  • Edit Movie: Lets you select a portion from the start, middle or end of movies to be discarded, preview changes, and save the results as a new file (with the option to delete the old file afterwards). (This option is only enabled if the currently selected file is a movie file.)
  • Copy: Lets you copy either the current image, or all marked images, from one Secure Digital card to another, via the camera's internal memory. You are prompted to change the card at the appropriate point. Up to 24MB of files can be copied in one operation.
  
  
• Playback 2
  • Slide Show: Launches an automated slide show of all the images saved on the memory card.
  • Slide Show Playback: Specifies which images are played back in the slide show, either All Frames or Marked Frames. (The Marked Frames option lets you "mark" frames for playback.)
  • Slide Show Duration: Determines the interval length between images, from one to 60 seconds.
  • Slide Show Repeat: Sets whether the slide show repeats after the last image or not.
  
  
• Playback 3
• DPOF Set: Allows you to set up images for subsequent printing on a DPOF (Digital Print Order Format)-compliant output device. You can select individual images, marked images, or all images on the card for printing. You can also cancel print settings.
• Date Print: Turns the Date Print function on or off. If on, a DPOF printer will print the date on all images in the current print order.
• Index Print: Turns the Index Print function on or off. If on, a DPOF printer will print an index page of all images on the memory card.
• Email Copy: Makes a low-resolution copy of the selected image or marked images. You can make copies of either the current image alone, or of multiple images you've marked separately. Email copy images are stored in a separate "EM" folder on the memory card. (This is a fairly rare and very handy option, although I somewhat prefer Sony's implementation of it, in which the camera can be set to automatically make email-sized copies of all images as they're captured.)

Setup Mode: The following Setup menu options are accessible through both the Record and Playback menu screens, as a separate tab on the far right:

• Setup 1
  • LCD Brightness: Adjusts the brightness of the LCD display, with 11 steps of brightness adjustment possible.
  • Power Save: Sets the camera to shut itself off after 1, 3, 5, or 10 minutes of inactivity.
  • Instant Playback: Turns the Instant Playback function on or off, which displays an image immediately post-capture. If enabled, the review time can be set to two or 10 seconds.
  • Lens Accessory: Specifies whether the Wide Converter lens accessory is in use.
  • Language: Changes the menu language to Japanese, English, German, French, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, or Swedish.
  
  
• Setup 2
• File # Memory: Specifies whether file numbering starts over when a card is reformatted, or a new card is inserted, or whether the numbering continues sequentially regardless of card status.
• Folder Name: You can have the camera name the folders it stores its images in on the memory card using either the camera's standard scheme, or by Date. (The latter being a handy way to keep track of photos you've shot over a period of time.)
• Date Time Set: Sets the camera's internal calendar and clock.
• Date Imprint: Turns the date imprint function on or off, overlaying the date on captured images when enabled.


• Setup 3
• Reset Default: Resets all camera settings to their defaults.
• Audio Signals: Turns the camera's beep sounds on or off. You can select between a beep sound or a click sound.
• Focus Signal: Turns the camera's focus sounds on or off. You can select between a long single beep or short double beep sound.
• Shutter FX: Specifies the sound the shutter makes when the Shutter button is pressed, or disables the shutter sound. You can select between the sound of the Dynax / Maxxum 9 SLR, or the CLE compact rangefinder.
• Volume: Sets the audio signal volume to 1 (low), 2, or 3 (high). Playback of movie sounds are not affected by this setting.


• Setup 4
  • Video Output: Selects the video signal timing as either NTSC or PAL.
  • Transfer Mode: Selects either Data Storage or PictBridge USB transfer modes.
  • Digital Zoom: Turns the 4x digital zoom on and off. (Digital zoom only engages after the lens has been zoomed all the way to its max telephoto.)
  • Self-Timer: Sets the Self-Timer duration to two or 10 seconds.
  
  

The DiMAGE Z5 uses Secure Digital or MultiMediaCard memory cards for image storage, and ships with a 16MB memory card - enough to test the camera works when it arrives, but essentially useless after that first test (since it only fits four images at the highest resolution / quality). Third-party SD cards are available separately in memory capacities as high as two gigabytes, and I'd recommend purchasing at least a 128MB card to accompany the camera. The SD slot is on the bottom of the camera, covered by a hinged plastic door that opens easily and snaps shut crisply. The card inserts with the connector edge going in first, and the front of the card facing the back of the camera. As is always the case with SD card slots, the card is removed by gently pressing on it - a spring-loaded mechanism will pop it out far enough to pull from the camera with your fingertips. One oversight that I noted in my review of the DiMAGE Z3 remains in this camera. The SD card door has no latch on it to prevent it accidentally opening. While you're unlikely to lose the SD card from the slot, since it is slightly recessed into the bottom of the camera, I'm concerned that the door itself could catch on clothing or some other object, and perhaps be damaged. The card door is also too close to the tripod mount to allow memory cards to be changed with the camera on a tripod - something I'm particularly quick to notice, given the number of tripod-mounted sample images we take for an Imaging Resource review!

In addition to the switch found on SD cards which allows them to be write-protected or locked against erasure or manipulation, the DiMAGE Z5 lets you lock individual images or groups of images through the Playback menu. Once protected, images cannot be erased or manipulated in any way, except through card formatting. The Playback menu also lets you delete images shown in the LCD display, view an index display, create a custom slide show, set images up for printing on DPOF compliant printers, and copy images via camera memory to a new SD card.

Four image resolution settings are available: 2,560 x 1,920; 2,048 x 1,536; 1,600 x 1,200; and 640 x 480 pixels. Files may be saved in any one of three JPEG compression levels. The number of remaining images that can be stored on the memory card appears in the lower right corner of the LCD or Electronic Viewfinder, in addition to the selected Resolution and Compression settings.

The table below summarizes the compression ratios and number of images that can be stored on a 128MB memory card, with each Resolution / Quality (JPEG Compression) combination. (No card is provided with the camera, but 128MB is a common card size that's probably about the minimum you should consider for use with the Z5.)

A USB 2.0 "Full Speed" (the slow version of USB 2.0) cable and interface software accompany the DiMAGE Z5 for quick connection and image downloading to a PC or Macintosh computer. It appears as a "storage class" USB device, meaning that no driver software is needed for Mac OS versions 8.6 or later or for Windows Me, 2000, and XP. Downloading files to my Sony desktop running Windows XP (Pentium IV, 2.4 GHz), I clocked it at 792 KBytes/second, a good but not remarkable rate. (Cameras with slow USB interfaces run as low as 300 KB/s, cameras with fast v1.1 interfaces run as high as 600 KB/s. Cameras with USB v2.0 interfaces run as fast as several megabytes/second.)

When its USB interface is set to PTP mode, the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 supports direct printing (no computer required) to PictBridge compatible photo printers. The extent of PictBridge support varies greatly between cameras, and the Z5's support is more robust than many. Provide that it's connected to a printer that offers an equivalent level of support and control, you can select paper size, bordered or borderless, print quality, and date imprint options directly from the camera's menu system. (Very slick.)

Recommended Software: Rescue your Photos!
Since we're talking about connectivity and memory cards, this would be a good place to mention recovering images from damaged memory cards: Just as important as an extra memory card is a tool to rescue your images when one of your cards fails at some point in the future. I get a lot of email from readers who've lost photos due to a corrupted memory card. Memory card corruption can happen with any card type and any camera manufacturer, nobody's immune. A surprising number of "lost" images can be recovered with an inexpensive, easy to use piece of software though. Given the amount of email I've gotten on the topic, I now include this paragraph in all my digicam reviews. The program you need is called PhotoRescue, by DataRescue SA. Read our review of it if you'd like, but download the program now, so you'll have it. It doesn't cost a penny until you need it, and even then it's only $29, with a money back guarantee. So download PhotoRescue for Windows or PhotoRescue for Mac while you're thinking of it. (While you're at it, download the PDF manual and quickstart guide as well.) Stash the file in a safe place and it'll be there when you need it. Trust me, needing this is not a matter of if, but when... PhotoRescue is about the best and easiest tool for recovering digital photos I've seen. (Disclosure: IR gets a small commission from sales of the product, but I'd highly recommend the program even if we didn't.) OK, now back to our regularly scheduled review...

The Konica Minolta Z5 provides a video output jack with an accompanying video cable. The signal timing can be set to NTSC or PAL via the Setup menu. The Video output duplicates the contents of the LCD in all modes, permitting it to be used as an auxiliary viewfinder.

Power

The Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 uses four AA batteries for power. Following are projected run times with "standard" 1600 mAh cells. (Note that modern NiMH cells have true capacities as high as 2100-2200 mAh, so your run times could easily be 30% longer than shown in the table below.)

Packaged with the DiMAGE Z5 are the following items:

• Neck strap.
• Lens cap with strap.
• Accessory shoe cap.
• AV cable.
• USB cable.
• 16MB SD memory card.
• Four single-use AA alkaline batteries.
• DiMAGE Viewer v2.3.7 (Windows / Mac OS) CD-ROM.
• Operating manual and registration card.

Recommended Accessories

• Large capacity SD memory card. (These days, 128MB is a good tradeoff between cost and capacity.)
• Two sets of rechargeable AA batteries and battery charger.
• AC adapter.
• Small camera case.

Test Results

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

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.

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.

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