Konica Minolta Dimage Z20 user reviews

3.0 stars

"Decent camera for the price" on November 26, 2006 by eepeoples

Pros: Great vivid color, zoom lens and advanced features for a good price

Cons: No image stabilization, problematic in low light, tiny LCD

Summary: I bought this camera in January of this year to begin learning photography. It has all the features you need to learn the basics but, as I soon discovered, it's limitations are extremely constraining if you want to do more than typical snapshots.

To be fair, I'll start with the good news. In medium to bright light the camera works great, takes bright, vivid and sharp color pics. It has a decent set of programmed presets for exposure and white balance and starts up pretty fast. The battery life is very good too. The internal memory is decent feature too and has come in handy a few times when I've run out of external memory.

But now the bad news:

First, the LCD is tiny, only 1" x 1.5", making it difficult to judge whether you really have a good result or not. I've taken shots that looked great when I previewed them only to get them home and find regretable flaws in them that I've have noticed on a bigger LCD.

Second, in low light the autofocus almost useless. I've missed too many great shots because I just couldn't get focused in time if at all. Because the LCD is so small the manual focus is just guesswork so I don't even bother with that, which leaves me dependent on autofocus and nearly helpless in low light situation.

Third, at the highest ISO setting, which is only 320 to begin with, the images get extremely, unacceptably noisy. You're left with the choice of either settling for a noisy picture or shooting with an extremely slow shutter speed, which introduces other problems. Simply put, there are just some shots that aren't even worth trying with this camera.

Overall, I'd recommend this camera for an advanced consumer who wants decent control and flexibility but not for anyone wanting to go beyond souped up point-n-clicking. For my purposes, to practice and learn serious photography, this purchase was a mistake. I knew I would outgrow this camera when I got it but I didn't anticipate it becoming a problem so soon (within just a couple of months of taking classes). What can I say, when you don't you just don't know. If I had it to do over I would go ahead and splurge for an entry-level SLR.

5.0 stars

"Sleeper performer outshines the Z6?" on December 27, 2009 by batvette

Pros: Beautiful pictures, intuitive, simple UI, all lens mechanicals are enclosed and protected from elements, z10's and 20's can be had for a song used on ebay. Excellent form factor, feels like a camera should.
No proprietary batteries! Just use AA's.

Cons: No sound on video, image stabilization sorely missing in night and twilight but full zoom shots in daytime with no tripod are perfectly viable.

Summary: The Z10's and 20's seem to be the sleepers of this line, and several years after KM got out of the business you see Z6's all commanding a lot of bids and top dollar on ebay- with all the owners and pro reviewers complaining of poor image quality. In contrast you see review after review of these supposedly cheaper stepchildren of the line, all praising the performance, and I concurr. I found my z10 in very good condition from a local reseller for just $65 and I am just floored by the image quality. Almost never do I get a bad shot, if I do it's because I pushed the zoom too far in low or no light without a tripod, and not many cameras can do that anyway. IS would be nice and they left out sound on the video, I guess something had to give in the price VS features tug of war. It seems indestructible and a bargain, however. Best money I ever spent!

Updated on Jul 21, 2011

Update, 18 months later. In the meantime I picked up a used z5, mint condition, wanting an upgraded feature set and sound recording, but avoid the allegedly bad picturew quality of the z6. The z5, with MSRP nearly twice the z10, has expanded features, and sad to say all the reported image quality flaws of the Z6. Stick with the z10, anyone who is looking at these (obvious by now used) KM products should know. Sold my z10 to a friend, she's thrilled with it.

4.0 stars

"Great budget ultra-zoom" on July 24, 2006 by limburger2001

Pros: 8x zoom, battery life, manual settings, AA batteries

Cons: No image stabilisation; movie mode doesn't record sound; lens cap could be loss easily

Summary: Very versatile camera - the pro's definitely outweigh the cons in this case. With stellar battery life, manual settings, and a (silent) movie mode, this camera would be the only one I would need for a holiday. Image quality is great (with none of the 'muddiness' that comes with over-compression). Build quality is good for a plastic camera.