First Look at:
Minolta Dimage 1500 EX

By: Bill Garrett

(Editors Note: This article was written and prepared entirely by Imaging Resource reader Bill Garrett. The opinions and conclusions are his, and the article is exactly as he submitted it to us. (Bill wins the "devoted reader of the year" award!) Minolta has promised us a review unit of the 1500 EX sometime shortly after Comdex, but what with Comdex and Thanksgiving lumped together it will likely be early December before we can get our own 1500 presentation posted. In the meantime, here's an excellent user review describing what the camera is like to use, and comparing it with other cameras the author has owned. One note: The images linked to by the in-line ones below are exactly as taken from the camera, saved at the highest quality setting. We'd thought this was "lossless" JPEG, but reader Ben Jackson gave us the true scoop (thanks Ben!): It's standard JPEG, but at a VERY low compression ratio. As a result, they're huge, so either have a fast internet link, or a lot of patience in downloading them! Thanks again, Bill - What a great contribution!)

Pictures of the Dimage EX can be found at: http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/pc/docs/article/980908/minolta.htm

Pictures from the Dimage EX were taken by the author at full resolution with no lossy compression. Inline picture are jpeg shrunk and saved at Photoshop quality level of 8.

Included in the box:
Dimage EX Body
Dimage EX 7-21mm (35mm equiv ~ 38-115mm) Zoom Lens F3.5-F5.6
NeoPrene snug case
PC Connection Cable and Macintosh Adapter
Video Connection Cable
8 MB Minolta Brand Compact Flash Card
4 Panasonic Alkaline Batteries
Hand Strap
Camera Manual/Software Manual
Digita Desktop Software

Available Optionally:
AC Adapter Dimage

Not Available
Lens Cap (although the actual optics seem to be protected behind a built in filter)

As with many of us who have lived through the early days of Digital Photography, I eagerly await each new camera as if it were the Holy Grail. I manage to thoroughly convince myself that underpaid engineers locked in back rooms have discovered secrets of the universe needed to fulfill my personal digital camera wish list. Not surprisingly the manufacturers marketing departments do not do much to dampen my expectations. This explains partly why new digital cameras always disappoint me. Most are undeniable improvements from the previous generation both in picture quality as well as in gadget features but they still fall short of that elusive camera that is made of titanium like my G2, fits in a pocket like the MX-700, has changeable lenses (based on some not yet defined standard), hot shoe and flash sync, variable compression ratios, changeable CCD, cooks dinner for me,·.

(Ed. Note: File below is BIG - 1056K!)

First Expandable Consumer Digital Camera?

Into this world of very high expectations comes the Minolta Dimage 1500 EX. Early marketing for the EX stressed the remarkable modularity and upgradeability of the camera. The lens/ccd was replaceable, other modules, such as a flash hot shoe, could be snapped in when needed, and the camera was built around Flashpointâs upgradeable Digita camera operating system.

Perhaps the best news about this camera is that all of the above expandability is actually present in the production camera. A Minolta engineer at WB Hunts Photo Show where I bought the camera indicated that a Wide Angle lens would be available before years end, a flash module early next year (both pictured above) and a 2 megapixel lens/CCD module sometime next year as well. The camera comes shipped with version 1.0 of the Digita operating System and if my experience with the Kodak DC260 is any indication we can expect upgrades on that front as well.

The camera has two main pieces: a body/LCD/flash unit, that presumably has the microprocessor and brains of the camera, and a lens/ccd unit. The lens/ccd attaches to the body with a slight tilt and snaps firmly into place with no undue insertion force required. A lever on the bottom of the body allows for lens release. The zoom lens is not threaded. The body and lens unit fit very firmly together and have a good solid feel about them. The EX is a very "plasticy" camera. Offhand I don't believe any of the external of the camera is made from metal aside from the fitting screws. I prefer digital cameras made more like the Fuji MX-700 and have to admit that this was a disappointment.

Camera Operation

The EX is a small camera, somwehere between the size of the Fuji MX700 and the Nikon CP700. It fits well into my smallish hands and allows me to take firm steady shots without an excess of shaking. The camera's LCD is extruded a bit from the back of the body instead of being flush. I'm not crazy about the way this looks but it is very functional. The camera's LCD must be used for all camera status checking, there is no seperate display as on the Fuji MX700 or Kodak DC260. In addition, status can only be changed while the LCD is previewing in record mode- this is inconvenient and I miss the dedicated status displays of other digital cameras.

The EX takes four AA batteries in a compartment that is loaded from the bottom of the camera. This compartment also hosts the compact flash card. An arrangement that I really dislike: I usually transfer images either using a CompactFlash reader or through PCMCIA adapters. Having to open the battery door to get access to the cards is made more inconvenient by the fact that the door is made of what looks like thin plastic,a nd so I worry about breaking it, and only rotates back 90 degrees.

I did not experiment much with the EX's serial connection, but to use it you remove the lens/ccd unit and attach the serial connector to the side of the camera. The included software looks similar to that of most other digital cameras. The EX also has an IR port allowing IRDA 1.0 transfer of pictures to PC and to other Digita based cameras. Using IR to connect to a PC also allows the PC to control the camera remotely. The EX also has a video out cable that I have not experimented with.

The rear of the EX is covered with tiny buttons (the body has 11 small buttons, a slide switch and a contrast control for the LCD, the rear of the lens unit has a further two buttons). There are four buttons in a cursor configuration that control the cameras GUI while navigating through menus, and control zooming of the lens and exposure compensation (in 1/3ev steps) while taking pictures. The LCD has three softkeys dedicated to functions on the LCD. While in record mode, and with the LCD active, these softkeys control record type (still, burst--up to 7 full resolution frames at 3.5 fps and time lapse--you set the interval), flash type (all the normal stuff with red eye), and program mode. Program mode is pretty interesting. The camera, like most amateur SLR's, allows the setting of various program modes that bias aperature and shutter speed. Modes include settings for portrait mode, landscape mode, night mode, slow sync mode, and so on. What makes these somewhat different from an SLR's program modes is that the camera also performs rudimentary image processing (such as noise reduction and sharpening) on images based on the mode it is in when the image is taken. It doesn't appear to do major harm to the pictures and might be suitable as a poor mans photoshop.

There are dedicated buttons for status, overlay and menu underneath the LCD softkeys. The status key brings up a display showing information such as the number of shots taken, flash status and so on. Information is not editable on the status display. The menu keys brings up the menu as you would expect and the overlay key controls what extra information appears on the LCD while you are previewing.

(Ed. Note: File below is BIG - 1267K!)

Using the Dimage 1500EX

The EX takes around 10 seconds to start up. Once underway, operation of the EX is quite similar to the Kodak DC260, another Digita based camera. A slide control next to the LCD controls which mode you are in: Record, Play, Review, or PC. Ad addendum to the documentation informs us that the camera should only be turned on in the Record or Play modes (you get a cryptic error message when turning on the camera in the other modes). Record mode is where pictures are taken. Play mode allows full screen view of the pictures. Review mode shows thumbnails of the pictures and allows marking pictures for deletion and the creation and maintainence of folders.

The Kodak DC260 combines the EXs' review and play mode into one mode and is somewhat more straightforward and easier to use than the EX, but neither is difficult and first time users should be able to adapt quickly. In addition to the Digita GUI the EX also comes standard with the normal Digita scripts for doing things like exposure bracketing and changing the white balance. All in all its a very flexible interface that can grow and expand as needed.

While I prefer the more intuitive interfaces of several other digital cameras I think that the possibility of future expansion with Digita outweighs most negatives for me.

The EX is one of a new generation of camera's starting with the Kodak DC260 and also including the recently announced OLY 620L that try to speed up the picture taking process. My experiences with the DC260 did not lead me to believe that this was a very important feature. Yes I was able to take two full resolution shots one right after the other with no delay, but I found that the ability to do that did not greatly increase my productivity. the OLY 620L promises to let me take 5 shots in succession. The EX lets me take seven shots one right after the other (the camera has 16MB of memory to buffer unprocessed images in, a busy light near the power switch lets you know that the camera is background processing earlier shots but leaves you free to take more shots if you wish). I find that this is one of the best features of the EX. Seven shots is enough for me so that in normal operation I pretty much always have use of the camera with no delay. In other words in my normal picture taking mode, even when I'm trying to track my fast moving 2 year old, by the time I get to the eighth shot the camera has already finished processing the first one or two and is ready to keep going. I cannot describe how much more useful this makes using a digital camera to me. I highly recommend this feature and believe this kind of feature needs to become ubiquitous before digital cameras come close to replacing traditional 35mm for normal use.

Aside from the added speed, the EX feels much like any other digital camera when taking pictures. Pictures can be framed in the optical viewfinder or on the LCD. The viewfinder has parallax markings and two lcds to the left of the viewfinder indicating focus and flash mode. The viewfinders coverage seems to be about typical of other current digital cameras. It should be noted that since the viewfinder is on the lens/ccd module, coverage is dependent on the lens used. The EX's flash seems to have a decent range and a fast recycle time. The flash also serves to help focus in darkened rooms. When the EX can't autofocus correctly due to darkness it strobes the flash quickly to provide it with some extra light to autofocus in. This strobing often made the difference for me in low light conditions. The LCD is similar to the LCD on the Kodak DC260. Which is to say that it doesn't compare to say the Nikon CP900 or the Fuji MX700. It is slow to refresh and grainy looking. I'm beginning to believe that this is a Digita limitation (feature?) as all of the Digita cameras I've seen (the two Kodaks and now the EX) have basically the same LCD. The zoom lens has a macro mode which focuses down at the telephoto end to a little over a foot. This allows a business card sized image to fill the frame. Shooting in macro mode requires the use of manual focus. The lens zooms out, the LCD turns on and you use the cursor buttons to manually focus the lens. Manual focus is extremely touchy and its imperative that the camera be tripod mounted. Manual focusing involves using a scale on the LCD that moves to the left or right in ten steps to indicate the degree of correct focus (this is necessary because using the LCD to manual focus is impossible). This system is similar to manual focusing on my Contax G2 35mm rangefinder, and works well enough.

The EX has four compression modes ranging from a 1:1 non-lossy compression mode that generates pictures ranging in size from 1.2mb to 1.7mb (the pictures are still compressed just in a way that doesn't result in loss of picture information), all the way down to economy mode which leads to 1:40 compression ratios. The EX also allows quarter resolution shots taken at 640x480.

(Ed. Note: File below is BIG - 1948K!!)

Picture Quality

I am to date very impressed with the picture quality of the EX. I find that I have a higher percentage of in focus shots than with several other digital cameras, such as the Kodak DC260. I typically use a 48MB compact flash card in Super HQ mode leading to images over a megabyte in size and a maximum of 25-30 images on my card. Images from the EX are sharp and typically accurate in color. I do find that occasionaly the automatic color balance needs to be set manually for indoor shots. The EX does not have spot metering, which I think is a big omission, buts its evaluative metering system is superior to many other cameras I've used and has been solid in many tricky lighting conditions. I took the three pictures included in this first look all within several hours of buying the EX. You can click through the pictures to get access to their full size counterparts for comparison purposes.

Peter Vaktor, another early purchaser of the EX and contributor to rec.photo.digital, has discovered noticeable vignetting on shots taken at the zoom lens' full wide angle position. I've largely reproduced his results, so if you often take pictures at a cameras widest angle a caveat emptor is in order. I normally prefer a more normal or portrait position for the zoom so this doesn't noticeably bother me--if it occurred on the seperate wide angle lens, I would be considerably more concerned however.

Conclusions

I think the EX is a fairly large step forward in terms of usability (due mainly to the absence of annoying delays and expandibility) and a good step forward in terms of picture quality. I would prefer it if the EX was aluminum or titanium and had slightly larger buttons and fewer of them, but as it stands I wouldn't hesitate to purchase to buy the EX again.

- Thanks, Bill!