"Picky Details" for the Minolta DiMAGE G500 digital camera
(Timing, Power, and Storage Info)
Timing
I measure both cycle times and shutter delay times, using a test system I designed
and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.)
Here are the numbers I collected for the DiMAGE G500:
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||
| |
(secs) |
|
| Power On -> First shot | |
Lens telescopes out
before camera can shoot. Quite fast. |
| Shutdown | |
Lens retracts. A bit faster than average. |
| Play to Record, first shot | |
Time until first shot
is captured, after switching to Record mode. Quite fast. |
| Record to play | |
First time is to display a large/fine
after the image has been fully processed. Second time is for switch
to playback mode immediately after capture. Quite fast. |
| Shutter lag, full autofocus | |
First time is for wide angle, second for telephoto. Both times are very slow. (Average is 0.8 to 1.0 second.) |
| Shutter lag, prefocus | |
Time to capture, after half-pressing
shutter button. Fairly fast. |
| Cycle Time, max/min resolution | |
First numbers are for large/fine files, second number is time for small/basic images. Rather slow, by current standards. |
While it starts up quickly and displays images fairly quickly when switching
from record to playback mode, the G500 is on the whole a rather slow camera.
Its shutter lag times are among the worst (eg, slowest) I've measured in recent
memory, and its cycle times are also very slow by current standards. Definitely
not the camera to pick for sports or action shots...
Power
The G500 uses a 3.6v lithium-ion battery pack for its power source, or
the bundled AC adapter. As the camera's AC adapter employs a "dummy"
battery to connect to the camera, I could not perform my usual power measurements
here. I'd definitely plan on buying a second battery along with the camera
though, since the G500's battery life seems only average for a compact camera
model. (Which means "short.")
Storage Capacity
The Dimage G500 stores its photos on either SD/MMC memory cards or Sony
Memory Sticks, and has 2MB of internal memory. The camera comes bundled with
a 32MB SD card, but I strongly recommend buying at least a 64MB memory
card, to accommodate the camera's large resolution setting.) The chart below
shows how many images can be stored on the included 32MB card at each size/quality
setting.
| Resolution/Quality 32MB Memory Card |
|
|
|
| Full Resolution 2,592 x 1,944 | Images (Avg size) |
13 2,462 KB |
22 1,422 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
6:1 | 11:1 | |
| 2,048 x 1,536 | Images (Avg size) |
23 1,391 KB |
37 853 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
7:1 | 11:1 | |
| 1,600 x 1,200 | Images (Avg size) |
800 KB |
457 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
|
|
|
| |
Images (Avg size) |
228 KB |
114 KB |
| Approx. Compression |
|
|
|
Download Speed
The G500 connects to a host computer via a USB interface. Downloading
files to my Sony VAIO desktop computer (2.4 GHz Pentium IV, running Windows
XP), I clocked it at 174.8 KBytes/second. This is one of the slowest download
speeds I've seen in the last year or so. If purchase a G500, plan on buying
an external card reader along with it, to use for downloading files.
G500 Test Images
G500 Specifications
G500 "Picky Details"
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