-
Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.
Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Minolta Z5. (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Henry B
- Start date
psilo
Well-known member
I have found all your comments very interesting. I was in a quandry for ages as to whether to buy the z5 or to go for a slr. I have been an avid user of the Z1 for about 18 months and as a first serious zoom camera it suited me very well.
I think all these camera shop sellers do is read the reviews. I certainly dont think they have ever used them. If anyone doubts the abilities of this camera (and I am sure the z5 is even better) then visit my website below.
As mentioned above as a first camera it is excellent. It has a good fast focus and is easy to operate. The only thing that really annoyed me was the endless fine tuning the camera needed for nearly ever shot (in semi automatic) If you are after real quality then an slr is what is really needed. In the end I opted for the canon 300d and when doing a comparison of like for like shot there simply is no comparison. In the end the old adage is true. You get what you pay for
I think all these camera shop sellers do is read the reviews. I certainly dont think they have ever used them. If anyone doubts the abilities of this camera (and I am sure the z5 is even better) then visit my website below.
As mentioned above as a first camera it is excellent. It has a good fast focus and is easy to operate. The only thing that really annoyed me was the endless fine tuning the camera needed for nearly ever shot (in semi automatic) If you are after real quality then an slr is what is really needed. In the end I opted for the canon 300d and when doing a comparison of like for like shot there simply is no comparison. In the end the old adage is true. You get what you pay for
Woody
Well-known member
Quacker said:
You're probably right, the camera shop in question was a Jessops - I've not been impressed with thier advice since they sold me a £500 lens which would not work with my SLR. It was fine until you put film in the camera then it all went pear shaped. I only mentioned his comment as extra 'grist for the mill.'
I think the z5 will be a great little camera with good capabilities for many people, that's why it has taken me so long to decide between it and the z20.
After all's said and done you have to go with what feels right for you as an individual and that's why it is so important to try these gadgets out before you buy.
Woody
psilo
Well-known member
Woody said:
This is so right. For me the proof was in the pudding. The Z series is great for close up work and the macros lens is quite superb but for any kind of distance work, despite the 10x optocal zoom , the quality just isnt there. There is far too much noise, which is why in the end I went for the slr.
Alastair Rae
London birder
The problem in low light is the lack of an autofocus assist light. The sad thing is that the image stabilising should make it really good for available light shooting.Quacker said:
I have a Z3 and am more than pleased with its daylight performance. The IS makes the extra zoom usable hand-held.
Focus is a tradeoff with this one.
I'll second both these points... (Does that mean I'm fourthing the overall post?)
The focus limitations, I think, reflect the fact that this camera is aiming squarely at amateur nature photographers. An assist light would be great for birthday parties, wouldn't it? I don't see how it's going to help with bitterns a quarter mile away.
My rambling personal review, based on having my Z5 for a week and taking it out a handful of times, would go something like:
Like everyone posting, I was tempted by this as a potential "in between" choice. While I would like to imagine spending my spare hours carefully coaxing a Leica scope with dSLR into taking near-professional shots from my shrewdly-placed blind, my few scopes and my old film SLR taught me that life just won't work out that way often enough to justify the expense. (My expeditions on that scale mostly involve getting two 11-year-olds into the car with our newfie.) But a 12x, image stabilized zoom on something I can carry in my jacket pocket? That's a real sweet spot. The Z5 also has some other minor edges over the competition in my book -- 5MP to Canon's 3.2, AA batteries so one can use rechargeables but there's backup in a pinch, 12x as opposed to 10x, a truly thoughtful design that I liked *much* better than Canon's or Panasonic's on balance.
The Z5 does sometimes struggle focusing in low light and indoors. I would have been closer to ecstatic with this camera if its manual focus was something like an old fashioned ring on the front of the lens mounting. Instead you're using a little rocker "menu pad" for focus, and like many ill-chosen digital controls it's slower and less flexible and less pleasing than the analog original.
In low, pre-dawn light at the higher end of its zoom, I've gotten fairly noisy images. In general, in anything but full daylight you're going to get noisier results the higher the zoom goes. (Anyone ever looked through a middle-class zoom scope? This tradeoff will not be new to you. It's certainly a useable image for documenting a bird, but it's not going to win you any art prizes without some real creativity on your part.)
I followed the advice of the Digital Camera Resource site and have been perfectly happy with the sharpness set to "hard" in the manual settings. On default settings the words "somewhat soft" would be accurate.
As for dramatic pluses, the IS is a godsend. On the long end of the zoom in true daylight I'm perfectly happy with the results, and I've gotten more than a few real smiles just while learning my way along. After some experimentation, I'm finding the various drive settings and the autofocus approaches I need to use with them. It's got a healthy range of burst modes for this grade of camera, 10 fps for up to 20 shots at a time if you'll give up some resolution, and among the best possible "movie modes" out there if you care about that. I've found some minor annoyances -- certain drive modes that black out the viewfinder at inopportune moments -- but with some experience and more conscious use, I'm sure these are going to be useful.
I'm also very pleasantly surprised with the results I've gotten using the Z5's Macro and "Super Macro" modes. I'm a prairie gardener -- plants native to Minnesota in this case -- and as spring gets along here I'm very happily anticipating flowers, bugs, and especially the spiders, in my garden. Hummingbirds near our Colorado cabin have me practically salivating to use normal macro mode and the zoom from a few feet away. Especially with the time to go fully manual, spiders will be a wonder.
Main Pros (next to competition):
Longer zoom than some with solid IS feature, macro modes, burst modes, movie mode, several other practical details that convince me I'll use this more than I would use the alternatives. (As they say [abbreviate] in IM, "your mileage may vary" on those practical points.)
Main Cons:
Focus in low light/indoors, especially at higher zoom. Obviously is not a digital SLR... but then I'm pretty convinced I'll use this much more often than I would an SLR.
Do what I did and compare it in person next to the other options on something like the Digital Camera Resource site. The Panasonic models were tops on my list until I tried them all, and I'd thought I was going to go with the somewhat older Canon model with the 10x and 3.2 MB resolution.
Alastair Rae said:
I'll second both these points... (Does that mean I'm fourthing the overall post?)
The focus limitations, I think, reflect the fact that this camera is aiming squarely at amateur nature photographers. An assist light would be great for birthday parties, wouldn't it? I don't see how it's going to help with bitterns a quarter mile away.
My rambling personal review, based on having my Z5 for a week and taking it out a handful of times, would go something like:
Like everyone posting, I was tempted by this as a potential "in between" choice. While I would like to imagine spending my spare hours carefully coaxing a Leica scope with dSLR into taking near-professional shots from my shrewdly-placed blind, my few scopes and my old film SLR taught me that life just won't work out that way often enough to justify the expense. (My expeditions on that scale mostly involve getting two 11-year-olds into the car with our newfie.) But a 12x, image stabilized zoom on something I can carry in my jacket pocket? That's a real sweet spot. The Z5 also has some other minor edges over the competition in my book -- 5MP to Canon's 3.2, AA batteries so one can use rechargeables but there's backup in a pinch, 12x as opposed to 10x, a truly thoughtful design that I liked *much* better than Canon's or Panasonic's on balance.
The Z5 does sometimes struggle focusing in low light and indoors. I would have been closer to ecstatic with this camera if its manual focus was something like an old fashioned ring on the front of the lens mounting. Instead you're using a little rocker "menu pad" for focus, and like many ill-chosen digital controls it's slower and less flexible and less pleasing than the analog original.
In low, pre-dawn light at the higher end of its zoom, I've gotten fairly noisy images. In general, in anything but full daylight you're going to get noisier results the higher the zoom goes. (Anyone ever looked through a middle-class zoom scope? This tradeoff will not be new to you. It's certainly a useable image for documenting a bird, but it's not going to win you any art prizes without some real creativity on your part.)
I followed the advice of the Digital Camera Resource site and have been perfectly happy with the sharpness set to "hard" in the manual settings. On default settings the words "somewhat soft" would be accurate.
As for dramatic pluses, the IS is a godsend. On the long end of the zoom in true daylight I'm perfectly happy with the results, and I've gotten more than a few real smiles just while learning my way along. After some experimentation, I'm finding the various drive settings and the autofocus approaches I need to use with them. It's got a healthy range of burst modes for this grade of camera, 10 fps for up to 20 shots at a time if you'll give up some resolution, and among the best possible "movie modes" out there if you care about that. I've found some minor annoyances -- certain drive modes that black out the viewfinder at inopportune moments -- but with some experience and more conscious use, I'm sure these are going to be useful.
I'm also very pleasantly surprised with the results I've gotten using the Z5's Macro and "Super Macro" modes. I'm a prairie gardener -- plants native to Minnesota in this case -- and as spring gets along here I'm very happily anticipating flowers, bugs, and especially the spiders, in my garden. Hummingbirds near our Colorado cabin have me practically salivating to use normal macro mode and the zoom from a few feet away. Especially with the time to go fully manual, spiders will be a wonder.
Main Pros (next to competition):
Longer zoom than some with solid IS feature, macro modes, burst modes, movie mode, several other practical details that convince me I'll use this more than I would use the alternatives. (As they say [abbreviate] in IM, "your mileage may vary" on those practical points.)
Main Cons:
Focus in low light/indoors, especially at higher zoom. Obviously is not a digital SLR... but then I'm pretty convinced I'll use this much more often than I would an SLR.
Do what I did and compare it in person next to the other options on something like the Digital Camera Resource site. The Panasonic models were tops on my list until I tried them all, and I'd thought I was going to go with the somewhat older Canon model with the 10x and 3.2 MB resolution.
138mph
Well-known member
Macro mode experience
Does anyone have experiences, good or bad, with photographing bugs, butterflies, etc with this camera? I currently use a Canon 20D and use a Tamron 28-300 zoom for such images - if I am carrying it, if not I have to stand about 5 feet (1.5m) away to use my 300 f4 macro+1.4x teleconverter. So I have been considering getting a 150 or 180mm macro lens, which would bring the minimum focus down to about 1 foot (30cm).
An obvious alternative is to have something like the Z5 with which I would hope to be able to use much closer to the subject, and maybe get a bigger depth of field. And it should still allow me to take pictures of dragonflies and butterflies perched 20 feet (6m) away.
Examples of what I would be aiming to at least equal:
Tamron (okay but not exactly sharp):
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/57112/sort/2/cat/all/page/1
Canon (one of my better efforts, but it was really awkward getting a clear shot from 5 feet and is only all in focus because the subject is wings closed):
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/48643/sort/2/cat/all/page/1
and to demonstrate difficulty of getting the focus correct when you don't have a clear view of the subject:
http://www.eimagesite.net/s1/gst/run.cgi?action=imagen&prid=2114
I have better shots than these, I am just saying its the minimum I would be aiming for.
PS what is the start up time?
Thanks
Hugh
Does anyone have experiences, good or bad, with photographing bugs, butterflies, etc with this camera? I currently use a Canon 20D and use a Tamron 28-300 zoom for such images - if I am carrying it, if not I have to stand about 5 feet (1.5m) away to use my 300 f4 macro+1.4x teleconverter. So I have been considering getting a 150 or 180mm macro lens, which would bring the minimum focus down to about 1 foot (30cm).
An obvious alternative is to have something like the Z5 with which I would hope to be able to use much closer to the subject, and maybe get a bigger depth of field. And it should still allow me to take pictures of dragonflies and butterflies perched 20 feet (6m) away.
Examples of what I would be aiming to at least equal:
Tamron (okay but not exactly sharp):
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/57112/sort/2/cat/all/page/1
Canon (one of my better efforts, but it was really awkward getting a clear shot from 5 feet and is only all in focus because the subject is wings closed):
http://www.birdforum.net/pp_gallery/showphoto.php/photo/48643/sort/2/cat/all/page/1
and to demonstrate difficulty of getting the focus correct when you don't have a clear view of the subject:
http://www.eimagesite.net/s1/gst/run.cgi?action=imagen&prid=2114
I have better shots than these, I am just saying its the minimum I would be aiming for.
PS what is the start up time?
Thanks
Hugh
Last edited:
Quacker
Well-known member
Just re-read this as I recently parted with this camera. Now I collect optics and hate parting with them but I sort of kept it in the family. Last year I purchased my other half a Samsung camera (7x optical zoom) which proved a little tricky to use.
So I swapped for the point-and-shoot Z5 and its 12x optical. So this 3 year old plus camera has a new lease of life and being used for non-birding but everyday family moments. Perhaps that's what it should have been for all along. It's results are brilliant - stick it on auto and go.
So I swapped for the point-and-shoot Z5 and its 12x optical. So this 3 year old plus camera has a new lease of life and being used for non-birding but everyday family moments. Perhaps that's what it should have been for all along. It's results are brilliant - stick it on auto and go.
