Home > Consumer Reviews > Minolta Dimage S404 Digital Camera [4.1MP 4xOptical]

After spending ages rummaging through all the usual digicam mags I eventually chose the Minolta Dimage S404.Was I impressed? Well...is the sea wet? (I thought that bit was funny) My first attempts gave awesome crystal clear images in standard mode...and the colour reproduction was excellent. It vindicated my decision not to go with a cutsie wootsie fit in your wallet compact camera, although marvels of technology I felt you did still compromise some picture quality .
The host of features on the camera has kept me busy, such as bracketing,movie mode, adding sound bytes to images....and I really liked the sound effects...yes I know I'm sad. The camera oozes quality and feels well constructed and the not-so-fiddely controls are easy to understand and operate... I'm enjoying learning the art of photography with the manual option, its great when you can just download and review your results...although David Baily hasn't too much to worry about.......yet!.
I had a bit of trouble loading the software but that was probably down to me being too eager and not using the RTFM procedure( READ THE F***ING MANUAL).
The USB connection between the camera and the PC seemed a bit sloppy so you should really get a card reader...much easier and much faster.
All in all I'm chuffed to bits with the S404...

Eighteen months on and I am pleased to say that the S404 is an excellent Compact Digital Camera. The quality (lens) is very good and most of the time (95%) the exposure too. There is exposure bracketing available but I have never bothered to use it. I have fiddled around with the quality settings and have found little difference between Standard and the higher settings. By modern standards the S404 is quite big and heavy but exceptionally strong and very well built. You will definitely need a good set of rechargeable batteries; I have taken about 70 pictures with flash and 130 without flash - each on a separate recharge (2000mh). It has a macro mode which can produce crisp results but the LCD view finder is not very accurate at this close range so you will need to experiment a bit. The manual mode is excellent and allows full control over metering and focus patterns. I would also recommend buying a separate card reader as the built in USB port does not appear to be very substantial.

Overall I wouldn't have problem recommending this Camera to anyone as it represents fantastic value for money (at this quality). The newer model (S414) which replaces it should be even better (it's cheaper).