Home > Consumer Reviews > Minolta DiMAGE S414 Digital Camera [4MP 4xOptical]

The S414 is a 'brick' of a camera so if you want slimline and lightweight, this is not the camera for you. The image quality however is excellent and this camera has a lot of good features.

It is very easy to use, starts up fast and recycles qucikly. It also has a very good 'consecutive frames' feature that allows you to take numerous shots at a time - great for action shot photography.

My biggest criticism is that the autofocus is variable and I have a not insignificant number of shots completeley out of focus. This is dissapointing when you consider the standards of autofocus technology currently available.

still very very happy with this camera.

feels solid, take great pics and it has survived being dropped onto concrete twice! i love the accuracy of the colour capture, the depth of detail and the speed at which the camera works. i have used many cameras of 'higher' resolution now but this one keeps delivering better results in terms of colour matching, contrast and that 'je ne sais quoi' that all great cameras have.

i've used it to take 10 inch by 16 inch prints and have never been let down. the limit on this camera is the size of your imagination and the size of your printer.

Excellent value for a semi professinal camera. Almost got everything I wanted in a digital camera. This is my first digital and I am delighted with the results. Excellent picture quality - easy to use. Even my 10 year old daughter can use it with ease. Didn't even bother to read the manual. Very user friendly. Lots of extras for the price. I have no complains. However, Minolta could have designed the lens cap little bit better - bit of a nuisnace when you see the lens cap dangling. Battery life is bit short - I bought 3 sets of AA 2000 mAh Ni-Mh and a 1 hour fast charger + a 128 MB flash card. An excellent camera for the price and whole family is delighted with the results. Tamrac 5693 is ideal for case.

I bought this camera in june 2003. I was tempted to put in a good review immediately but thought I'd use it for a while to get low down on any 'quirky' things. I'm very glad to say I haven't found any and recommend you buy this. I get photo's to die for, and with a decent printer(I use Epson photo 895)you can blow it up to full A4 size with no pixelation. It feels great in your hands cos some makes are to small and fiddly, and looks good aswell. Please use nickel hydride rechargeables(they have no memory and last longer) or duracells though as brand new so called super power batteries wont even start it up sometimes. Another helpful tip which may save buyers time is what case to buy.... I bought the 'Tamrac digital bag' model no.5693. It fits very well in this giving adequate but not O.T.T. protection, it'll hold batteries and straps aswell. good shootin people.

Well I did my research, nosed around the internet for road tests, read magazine reviews, obviously read the other amazon reviews here and decided that this was the camera for me. It was bought from amazon (in the meantime I'd ordered and charged some 2200Mah rechargeable batteries in eager anticipation) and as soon as it was out of the box, batteries and flash card installed I was using the camera. As usual I didn't read the manual - you really don't need to to start taking photos. In use the usual delay between pushing the button and actually taking a photo is almost negligible infact it's almost the same as my Dynax 5 - definitely better than one of my friends' Fuji.

If you're looking for a digital camera which'll give you the option to take snaps or get more artisic at a really good price then just buy it ! But get some high capacity rechargeable batteries.