Minolta’s Dimage Xi A Tiny Digital Camera with a Very Large Problem
Written: Feb 11 '03
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Pros: Stylish, ultra Compact, 3X zoom, 3 Megapixels
Cons: Weak flash, poor battery life, limited feature set, design/ergonomics, fuzzy pictures
The Bottom Line: Minolta’s Dimage Xi is the smallest three megapixel digicam available, but purchasers looking for a tiny “take it with you everywhere” digital camera will have to accept some compromises.
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| Howard_Creech's Full Review: Konica Minolta DiMAGE Xi Digital Camera |
The Dimage X (introduced last year) was Minolta’s first foray into the popular micro digicam realm, a market segment that’s always been dominated by Canon’s digital elph models. Minolta’s engineers were charged with the daunting task of coming up with a digital camera that was smaller than Canon’s tiny elphs, without scrimping on features. The diminutive second generation Minolta Dimage Xi is a true shirt-pocket sized 3 megapixel digital camera. It measures 3.3X2.8 inches (and less than an inch thick), considerably smaller than Canon’s similarly featured S 230. How well does the Minolta Dimage Xi balance tiny size and reasonable cost with an acceptable level of performance?
Tiny cameras can’t realistically be expected to compete on an equal footing with full sized units in terms of image quality, features, battery life, and overall cost. Consumers who value compact size must be prepared to accept certain trade offs because tiny batteries can’t hold as much power as larger batteries. Lens aberrations will show more clearly in tiny zoom lenses than they would in larger units and the output power from a flash unit that is half the size of a standard postage stamp obviously can’t equal the output power of a unit that is twice or three times as large. Realistically, there are limitations on just how much electronic circuitry engineers can shoehorn into a tiny camera body. Micro digital cameras have, until quite recently, been restricted by technological limitations to 2 megapixel units with 2X zoom lenses. The dizzying pace of digital camera development and ever smaller components have allowed major manufacturers to offer tiny digicams with resolution and features that could only be dreamed about just a couple of years ago.
What’s New?
The new Dimage Xi features 3.3 megapixel resolution and Minolta claims the Xi has the world’s fastest start up time (1.2 seconds). Also new are user selectable ISO settings (the X chose the ISO setting automatically), date imprinting, spot AF, and an improved LCD. The Xi can automatically reduce image file size for quick and easy email copies and Minolta’s proprietary Cx Process technology enhances image quality by helping to control sharpness, color reproduction, tonal gradation and noise. This advanced image enhancement technology was first seen on Minolta's top-of-the-line Dimage 7Hi.
Viewfinder/LCD
The Xi features a standard optical tunnel type real-image zoom viewfinder and a 1.5" LCD screen. The LCD screen is bright (brightness is adjustable via the setup menu), fairly sharp, and color is accurate but there is no anti reflection coating or plastic screen shield. The camera’s LCD screen is completely unprotected so a soft case would be a wise purchase.
EXPOSURE
The Dimagre Xi is a "point-n-shoot" type camera with Programmed auto exposure.
Movie Mode
The tiny Xi can record video clips (with audio) @ 320X240 at 15 fps for up to 35 seconds. Video clips can be viewed on the Xi’s LCD screen or on a TV with the included video out cable.
Audio Mode
In audio recording mode the Xi can be used like a digital voice recorder to capture up to 30 minutes of mono audio or to add 15-second audio notes to still images.
Lens
Minolta’s engineers have managed to stuff a 3X optical zoom lens into a camera that is less than an inch thick by using a unique new design (a prism mounted to the rear of the front lens element is used to fold the light vertically and then direct it to the additional optics which are moved by a very small motor inside (but not in a direct line with the front element) the camera body. The CCD image sensor is actually at the bottom of the camera’s body. The all glass f/2.8-f3.6/37-111 mm (35mm equivalent) features 9 elements in 8 groups (including three aspheric elements for improved color accuracy and resolution) and is very quiet in operation. An automatic lens cap slides over the lens when the camera is powered down.
Manual Focus
The Xi provides no manual focus options
Macro Focus
The Xi doesn't have a dedicated macro mode, but it does allow focus as close as 2 inches, which produces good quality close-up images.
Flash
Built-in multi mode with Auto, fill-flash, red-eye reduction, and Night Portrait modes. Minolta claims a maximum range of 9.5 feet, but 6.5 feet is a more accurate maximum range. The red-eye reduction mode actually works pretty well.
Controls, Design, & Ergonomics
The tiny little Xi is actually quite stylish with a silvery brushed aluminum finish. The camera can be easily dropped into a shirt pocket. Most of the Xi’s controls are arrayed around the 1.5” LCD screen on the rear of the camera. The Xi’s ¾ inch top deck holds the power switch and the shutter button.
Image Storage
The Xi utilizes Secure Digital/MMC image storage. SD write to disc times are significantly faster than MMC, which could be important when saving TIFFS.
Power
Minolta uses a proprietary NP-200 3.7V 750mAh Lithium-Ion battery pack to power the Xi. The tiny battery is (according to Minolta) good for 150-180 shots with moderate flash and full time LCD use. Buy a second battery (about $30) and count on a more realistic 125-150 shots. The included BC-200 charger (100-240V) will fully charge the battery in about 90 minutes.
Technical Specifications
Resolution: 3.3 megapixels (2,048 x 1,536)
Viewfinders: Real Image Zoom Optical and 1.5” LCD
Lens: 3X f2.8-3.6/37-111 mm (35mm equivalent)
Exposure: Program AE
Metering: 256 segment evaluative
Sensitivity: 50, 100, 160, 200, 400 (ISO equivalent)
White Balance: Automatic, Daylight, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Cloudy
Manual White Balance: No
Shutter Speed: 1/1000th of a second to 2 seconds
Exposure compensation: +/-2 EV in 1/3 EV increments
Flash: Built-in multi mode
Image File Format: JPEG, TIFF, MPEG
Media Storage Format: SD/MMC
Connectivity: USB 1.1 and video out
Power: Lithium-ion Battery (NP -200)
Included
16 MB SD card, NP200 Li-ion battery, BC 200 charger, wrist strap, USB/AV cables, printed camera and software manuals, software CD-ROM
Optional
CS-DG100 camera case (recommended) and Marine Case MC-DG100 underwater housing
In the Field/Handling & Operation
My friend (who sells new and used digital and analog photographic equipment) and I got together to test the new Minolta Dimage Xi on the prettiest day we’ve had in two months. A positively balmy mid winter day with blue skies and no cloud cover. Our temperatures were in the mid sixties after more than a month of bone chilling cold. We started out by shooting some color tests (using brightly colored plastic children’s beach toys against a white background) with a homemade close-up set and controlled lighting. Colors are accurate (but just a bit on the cool side) with flash and auto white balance. After finishing with our color tests we headed out for Cherokee Park.
Kentucky is one of the most beautiful places on the planet three seasons of the year. During spring, summer, and fall nature puts on a magnificent show in the Bluegrass State, but during the winter everything tends to be gray and brown, which is not particularly attractive. It’s wet and cold with flat gray skies. We get very little snow, which usually doesn’t last more than a day, or two. When we got to Cherokee Park we drove along the scenic drive that parallels Beargrass Creek. The light was very bright and contrasty so we decided to shoot “intimate landscapes”---- close-up shots of small self contained landscapes like those made famous by master nature photographer Eliot Porter. After a short search we found an old deadfall stump with a nice display of oak shelf fungus and some dark green and rusty orange moss covering the blackish old roots. The stump was surrounded by ankle deep dead leaves so we were able to compose a nice artistic shot with the bracket like fungus shelves descending into the green and rust moss and then into the deep tan/brown leaf litter. By moving around we were able to shoot our tiny forest scene with nice side lighting, which made for some very dramatic shadows.
For our second outing with the diminutive Xi, the following weekend, we had about two inches of fresh snow and temperatures in the teens. We returned to our deadfall stump and shot the same composition covered with pristine snow. Shooting the same scene under a variety of lighting and weather conditions is one of the secrets of successful nature photographers. The more you shoot the same scene, the better your chances to really “nail it” at least once.
Snow is one of the very best tests for camera metering/white balancing programs. Our tests with the tiny little Xi confirmed the slightly “cool” white balance we had noticed in our color tests and the little Minolta’s metering showed a minor tendency toward blowing out highlights in snow scenes----overall, fairly accurate and a very impressive showing for an ultra compact digital camera.
We left Cherokee Park and headed for Iroquois Park in Louisville’s south end. Iroquois Park covers a large heavily forested hill that rises more than 800 feet above the surrounding suburbs. Once you are inside the park, it is quite easy to believe that you are "out in the country" rather than completely surrounded by a large metropolitan area. Iroquois, like most of Louisville’s city park system was designed by noted nineteenth century landscape artist Frederic Law Olmsted (who also designed New York City’s Central Park and New Orleans’ Audubon Park). The park is a photographer’s dream year round because there is always something to shoot.
After a couple of loops we found a gorgeous old pine tree right near the riding stable that was beautifully dusted with snow. We hadn’t seen it the first time around because the light had been pretty flat. On our second loop the tree was very nicely backlit. We parked near the riding stable (the last time we were in Iroquois Park some idiot hit my friend’s car while we were in the woods) and walked back and spent about half an hour shooting the beautifully lit old pine tree against a cobalt blue sky. By this time we were freezing so we returned to the car and drove to the nearby Wynandotte Café (3700 Taylor Blvd), a funky old Southside tavern to get warm. When I was kid my sisters and I would often go to the Wyandotte Park pool (right across the street from the Wyandotte Café) and the old tavern hasn’t changed much at all. The inside is fairly dim with lots of dark wood paneling, a couple of pool tables, Several TV’s, and a long noisy bar.
The Wyandotte’s specialty is a superb cheeseburger made with never frozen ground beef, pepper Jack cheese, and grilled onions. My friend (like me) is a cheeseburger aficionado, so we ordered a couple cheeseburgers and a pair of cokes and walked to the rear of tavern while we were waiting for our artery cloggers. We shot a couple of ladies, University of Louisville students, who were just killing time shooting eight ball and talking about the score of the University of Louisville-Indiana University basketball game. The Xi’s flash made the ladies a little self-conscious until they saw the camera, and then they both came over and giggled about how “cute” the tiny little digicam was. We shot a few more low light shots of the girls playing pool and then went back to the bar to eat our cheeseburgers.
A Few Concerns
Like the Dimage X, the Xi doesn’t have a focus aid beam for low light/night shooting and the auto white balance is a bit cool (biased just a bit toward blue). The Xi is one of the fastest digicams around in boot up mode (Minolta claims the camera is the fastest in the world) but after the camera powers up, unless you pre-focus, shutter lag is slower than average. The camera is so small that it is easy to get your fingers into the picture, so you’ll have to teach yourself to grip the camera along the edge and keep your fingers well away from the lens.
The low light images that we shot at the Wyandotte Café were fairly good (because of the hanging light above the pool table), but the Xi is not really the best choice for shooting under dim lighting. Some of our shots were blurred and higher ISO settings resulted in unacceptable graininess and increased noise. ISO 200 exposures in dim light couldn’t be enlarged above 4X6 inch size without showing noise.
The Xi’s unique folded light path zoom manages chromatic aberration (purple fringing) very well, but there is a nasty tendency to vignette (dark corners) at both ends of the zoom’s range. There is noticeable barrel distortion at the wide-angle end of the zoom range, but pincushion distortion at the telephoto end of the zoom seems to be well controlled.
Shutter Lag/Timing
The Dimage Xi starts up fast, one of the quickest boot-up cycles I've seen in a consumer digicam. In good lighting, the autofocus is fast, but in lower light the zoom “hunts” and is noticeably slower. Shutter lag is about average in bright outdoor light but noticeably slower inside and in dimly lit scenes. Shot-to-shot speed is fairly quick, due to the Xi’s large internal buffer, actually a bit better than average. Overall, the Xi is a quick camera with a very fast boot-up, decent shutter lag/AF lag times, and better than average shot to shot times.
Image Quality
To paraphrase the old Ford commercials, image quality is job one, and the Xi falls a little short of the mark when it comes to image quality. The pictures are pretty good overall up to 5X7, but there is noticeable softness at 8X10. This is clearly due to the prism and the complex folded light path’s optical properties. In low lighting situations these problems are exacerbated by the Xi’s weak flash. If you want to shoot formal portraits, the soft images from the Dimage Xi come pretty close to approximating the “soft focus” look of classic portraits.
We talked our friend Ivan into posing (sitting on a stool) in front of a sheet of white background paper. The images looked like the sort of portrait you buy from Olan Mills, with a definite soft focus look. For some consumers the Xi’s tiny size and the “wow” factor are going to be more important than sharp images. If you plan to stick pretty much with 4X6 prints and not shoot too often in dim/low light then you may be completely happy with the tiny Xi, however if you think you will need an occasional 8X10 enlargement, then the compact size/image quality tradeoffs with this micro digicam may be more onerous than you are willing to accept.
We judged the Xi’s image quality based on a couple 8X10 inch prints, several 5X7 inch prints, and a selection of 4X6 prints. All enlargements were made using an Epson Stylus Photo 785 EPX ink jet printer and Kodak photo paper. My friend and I couldn’t see any visible difference between the Xi’s TIFF and Fine JPEG images.
Conclusion
When the nifty little Dimage X hit stores last year the “wow” factor sold a lot of cameras for Minolta, however many of those nifty little micro digicams were returned once their owners started seeing color balance problems and how soft the images were. The Xi update has corrected some of those problems, but images are still a bit cool and a little soft. Overall, the Dimage Xi is a neat little camera that’s small enough to carry with you all the time. If you plan on using it mostly for generating email JPEGS or 4X6 inch prints and shooting your friends “goofing around” then you will likely be happy with the Xi’s performance. If you plan on using the Xi to document your travels to exotic foreign climes or the history of your family and the growth of your children----then back away, the Xi is not going to work for you.
Links
Check out my review of a bargain priced and very capable photo quality ink-jet printer.
Epson Stylus Photo 785 EPX ink-jet printer
http://www.epinions.com/content_60776812164
For definitive advice on How to Choose a Digital Camera please see my review:
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-2E46-17B174E2-39A418E3-prod1
For more information about comparable compact digital cameras you may find my Digital Camera reviews enlightening
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Olympus Digital Cameras
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http://www.epinions.com/content_81891724932
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 399.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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Howard_Creech
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Member: Howard Creech
Location: Louisville, KY
Reviews written: 334
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About Me:
Photographer/Writer fascinated by Movies, Music, Books, American Diner Food, History, "Popular Culture", and Travel.
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