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The Minolta DiMAGE F300 featuring increased resolution and zoom range, a new noise reduction option and Minolta's award-winning Subject Tracking Autofocus (AF) and Minolta's Area AF, this new digital camera produces high-quality images and incorporates advanced automatic functions, and fast, easy operation. Following the sleek contoured design of the DiMAGE F100,

The DiMAGE F300 features a 5.3 megapixel 1/1.8-type interline primary-color CCD with 5.0 million effective pixels for fine high-resolution images. The DiMAGE F300 incorporates a built-in 3x optical zoom Minolta GT LENS for color accuracy. Three aspheric lens elements ensure sharp images at all focal lengths that. And a 4x digital zoom capability, provides compact lens design with a wide image capture range. With a focal range of 7.8mm to 23.4mm, it is equivalent to a 38mm to 114mm 35mm zoom lens.

This stylish camera features a slim aluminum body exterior and stainless steel accents around the lens barrel with an easy-to hold, elegant grip and ergonomic control layout. A versatile camera, the DiMAGE F300 features the functions and controls essential for great image making. The DiMAGE F300 allows complete control over exposure, color, contrast, saturation, white balance, camera sensitivity and focus. It can also record movies and audio.

The DiMAGE F300 combats noise which can give a grainy look to digital images by employing a large signal-to-noise ratio to minimize its effect even with higher CCD gain as well as allowing photographers to select noise reduction to control image quality. The new selectable feature compensates for dark noise caused by exposures of one second or longer.

Advanced technology makes focusing on the DiMAGE F300 simple and effective. The DiMAGE F300 follows in the footsteps of Minolta's DiMAGE F100 - the first compact digital camera in the world to be equipped with Subject Tracking AF and to also feature Minolta's Area AF. These technologies work together to locate and follow the subject through three-dimensional space within the camera's extra-wide focusing area, making the autofocus system ready to take a picture when the photographer wants to. Simply activate the Area AF system with the shutter-release button and the camera evaluates the objects in the extra-wide focus frames and pinpoints the subject. If the subject moves, Subject Tracking AF will adjust the focus to ensure sharp images; the active AF sensor is displayed in the focus frames and will follow the subject movement.

The DiMAGE F300's Automatic Digital Subject Program Selection automatically selects one of five subject programs - portrait, sports action, landscape, sunset, or night portrait - to optimize the camera's exposure and image-processing controls based on the subject and scene. This frees the photographer from having to evaluate the conditions and make camera settings for each new situation.

DiMAGE F300 Major Features:

• Compact, stylish and lightweight aluminum body
• Minolta 3x optical F/2.8 38-114mm GT zoom lens
• 5-megapixel CCD, up to 2560 x 1920 pixel images
• Auto, Program AE, Aperture priority, Shutter Speed priority, Manual and Movie exposure modes
• Automatic Digital Subject Program: Portrait, Sports, Landscape, Sunset, Night portrait
• Wide focus area or Spot focus with area selection
• Subject Tracking AF and Area AF
• Exposure bracketing, 3 frames w/1.0, 0.5 or 0.3 EV increment
• Shutter speeds: 1/1000 to 15 secs, Bulb (max. 15 sec)
• Continuous advance: 1.2fps to a max. of 7 frames
• Ultra High Speed capture @ 11fps in 1280x960 resolution
• Selectable ISO speeds: 64, 100, 200, 400 or Auto
• Motion video: 320 x 240 w/audio at 15fps up to 3 minutes, 160x120 movies up to 20 minutes. Night movie with gain up.
• Audio memo recording up to 15 secs w/still image
• Audio recording w/out still image, 3 hours maximum
• White balance: Auto, 5 presets or Custom
• Color modes: Vivid color, Natural color, B&W
• Sharpness, Contrast and Color Saturation control (3 levels each)
• Multi-segment, Center-weighted or Spot metering
• 1.5-inch TFT color LCD monitor
• White balance options: automatic, daylight, tungsten, cloudy and fluorescent
• Built in flash with Auto, Red-eye reduction, Night portrait and Fill modes
• USB v1.1 connectivity
• Removable SD/MMC memory cards (32MB included)
• Epson PRINT Image Matching compliant
• Powered by 2-AA or one CR-V3 battery

Physical Views

The DiMAGE F300 compared to a Compact Disc

The Minolta DiMAGE S414 and the DiMAGE F300 for comparison.