Minolta DiMAGE S304 Review

There two main recording modes on the S304, AUTO or MULTI. This is the screen while in the AUTO mode. The center brackets denote the wide autofocus target area.

Menu options for the AUTO mode:

• Image Size - 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1280x960 or 640x480

• Quality - Super Fine (uncompressed TIFF), Fine, Standard or Economy

• Voice Memo - No or Yes (up to 15 secs per image)

• Date Imprint - Yes or No

• Digital Zoom - Yes or No

• Instant Playback - No, 2 or 10 seconds

The default exposure mode in MULTI is Program AE. The autofocus is narrow by default but can be selected, see next frame. When you half-press the shutter the focus target will change color to indicate that it's working and when locked you will see the shutter speed, aperture value and a white dot on the LCD screen. If using only the optical viewfinder you will see a steady green light to indicate AF lock.

In any of the MULTI exposure modes the user can select the desired focusing area by using the 4-way selector switch and watching the LCD screen display. These are the five possible focusing areas.

This is the Aperture preferred mode where you can select either the wide open or or fully closed aperture, the exact f-stop is dependant on the focal length of the zoom lens.

Manual mode lets you choose both the shutter speed and aperture value and the results can be seen on the color LCD as the image lightens and darkens accordingly.

Manual focus consists of a series of preset distances: 0.5m, 0.7m, 1m, 2m or infinity can be selected.

Basic options for the MULTI mode:

• Exposure Mode - Program AE, Aperture priority or Manual

• Image Size - 2048x1536, 1600x1200, 1280x960 or 640x480

• Quality - Super Fine (uncompressed TIFF), Fine, Standard or Economy

• White Balance - Auto, Cloudy, Daylight, Tunsten, Fluorescent, Custom

• Focus Mode - Auto or Manual focus

• Sensitivity - Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800

Custom1 options for the MULTI mode:

• Full-time AF - Yes or No

• Metering Mode - Multi-segment or Spot

• Exposure Bracketing - 0.3, 0.5 or 1.0EV steps

• Digital Zoom - Yes or No

• Instant Playback - No, 2 or 10 seconds

Custom2 options for the MULTI mode:

• Color Mode - Color or B&W

• Sharpness - Hard, Normal or Soft

• Contrast - High, Normal or Low

• Color Saturation - High, Normal or Low

• Voice Memo - No or Yes (up to 15 secs per image)

• Date Imprint - Yes or No

LCD display during the Movie Recording mode. Wide area autofocus target and the amount of recording time available in seconds is displayed. Motion JPEG is captured with audio at 320 x 240 QVGA resolution. The maximum length of a clip is 60 seconds.