Hey, this is Scott of photography Banzai.
In this video we're gonna talk about this
Minolta MN35Z camera.
Thanks to Camera Craft in Rockford Illinois for
letting me try this out at their shop.
Minolta the brand name is no longer the
original Minolta camera company. It's now owned by the Elite Brands company.
another camera related company that this brand owns is Rokinon. They make
different lenses. They import that from the Samyang company, which is based in
Korea. Anyways, this Elite Brands owns Minolta and they have a few cameras now.
So it's pretty interesting to see that brand still existing in some fashion.
I wanted to check it out just to see how it all works.
This camera is very similar to in the Nikon's B500. It does not have the
viewfinder. It does have that long telephoto zoom. Specification wise, 20
megapixels 1/2.3 inch sensor. Very standard for this type of camera. ISO
range from 125 to 6400. However, the auto ISO only goes up to 1600. The lens
is rated 35x zoom. And the equivalent focal length and full frame terms is 25
millimeters to 873 millimeters f3 to 5.9. That's very standard in this type of
camera. Basically, you get a decently wide focal and plus a very long telephoto.
Video wise, you have up to 1080p at 60 frames a second, which is a little better
than some cameras of this type. Does have Wi-Fi and bluetooth capability. Also a
USB 2.0 connection. Which works for power. It actually does not come with any type
of separate power charger for the battery. So you have to use the USB
connection to get power. But you can buy a separate charger if you do want that
capability. I would suggest of course always with
these type of cameras buying a second battery is a good thing. The actual
battery is an NP-120 rated at 1700 milliamp hours, which is actually a
pretty solid amount of power for this battery. My favorite thing about this
camera is actually the grip. It's very large. It's substantial. Great in my hand.
Really depends on you, of course. But I really like the grip on this camera.
The case itself feels solid. Nice thick plastic on it.
However the buttons are a little spongy, I guess you could say. And when you press
one of the buttons on the back another one up above it moves a
little bit. So it probably has some type of gasket connected all between those.
It just kind of signifies it's a little lower end quality wise inside there.
The tripod socket is not in line with the lens... This camera takes SD cards. The slot
is where the battery compartment is. In the manual it says up to 64 gigabytes. I would
assume you could get larger cards, but they only guarantee up to 64. There is a
little bit of internal memory in this camera. If you do forget your card, you
could potentially take a few photos at lower quality settings. With cameras like
this... They have the contrast detect autofocus. It's always a mixed bag with
focusing. You will potentially have some issues. Of course with that, especially
when you go to the longer focal lengths. I did notice a little bit of stuttering.
A weird motor sound when I was all the way extended with the telephoto lens and
also trying to focus indoors. One of the biggest negatives of this
camera is that you cannot select the focus area. You can't move the focus
point around manually. That really limits your creative options because you're
basically letting the camera decide for the most part. Now, you can use the center
area. Which I guess you could use that and then recompose your photos... Which is
the main way you can get the artistic control. You can also use face tracking,
wide area focus, and also tracking autofocus. There are a few special modes
with this camera. I think they're the most interesting features. You do have
the panorama mode. I did try that out. You have to move pretty slow with this camera to
get a full panorama. The most interesting feature I think of this camera is
actually the GIF capture mode. You can take those JIFs or GIFs... whatever you
wanna call them. But it is pretty limited you only get one second or three
second intervals. And then it takes all those frames and puts them into a GIF
file. I did try it out two times. Actually went back to the camera shop after I saw
it in the manual. It's like... "What is this!? It has GIF capture? Gonna go back there,
try it out..." And I did. It works pretty well actually.
But like I said, it is pretty limited as well. It also has HDR mode, so you get
somewhat better dynamic range. Because it takes multiple photos and puts them
together. It has time lapse. I really didn't try it out
too much, but it is in there. That's nice to have.
Overall, I'm relatively impressed with this camera.
Given the price and it's pretty similar
to that B500 as I mentioned, from Nikon. I think in this case we really don't
know how reliable this camera will be. If you can find it at a low price I'm sure
as time goes on it will definitely drop in price quite a bit. It might be a
decent option to consider over the B500 depending on price. If you want a
dedicated camera with a large optical zoom lens. It does have the image
stabilization in there. I think you will potentially get better images from some
phones, but you won't get that optical zoom. So that's the largest selling point
of cameras like this. Especially ones without the viewfinder. You want a low price
as possible and you want that optical zoom lens. Now, this one does have a few
of those interesting features like I mentioned. But it is a very basic camera.
Just like the B500 is a very basic camera. I have a hard time recommending
these cameras... If you even get them at a low price, it would be something fun to
mess around with. Especially in good lighting, you'll get decent results. Just
don't have your expectations very high when you buy a camera like this. But it
does give you some versatility over a phone. That was a look at the Minolta MN35Z.
Again, thanks to Camera Craft for letting me try this out at their shop.
I'm Scott from Photography Banzai.
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