Konica Minolta DiMAGE A200 Digital Camera

The Konica-Minolta DiMage A200 was designed to provide an affordable entry platform into the new eight megapixel P&S digital camera class. The A2, K-M's first eight megapixel digicam, was a resounding success – very popular with semi pro photographers, part-time wedding shooters, advanced amateur shutterbugs, and serious gadget lovers. K-M's product development folks were challenged to come up with a follow up to the A2. Their answer was to build a new camera that incorporated most of what made the A2 a class leader, add a few cutting edge technological improvements and sell it for substantially less than the A2's entry level dSLR comparable tariff.

What's New? How Does the A200 differ from the A2?

The A200's construction is a bit less robust and it is marginally smaller and slightly lighter than it's bigger brother. There's a new higher resolution flip-out & twist LCD screen, a new electronic viewfinder (minus the A2's nifty eye sensor). There's also a simpler new pop-up flash (with no PC synch terminal). The A2's nifty top deck Status Display LCD is gone, but the A200's base sensitivity setting (ISO 50) is slightly lower than the A2's ISO 64 setting. Finally, the A200 costs about a hundred and fifty bucks less than it's more expensive sibling.

NUTS & BOLTS

Viewfinder/LCD

Here's the bad news, the A2's EVF was simply the best that I've ever used, but K-M's design folks were charged with cutting costs and the A2's superb electronic viewfinder was sacrificed in favor of a standard unit that appears identical to the EVF used on the five megapixel K-M A1, but that may not be a deal breaker since most veteran shooters don't like EVFs because it's difficult to tell when the subject is actually in sharp focus. The A200's EVF is slightly better than average -- bright, sharp, color correct, and fluid -- and it provides diopter correction for eyeglasses wearers.

Just below the EVF are the buttons to switch back and forth between the EVF and LCD and to activate/de-activate the A200's anti-shake feature.

OK, now for the good news, the A200's LCD has noticeably higher resolution than the A2's, plus the A200's 1.8" LCD screen flips out from the back of the camera and rotates up to 270 degrees vertically and 180 degrees horizontally (like Canon's G6 or Nikon's CP8800), camcorder style. The A2's LCD screen could only be tilted up 90 degrees or down 20 degrees (like the Olympus C5050). The A200's LCD screen is bright, sharp, color correct, and fluid. In bright outdoor light the LCD's anti-reflective coating does a nice job of reducing glare and reflections and in low light both the EVF & LCD automatically "gain up".

Lens

The A200 uses the same f2.8-f3.5/28-200mm (35mm equivalent) all glass 7X zoom as the Dimage A2. This proven optic utilizes a rotating lens ring (coupled mechanically to the lens elements) for precise zooming control, so zooming is like using a 35mm SLR zoom lenses.

The zoom's optical performance is consistently above average. Barrel distortion is slightly higher than average at the wide-angle end of the zoom range, but chromatic aberration (purple fringing) is very well controlled and pincushion distortion at the telephoto end of the zoom range is virtually nil. There's no vignetting (dark corners) visible but there is some just barely discernable corner softness at the maximum aperture. The zoom provides a 49mm thread so there's no need to buy an optional lens adapter in order to use filters.

The A200's lightly damped manual focus ring is electronically (rather than mechanically) linked, so when the manual focus mode is activated users must learn to rotate the focus ring slowly and very precisely in order to achieve sharp focus. The A200 permits users to focus as close as 6 inches (macro mode) at the telephoto end of the zoom.

One of the major reasons for buying an A200 is its genuinely unique approach to image stabilization. K-M's engineers developed a new system that neutralizes camera shake by stabilizing the CCD, rather than the zoom. The system works by analyzing input from motion detectors embedded in the camera body and producing a precisely equal and opposite shift in the CCD that counteracts camera movement.

K-M claims that with anti-shake enabled users can shoot at shutter speeds up to 3 stops slower than would be possible without image stabilization. For example if a shutter speed of 1/125th of a second is required to avoid the effects of camera shake --- the A200 can capture a relatively sharp image at 1/15th of a second. A200 purchasers will immediately notice the benefits of K-M's nifty anti shake system; sharper handheld action-sports/low light images, especially at the telephoto end of the zoom range. The A200's anti shake feature produces dependably sharper images at shutter speeds that would normally generate blurry pictures, but this capability comes at a significant cost in terms of power consumption. While Image Stabilization isn't a silver bullet, it does make a real difference, possibly the difference between capturing that once in a lifetime shot and missing it.

Auto Focus

The A200 provides 3 auto focus options -- Wide Area AF, 11 AF points, and AF Spot focus point (Flex AF Focus Point is available when the spot focus point option is selected). AF is very quick outdoors in good light, but not so hot indoors or in low-light. The A200 doesn't have an AF assist beam, so the camera's AF system typically hunts a bit indoors and in low light situations (especially at the telephoto end of the zoom range). The manual focus mode works well, but quite slowly (due to the fiddly MF ring) so capturing kids/pets action indoors could be a real challenge.

Flash

The A200's on-board multi-mode pop-up flash provides users with a decent range of lighting options, including Auto, Fill-Flash, Red-eye, Slow Synch, simulated Rear Curtain Synch (since the A200 doesn't have a FP shutter the camera can't actually synch its flash with the rear shutter curtain), and off. Compared to other 8 megapixel digicams, the A200's built-in flash seems a bit underpowered (maximumn range is 12-13 feet).

The A200 (like its big brother) provides a hot shoe for external K-M only (Maxxum/Program Flash 5600HS(D), Maxxum/Program Flash 3600HS(D), Maxxum/Program Flash 2500(D), Macro Twin Flash 2400 and Macro Ring Flash 1200) flash units.

Image File Formats/Memory Media/Connectivity

Jpeg, RAW, RAW+jpeg

The A200 saves images to Compact Flash cards type I or II. The camera is FAT-32 compatible so users can mount CF cards or Microdrives of any capacity.

USB 2.0, A/V out, and DC in (with optional adapter)

Power

The A200 draws its power from a proprietary K-M NP-800 lithium-ion rechargeable battery; the A2 featured a much more powerful NP-400 battery. What this means, in real life terms, is that the A200 only has about sixty percent of the power depth of it's bigger brother. According to K-M the A200 is good for about 260 exposures (under absolutely optimum conditions) before the juice runs out. Realistically (depending on how much the anti-shake feature is enabled, flash use, and review frequency) users can expect to capture about 150 exposures (a full day of moderate shooting/an afternoon of heavy shooting) with a fully charged NP-800 battery. The included charger needs about 90 minutes to re-charge the battery. My battery life estimates are based on the two days of moderate shooting my friend and I put the A200 through, however mileage will likely vary widely, depending on personal shooting habits. A back-up NP-800 will probably be a good investment for anyone who plans to travel with the A200.

EXPOSURE

The A200 should probably provide serious photographers with all the exposure flexibility they are likely to need, including: full Auto, Program AE (with Shift), Scene (Portrait, Sports/Action, Sunset, and Night portrait), Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and full Manual modes.

In Auto (point & shoot) mode, the A200's CPU makes all exposure decisions. In Program AE mode, the camera automatically selects the aperture and shutter speed, but users can select all other exposure variables. When the "Shift" option is enabled users can also vary shutter speed/aperture combinations. In all Scene modes the camera will automatically optimize all exposure parameters for the specific type of scene selected. In Aperture Priority mode, shooters select the lens aperture and the A200's CPU selects the appropriate shutter speed. In Shutter Priority mode users select the shutter speed (high shutter speeds to freeze rapidly unfolding action or slow shutter speeds to blur motion) and the A200 automatically selects the best corresponding aperture. In Manual mode users set all exposure parameters.

Macro Mode

A200 macro shooters can set the 7X zoom at wide-angle end for a wider field of view and better depth of field or isolate and magnify the subject (but with slightly shallower depth of field) at the telephoto setting. The minimum focusing distance (measured from the CCD rather than the front element of the zoom lens) is 11.8" at the wide-angle end and 5.1" at the telephoto end---more than tight enough for dramatic "bugs & flowers" close-ups.

Movie Mode

Consumers who are searching for that most mythical of all electronic beasts, a full time still camera that can stand in as a part time digital camcorder, may have found it. The A200 can record video clips (with audio) at 640 x 480 @ 30 fps for up to 15 minutes (there is also an 800X600 mode, but only at 15 fps). The Anti-Shake system can be used in movie mode and because zooming is manual, users can zoom in and out (unlike most of the A200's competition) while filming. Wannabe movie directors should keep in mind that the A200's very impressive video capabilities use up memory at the rate of about 1 MB per second and consume battery power at approximately the same ratio as the Space Shuttle sucks up rocket fuel at lift-off.

Metering

The A200's default light metering uses a 256-segment evaluative system that instantly evaluates brightness and contrast in each of those segments to determine the best overall exposure. More advanced users can select Spot or Center-Weighted metering modes for more control in tricky lighting situations. The Spot mode allows users to align the center of the frame with the most important compositional element (like the face in a portrait) and bias the exposure on that very small area and then re-compose. Center-Weighted metering is useful for re-creating the retro look of "classic" golden age landscape photography or ensuring that the exposure is based on the central area of the frame.

White Balance

The A200's White Balance system provides users with lots of control over color balance and tonal range, including TTL Auto WB and pre-sets optimized for daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent 1 and 2, flash, and Custom settings. With the Custom setting, the camera adjusts color balance to render a white card (or a white wall/ceiling) as hue neutral and then saves the reading as a Custom setting (two Custom settings many be saved) which is very useful for shooters who need to switch back and forth between different lighting (bright sun-shade outdoors, multiple indoor settings, or indoors-outdoors) situations quickly. The A200 is very accurate in outdoor lighting.

Sensitivity

The A200's light sensitivity can be set to TTL Auto or adjusted in user selected ISO (35mm equivalent) values of 50, 100, 200, 400, or 800.

In-Camera Image Adjustment

In camera image adjustment is a very important tool for overcoming minor exposure problems, ensuring tack sharp resolution, tweaking white balance, balancing contrast, and fine tuning color saturation. The A200 features an almost professional level of In-Camera Image Adjustment options, permitting skilled photographers the flexibility to fine tune images to precisely reflect their individual preferences for color and tonality.

Very dark or very bright (or highly reflective) subjects can trick light metering systems into underexposing or overexposing images. The A200's base exposure can be adjusted from -2 /+2 EV in 1/3 EV increments, allowing users to easily compensate for difficult lighting/subject reflectance problems or other environmental exposure variables.

Very minor exposure differences can dramatically affect the subjective appeal of an image. A200 users can almost guarantee that they'll capture consistently dramatic images with the camera's auto bracketing function. The camera records 3 exposures in rapid sequence (with one press of the shutter button) varying the exposure between shots from 0.3 to 1.0 EV. The A200 offers users the unique option to also bracket hue, contrast, and color saturation, a genuinely useful feature that will appeal to advanced shooters.

The A200 also provides a broad range of color intensity/color balance options including Natural or Vivid sRGB, Adobe RGB, Black and White, and Solarization settings. The A200's color saturation can be adjusted (+/- 5 incremental steps) and contrast can also be adjusted (+/- 5 incremental steps) for better mid tones, improved shadow detail, or more dramatic highlight detail.

DESIGN, CONTROLS, & ERGONOMICS

The A200 is an attractive and well-designed SLR-like prosumer digicam. It is smaller (a bit smaller than a compact 35mm SLR) and lighter than its larger sibling. The polycarbonate body is solidly built and more than durable enough for any non-professional use. The large textured handgrip (and matching textured thumb rest on the rear of the camera) provide a secure and nicely balanced grip.
Controls are logically laid out and come easily to hand, but the A200's menu system is a bit tricky. Most digicams offer a single menu button, but the A200 takes this one step further by blatantly stealing Canon's nifty "FUNC" button (which provides direct access to the most commonly changed/accessed menu options). The standard menu button provides access to everything else. It is a somewhat confusing system at first, but after a little practice it seems like the most natural and logical way to manage menu navigation.

The A200 is (like its more expensive sibling) a very complex camera and even experienced photographers will need some serious familiarization (the camera's operation is not intuitive – at least not initially) in order to maximize the A200's remarkable image making capabilities.

Technical Specifications

Resolution: 8.0 megapixels (3264 x 2448)
Viewfinders: EVF & 1.8"LCD
Lens: f2.8-f3.5/28-200mm (35mm equivalent) all glass (16 elements in 13 groups including two AD elements and multiple aspherical elements) zoom lens
Filter Thread: 49mm
Auto Focus: Contrast Detection AF
Manual Focus: Yes
Exposure: Auto, Program AE (with shift), Portrait, Sports, Sunset, and Night Portrait scene modes, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and full Manual modes.
Metering: Multi Segment Evaluative, Spot, and Center-Weighted
Flash: built-in multi mode and hot shoe for external flash units
White Balance: TTL Auto, and pre-sets for daylight, shade, cloudy, tungsten, fluorescent 1 and 2, flash, and Custom
Sensitivity: TTL Auto and 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 (ISO equivalent)
In Camera Image Adjustment: Yes
Noise Reduction: Yes
Image File Formats: jpeg, RAW, RAW+jpeg
Image Storage Media: CF types I&II
Connectivity: USB 2.0, A/V out, & DC in
Power: NP-800 lithium-ion rechargeable battery

Street Price Range - $700.00-$750.00

Included

NP-800 Li-ion battery, neck strap, lens cap, lens hood, wireless (RC-D1) remote, USB & A/V cables, Software CD-ROMs, User's & Software (printed) manuals — Note: No CF card included

Optional

EBP 100 battery pack, AC11 (AC—>DC) adapter, K-M soft case, and several K-M external flash units


In the Field/Handling & Operation

My friend (who sells new and used digital and analog cameras and photographic equipment) managed to (finally) get his hands on a brand new eight megapixel Konica-Minolta DiMage A200 for us to evaluate. We started off by shooting some color tests using a homemade macro stage and a selection of brightly colored (red, green, yellow, blue, and purple) plastic children's beach toys arrayed against a white background. This test allows us to check not only color accuracy but also the precision of the white balance system. The A200 did an absolutely outstanding job---colors were bright, neutral, and dead on accurate.

After we finished our color tests, we headed for nearby Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville's unofficial arboretum. The last couple of weeks we've had some really mixed weather, the temperatures have gone from the mid forties to the low eighties and there's been lots of rain. For some reason this sort of highly changeable (but fairly typical) Ohio Valley spring weather tends to cause absolutely riotous growth.

Cave Hill is the Derby City's oldest graveyard (chartered in 1848) and one of the best remaining examples of 19th century U. S. landscape architecture. The old cemetery's 300 acres are home to an almost dizzying variety of exotic tree, bush, and shrub species. We are well past the first wave of early bloomers (Japanese Magnolias, Star Magnolias, Daffodils, Crocuses, Witch Hazel, Forsythia, Red Bud, and Dogwood), but there is still a lot of stuff blooming. Skies were blue with puffy white clouds and the temperature was in the mid seventies.

We stopped for a while, to shoot the rows and rows of small white marble headstones on a sloping hill that serves as a final resting place for thousands of Union casualties who died in Kentucky (most from disease) during the Civil War. At the crest of the hill are a smaller number of Confederate graves, making this area the only place in the country where the Stars & Stripes and Stars & Bars fly (more or less) jointly above the graves of Yankees and Rebels laying at rest together.

After we finished up on the military side of the cemetery we drove around to the oldest section of Cave Hill searching for spots of color amid the 19th century native limestone grave markers and Victorian monuments. We also shot pictures of some of the hundreds of ducks and geese around the lake. The resident waterfowl are quite tame (since most of the folks they see have bags of stale bread in hand) making them very easy to photograph. It was a real treat to be out shooting on one of those wonderful early spring days with absolutely perfect front lighting that we often get here in Louisville.

After we had exhausted our photographic options at Cave Hill we drove over to nearby Cherokee Park and hit the scenic loop to shoot some outdoor "people" pictures. Driving along the twisting deeply shaded two lane road it was hard to believe we were in the middle of a large urban area, rather than out in the country somewhere. The old growth trees along Beargrass Creek looked absolutely magnificent and once we got into the open meadow areas of the loop, it was filled with parked cars, runners, skaters, bikers, and dog walkers out enjoying the gorgeous weather. We spent about an hour shooting folks having fun in the sun before calling it a day.

For our next second outing with the A200 we got together Sunday morning and headed for Jeffersontown and the Blackacre State Nature Preserve. The weather was absolutely gorgeous, with temps in the seventies and blue skies, unlike our last visit to Blackacre when the skies were gray and the temperature was in the low fifties. Blackacre is the site of one of Kentucky's early pioneer settlements, founded by a Louisville tavern owner and his three sons just after the American Revolution. Springs and streams on the 1,000-acre tract provided water and the surrounding old growth forests and plentiful limestone outcroppings supplied building materials, but pioneer life on the late eighteenth century American frontier was hard and dangerous. Shawnee Indians, traveling the Warrior's Path, often raided outlying settlements and ferocious wild animals (black bears, red wolves, and panthers) freely roamed the expansive old growth woods of northern Kentucky.

Today, the area is called the Blackacre State Nature Preserve and Tyler Settlement Rural Historic District. Three of the original homesteads survive, each with its own springhouse, and there's also a log barn (called a pole barn in the south) and a small family cemetery. The brick farmhouse built by settlement founder's Grandson in 1844 is now the visitor's center for both the nature preserve and the historic settlement. Blackacre is an oasis of calm and serenity, like a trip back in time to simpler quieter era. The area is now used mostly for environmental and historical education by Metro Louisville's public schools, but it is open to the public, on weekends, during the spring and fall seasons.

Prairies, glades, former fields, forest, ponds, and streams surround the tiny settlement, much as they did during Kentucky's frontier days when Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Mike Fink, and General George Rogers Clark roamed the wild and untamed area along the southern shore of the nearby Ohio River.

The Blackacre Preserve is home to native frogs, turtles, and snakes, great blue herons, red tailed hawks, barn owls, white tailed deer, raccoons, two types of squirrel, rabbits, and coyotes. The black bears, red wolves, and panthers (mountain lions) are long gone, but the preserve staff has cataloged 145 seasonal wildflowers, 61 butterfly species, 19 mammals, and 81 varieties of bird. A gravel road runs through the village and the preserve has several marked hiking trails.

My friend and I spent the entire afternoon at Blackacre. In early April the preserve staff conducted a controlled burn to destroy invasive woody plants to enable the return of two virtually extinct native Kentucky ecosystems, short grass prairies and glades. We wandered along looking for evidence of the return of the short grass prairie or the rocky shallow-soil natural clearings that Kentucky pioneers named glades, but all we saw were the burned over remains of a few small trees. We did shoot some close-up shots of blooming wildflowers (Virginia Bluebells and Glade Bluets), but we didn't see any rejuvenated shortgrass prairies, maybe by the fall Blackacre will have some tree free areas filled with Little Bluestem grass and blooming prairie flowers. We didn't see any wildlife at all.

PERFORMANCE

Image Quality

The A200's color is consistently dead-on accurate, but for many shooters graduating from consumer level digicams to the eight megapixel prosumer class the color may appear a bit dull. That's because the A200's color is neutral, not punched up like virtually all consumer level digicams. For those who want brighter more deeply saturated colors, the A200's color is almost infinitely adjustable. The A200's images are consistently excellent with very good shadow and decent highlight detail, and accurate skin tones. White balance is precise even in difficult lighting. Native resolution (default sharpening) seems a tiny bit soft, but images appear to have very little processing, so boosting sharpness shouldn't create that over processed look.
Image Noise is very well managed, and essentially invisible at ISO 50 & 100 and ISO 200 is almost as good as ISO 50-100. Noise at ISO 400 is lower than average, but visible. Pattern noise at ISO 800 produces substantial and noticeable loss of detail; images are soft, grainy, and flat.

After reviewing our images (on a 19" NEC CRT monitor) we agreed that the outdoor images and close-ups were consistently well exposed, the color was uniformly great, and the A200's image quality was equal to its more expensive sibling (and competitive with any eight megapixel digicam currently available) We really put the A200 through its paces, from full auto to full manual (and everything in between) and it consistently delivered exceptional results. We didn't have an opportunity to try the A200 indoors, so I can't comment on it's usefulness in that arena, but outdoors the A200's image quality is as good as any currently available 8 megapixel digicam, and better than most.

Timing/Shutter Lag

Overall, the A200 is a very fast digicam, not as fast as it's bigger brother, but very fast. The A200's boot-up cycle is about 1 second, which is very fast. AF lag is the shortest of any long zoom digicam I've used to date, in fact the A200 (like it's bigger sibling) snaps into focus faster than most 3X zoom digicams (less than one second in good light). Shutter lag is virtually non-existent (at higher shutter speeds) with pre-focusing, and less than one second from scratch. Shot to shot times are also very good (about 2-3 seconds between shots at the highest resolution). The A200's write to card times are slightly faster than average, but not as fast as the A2.

A Few Concerns

The A200's lens shows slightly above average barrel distortion at the wide-angle end of the zoom range. Noise levels are slightly higher than average at the auto ISO setting and image noise at ISO 800 is unacceptably high. The A200's major drawback (like that of its more expensive sibling) is complexity. Users will be obliged to invest some time (and return often) to the A200's owner's manual. This is not a camera for beginners. The A200's AF system (in Wide Area AF mode) is very fast and has a tendency to lock instantly on the first thing it hits, which may not the subject the person behind the camera had in mind.

Conclusion

The A200 is very close to being just as good (where it counts) as it's more expensive sibling, so serious shooters looking for an 8 megapixel digital imaging tool that handles like an SLR and provides all the convenience and gee whiz features of an upscale P&S digicam are going to love the A200. Getting it for a hundred and fifty bucks less than the original ain't too shabby either.

For definitive advice on How to Choose a Digital Camera please see my review
http://www.epinions.com/elec-review-2E46-17B174E2-39A418E3-prod1

Looking to ramp up your digital imaging experience and create your own digital darkroom? Check out my review of a very capable pro quality ink-jet printer, the Epson Stylus Photo 2200 http://www.epinions.com/content_167980076676