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Right off the bat let me share the following with you. I had purchased a Minolta Dimage 5, which was rather cool, I really LOVED this camera… but totally died within the first day of using it. The camera got stuck with an error on the display “ERR”. When I brought it back to Adorama, they said it was beyond repair, and they were out of stock on the Minolta so… I picked up the very popular Nikon 995. (By the way: Kudos!!! to Adorama for taking back the Dimage 5 and allowing me to trade it for the Nikon, without any hassle at all.)

My first disillusionment with the Nikon 995 was that fact that the high impact, but plastic construction, feels disappointingly cheap… especially when compared to the mostly magnesium alloy of the Minolta Dimage 5. Also, the 995 does not have an SLR mini-LCD viewfinder, it’s simply a lack-luster viewing “tunnel”, like a “second-rate instamatic” …although it does feature a dipolar adjustment. The Dimage 5 had a virtual SLR viewfinder with a 220,000-pixel mini-LCD screen, which didn’t actually optical look through the lens but, the result was the same. The 995 is basically plastic… and has a shoddy non-SLR feel to it.

I also found the neck strap, which is mind-bogglingly affixed to only one side of the Nikon camera, (‘cause the other side twists), rather irritating. The 995 hangs around your neck but when you bring the camera up to shooting position, the lens strap crosses in front of large LCD… frustrating. A simple ball bearing or “spinning strap holder” on the “twisting” side of the 955 would have resolved that one.

Speaking of the LCD…. In bright outdoor light, I was able to see the large LCD of the Minolta but I had a very difficult time viewing the large LCD of the Nikon the very next day. After a little research, it turns out that the Minolta Dimage 5 has an antireflective coating on the LCD, to improve the image in bright outdoor light, the 995 does not…. So that explains that.

I was further miffed, when I realized that while the Nikon 995 does support external flashes, there isn’t anywhere to actually mount the flash?!?!? You’ll have to pickup a hot shoe adapter, which will set you back $37.00, but then… you still can’t attach it to the camera! So, you then have to purchase a Rollbar Bracket support… another 50 bucks, then attach the Rollbar to the camera, to attach the hot shoe adapter, to use an external flash…. Jezzzzzzzzz, that was a lot of work. With the Dimage 5, all you have to do is pop the external flash on… no hot shoe adapters to buy or Rollbars to mount, very simple, very easy, very SLR-like.

The Nikon has a sweet 4x optical telephoto but it is motorized and grinds along as you push the wide-angle or telephoto buttons. The Diamge 5 had an outrageously impressive 7x optical zoom, which was fully mechanical, you just twist the barrel… just like an SLR. Manual focus on the Minolta was a simple twist of the SLR-like focusing ring at the base of the lens… focusing the Nikon is a wearisome turning of a dial with your thumb while holding down a second button. The speed and accuracy of the Auto focus seems comparable on both cameras, but again… I really only had the Dimage 5 for one day before it rendered itself useless and had to be brought back to the store.

The biggest annoyance of the Nikon 995 is all those menus… menus, menus, and more scrolling menus… not to mention the meaninglessly named buttons like “Function 1” and “Function 2”… who’s function changes depending on which mode you’re in. I missed several shots trying to go to menu, the look at the LCD, then navigate all those menus, hitting the down arrow a few times, then the right arrow, then exit, then back to the LCD menus again, and settings… AUGH!!!

The Diamge 5 has the vast majority of it’s adjustments just like an SLR… labeled buttons on the outside of the camera. They will be a little intimidating to the beginner or average user but… so too will all those frustrating menus of the 995. Any SLR loving… adept-amateur, semi-pro or “professional on a budget”… will LOVE the Dimage 5’s SLR-like intuitively labeled buttons!!!

I found the image quality of both camera’s to be basically identical. Although there is an extra step to “process” the Dimage 5’s pictures. I took identical photos with both cameras, and I really can’t distinguish one photo from another. Both cameras return an impressive 2048 x 1536… 3.34 mega pixel… high resolution photo. Macro mode is great on both cameras.

The only advantages I can see that the Nikon possesses over the Minolta, is that you can twist the camera around and take a picture of yourself or you and your better half… that’s really about it. Both camera’s are threaded to accept lenses and filters but the 995 supports a greater Varity of accessory lenses, mostly due to it’s rather small 28mm Nikor lens, which rarely vignettes. But the Dimage 5 has a 35 to 250mm GT lens (SLR EQ) built in, that’ll cover your telephoto requirements 75% of the time. I was able to pop my “49mm Phoenix 2x lens” on the Minolta, no vignette at full zoom (which now equals 500mm), all the way down to around 210mm (the “105” setting on the lens, times 2)…. That additional range, up to 500mm, will cover ya the other 25% of the time… I mean realistically, how often to you really need to exceed 500mm’s of telephoto???

As far as power consumption goes…the Minolta goes through Nickle Metal Hydride AAA batteries rather quickly; which will run you 18 bucks with charger at Radio Shack. (Minolta included one set and a charger in the box.) In my first and only day of taking a little over 200 pictures with the Dimage 5… I went through two sets of batteries and was working on a third. The Nikon 995 uses a special $30.00 rechargeable battery… but here too… I went through the first battery and was working on the second after taking a little over 200 pictures. (Nikon too, included one battery and a recharge in the box.) So, the 995’s batteries last longer but, “in a pinch” I could always pick up a set of AAA Duracell’s from any store and drop them in the Minolta. With Nikon’s special batteries… I would be “outta luck” if I was out of power or I’d be on a hunt for the $15 disposable version of their battery. So, each camera has advantages and disadvantages in this category.

On top of everything else… the Nikon 995 doesn’t work with my 340 MB IMB Micro drive, I can’t use my two sets of AAA re-chargeable batteries with the 995, my 37mm and 49mm lenses don’t fit… I’d need to purchase stepping rings to attach them, the Nikon doesn’t’ fit in my SLR camera case, and when you add in everything else mentioned above… well… I’m really just not happy with the 995… enough said.

I’ll be taking my Nikon 995 back to Adorama after only a few days of trying to convince myself that I should keep it… I can’t convince myself… although I tried, I really tried.

Honestly though, I’m quite sure I would have been a lot happier with the Nikon 995, had I not been “jaded” by all the SLR features of the Minolta Dimage 5…. and… I guess a lot of that is “personal preference”.

The bottom line is…if you’re looking for a simple to use, ultra high quality camera, and you’re intimidated by an SLR camera, and you don’t’ make too many manual settings changes, the 995 will more than “float your boat”. But, if you want that SLR look and feel… along with manual controls, and 7x optical zoom, and a virtual SLR viewfinder, you will LOVE the Minolta Diamge 5. Unless you get one that only works for one day… like I did!!!

I’ll order another Dimage 5…, I guess I just got a bad one… I’ll toss you’all a detailed review of it when I get it. Assuming of course that the new Dimage 5 lasts longer than a day!