Konica Minolta DiMAGE X31 Digital Camera

this is a daytime camera.

By boboque  Sep 17, 2007

Pros: small,light,cheap

Cons: horrible focus,broke down fast,slow zoom,slow usb 1.1,etc

i hate this camera. it doesn't focus. it just won't focus. hoooorible focus. i think i made my point.

but,if it does focus (daytime... never at night) i guess the pictures are fine.

Mini camera beats the bigger ones

By Oh !  Sep 3, 2007

Pros: A giant in small format

Cons: Flashlight limits shooting in the darkness

If you need an ultra compact point and shoot camera not larger than a pack of cigarette, a camera to take anywhere anytime than this is your best choice.

Camera is very robust too. Mine felt on the floor a few times and to my biggest surpise was still running well after those crashes.

Amazing what this little camera does ... Am even no longer taking my bigger SIGMA camera with me when travelling.

Pics quality is very good for the 3 millions pixels of this camera at least good enough to be watched on your laptop screen or to email.

The only limitation would be shooting pics in the dark or in a dark room ... that might be the only drawback of this camera.

Display screen is ultra small compared to more recent productions but hey makes is more crashproof.

By katie  Jul 16, 2007

Konica Minolta DiMAGE X31 Digital Camera

By Mike  May 23, 2007

Pros: Small, quick startup, good resolution, inexpensive

Cons: poor low light performance, bad flash setup.

This is not intended to be a full review. Just some quick notes for the record.

I've owned one of these for a year or two now and can say that in general it has performed well. The fancy vertical optical system has a useful zoom range and keeps the overall package slim enough for any shirt pocket. This camera doesn't have to to morph into something else to take a photo and is a quick starter but only outside when there is lots of light. More on this later.

Over the years we have taken many hundreds of satisfactory photos. It has also taken a few unintended silent movies as well. The photo/movie switch is easily moved accidentally in the bag. Moral : keep this camera in a proper bag, especially when the overall container is a womans hand bag where there are a lot of odd items that are going to poke at it.

I'll take some responsibility for the above but the worst point about this camera really starts to become evident when you try to use it indoors. I'll say I was warned about the bad low light performance of this camera but this didn't prepare me for the reality. You can forget about rapid start-up as the on call by default flash starts charging. a simple menu change to allow the preselection of start-up flash mode (including OFF) would have fixed this irritation. Better still a separate flash on/off switch would have saved a lot of time and batteries over the years. The inability to change the default (start up) flash mode is my main gripe with this camera.

You have to preselect your photo with this camera by pressing the 'shutter release' button half way. If all is well and there is enough light you get a little white blob on the display inviting you to 'go all the way' and take your photo. If you get a red blob your best alternative is to point the thing at something well lit that is the same distance away as your intended subject, half press to set up then point at your subject and shoot! You have to be careful though. Even when you get a white blob this camera will slow your exposure to 1/2 a second, which as anyone knows, is an impossible speed for a hand held shot.

You hit this low light limitation a lot because that hole in the top corner that lets in the light is rather small and it has a mirror behind it that makes things worse. This is the down side of that good idea to put all the optics in a vertical stack. The other down side to this idea is that you will take a lot of photos that include the bottom of your left index finger until you learn to hold this camera properly. Everybody that I have given this camera to has made this mistake.

So there you have it, an excellent point and shoot camera, well made and reliable with a couple of flaws that I'll be looking out for 'next time'.

By Alain V  Nov 9, 2005