New Old Camera – Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3

So I impulse bought a camera lot recently in an online auction. Initially, I was really bidding on a standard zoom lens for my Canon DSLR, but there were a few other goodies that caught my eye. One such goodie was the Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z3. A mighty 4MP bridge camera from 2004 sporting a real 12X Zoom and Anti-shake – in its time, this must have been an impressive camera.

Loading in some AA’s (4 of them), I was pleased to see it come to life… quickly flashing ‘no memory card’. After a lot of fiddling, I found in its original firmware, this thing was limited to either 512mb or 1GB. I only had a 16MB card (about 5 photos) and several 2GB cards. Fortunately with some web hunting, I found the one and only firmware update it received (which was a big thing in 2004 really) – This allows it to work with 2GB SD cards – Excellent! Successfully updated, I headed down to Devonport on Auckland North Shore for a walk and shoot.

Now, Im a fan of keeping old tech going in general – less to landfill and all that. I have also slowly come to realise that in the digital camera world, though we have progressed so far in technology around sensors, some of the old stuff really is still pretty usable for hobby grade life. Below 4MP is pretty creative stuff (I had a floppy disk camera set a few years back – less than 1MP), but 4MP up – it’s not terrible!…it’s viable. Are all these shots detail rich? – no… but they are not total blurred mess either. Creativity at junk prices can be had! The 35mm zoom equivalent of this thing is 35-420mm F2.8-F4.5 (ASA/ISO is 50-400)- thats a lot of zoom in a large coat pocket. The colour rendering is… nice. I didn’t do much editing at all in these images here – just a boarder, de-haze and for a couple a graduated filter as the sun was harsh and the sky was all over the show (as was the rain) today – old cameras do lack dynamic range for sure! (but so did slide film).

I went in with pretty low expectations.

“I’ll shoot a ‘roll’, pick a few images I like, write a blog post and find it a new custodian as I need to recoup costs and I’ll never touch it again”

Im now not sure I will let this one go just yet. It was a joy to shoot really – having the (very early) EVF and option to turn on to that by default was a pleasure. The camera is full of mode and setting options. The zoom range and all things considered quality of image at full zoom for such an old relic at 4MP really is fantastic. Now I need to make up my spend finances another way. It seems I always have a Minolta in the collection one way or another! (old school Minolta fan here)

These last three shots just show the range of this camera – ‘super macro’ – 1cm from subject. Full wide, and looking central to shot, full zoom (behind dirty glass windows for those two).

January 25, 2026 0

The Ocean

Scene from Coastal North Shore, Auckland, New Zealand

Lumix GF1

The Ocean

The Ocean has its silent caves,
Deep, quiet, and alone;
Though there be fury on the waves,
Beneath them there is none.

The awful spirits of the deep
Hold their communion there;
And there are those for whom we weep,
The young, the bright, the fair.

Calmly the wearied seamen rest
Beneath their own blue sea.
The ocean solitudes are blest,
For there is purity.

The earth has guilt, the earth has care,
Unquiet are its graves;
But peaceful sleep is ever there,
Beneath the dark blue waves.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE – 1825

January 5, 2026 0

Linked By A Common Ancestor

Fungi. Remarkably, these spores of design are more related to animals (therefore us) than plants!

Rather than photosynthesising, like animals, fungi are heterotrophs – that is to say, they cannot produce their own nourishment and absorb/take it from elsewhere.

To be fair, the genetic relationship began a few years ago (about a billion) – but we share about 50% of our DNA!

We use them as food, medicine and all kind of alternative commercial products like fake leather and packaging. Pretty interesting.

Whilst on a holiday break forest bathing, we stopped and looked around. Lighting was not great, but we quickly found three types right next to the track. Might warrant a macro lens in the future!

January 3, 2026 0

Weekend Fog

Late morning one weekend the fog had not cleared, yet the sun was high in the sky. Made for some interesting well lit but limited view scenery.

July 27, 2021 0

March 28, 2016 0

A Walk After Work

Well into Spring and on our way to Summer, it’s nice to get out and about for a stroll after work. These two shots from Beach Haven on Auckland North Shore.

October 14, 2015 5

Sunny Day at the Beach

Hot day in the sun!

Ricoh GRD IV

January 25, 2015 2

Yesterdays Outtakes

Yesterdays shot wasn’t gained in a single press of the shutter (or screen, since it was take on the iPod). It took a number of attempts to get the seagull close enough, in focus and framed for me to then edit it. Looking at the above image, its almost more like the gull was photobombing me I think!

Tempted with bread, a few of the seagulls were game enough to fly up and grab the bread from the other half’s hands. I just had to take the shot in focus enough, whilst missing the bread (Im sure I could have edited it out) and after a few shots, I decided it also needed to remove the background – too easy to get a wonky horizon, or get an uninteresting background.

I do like the closer up one (its the only that close I got) Almost used it, but didn’t, and settled on the final shot below to further edit by content aware stretching the background to make a landscape rather than portrait shot.

And click here to take us back to yesterdays final edit.

June 1, 2014 2

Sail Away

Archive shots from Easter several years ago.

May 26, 2014 0

Reflections by the Lake

A recent walk down to Lake Pupuke on Auckland’s North Shore welcomed me with cool still waters. After shooting for a little while the morning began to warm and the water lost its mirror, but it was beautiful while it lasted!

April 12, 2014 5