Sometime between high school and college, I upgraded from a 2 megapixel digital point-and-shoot to one which boasted a staggering 5 megapixels. The Konica Minolta Dimage X50 was a gorgeous little device, something from the future, made of glistening metal and with an astonishing internal optical zoom lens, and a slick, sliding lens cover that doubled as a power switch. I loved it, and it immediately became my constant companion during freshman days on campus and the few hours of free time I cherished between studies and my full time job at the newspaper plant.
That was (somehow) twenty years ago. Last weekend, I dusted off the X50 for a day trip to Martha’s Vineyard, an island off the south of Cape Cod. There, my wife, two daughters, and I found sun and sand and sea, bougie shops selling sixteen-dollar fudge, and carousel rides at four bucks a minute. I’ve changed a lot since I first used the X50, and so has the world around me. The camera hasn’t changed a bit, but even though it’s outclassed by any camera or cell phone made in the last ten years, I still love it.
What’s important to note about the Konica Minolta Dimage X50 in modern times, is that it’s still a very usable camera, and one which can be added to the growing list of desirable retro digital cameras. To start, it can make great pictures with a distinctly retro aesthetic. It’s also extremely compact, stylish, and easy to use. Importantly, it uses standard SD cards (a 512 MB is perfect), and replacement rechargeable lithium-ion batteries and chargers are cheap and plentiful.
Dimage X50 Specs (like they matter)
- Sensor: 1/2.5″ CCD sensor; 5 megapixels
- Maximum resolution: 2560 x 1920
- ISO: Auto, 50, 100, 200, 400
- Lens: 37-105mm (in 35mm equivalent)
- Maximum aperture: f/2.8 – 5
- Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec – 4 seconds
- Autofocus: Contrast detect; single; live view
- Manual focus: No
- Flash modes: Auto, Red-eye reduction, On, Off, Night portrait
- Burst mode: 11 FPS
- Exposure compensation: +/- 2 stops at 1/3 steps
- Metering: Spot metering and Average metering modes
- White balance: 5 WB modes
- LCD display: 2″ screen; 115,000 dots
- Video mode: 320 x 240, 15/30 FPS, with mono audio
- Storage: SD card
- Image format: JPEG (no RAW option)
- Battery: Rechargeable lithium ion battery
- Weight and dimensions: 155 g; 84 x 62 x 24mm
First released in 2004, the Konica Minolta Dimage X50 is a pocket-sized point-and-shoot digital camera (aka digicam) with a 5 megapixel CCD image sensor, excellent (for its time) white balance and low light sensitivity, a great lens, and an impressive LCD screen on the back. It was simple enough for total novices, able to be used as a true point-and-shoot, but also offered enough advanced user controls to be a perfectly workable camera for advanced users.
Contemporary reviews from 2004 and 2005 praised the camera for all of the above. Today, it all holds true.
Its compact, rectangular form fits comfortably in the hand, and the sliding lens cover adds a touch of mechanical satisfaction absent in today’s touch-centric devices. Hold it in your hand and you’ll find the X50 doubles as a fidget soother, warbling from its weird GameBoy-quality speaker like some sort of electric nightingale with every power cycle. Just try not to wear out the mechanism.
The camera feels solid. Its metal body has a nice brushed finish, and touch points are finished in jewel-like faux-chrome. Buttons, dials, switches, and levers actuate nicely. The 2.0-inch LCD screen, small by today’s standards, is functional and bright enough. While it lacks the resolution and lumens of modern displays, it’s sufficient for framing shots and reviewing images even in the bright sun of a summer island. The minimalist button layout, with a directional pad and a few dedicated controls, is intuitive and simple. More advanced controls like Exposure Compensation, ISO setting, and white balance setting are easily navigable with a single button press or, at most, a shallow dive into the menu.
Image Quality and Gallery
At the heart of the Dimage X50 is a 5-megapixel CCD sensor. Compared to today’s 24- to 48-megapixel monsters, this might seem underwhelming. However, pixel count isn’t everything. The images produced by the X50 have a certain charm, one which Gen Z has been happy to adopt. The blown highlights and crunchy shadows that we once resisted in the early 2000s are now embraced as distinctive and nostalgic. There’s a warmth and character to the photos, a blend of accurate color reproduction, ISO noise, and pleasant saturation.
In good lighting, the X50 performs great. Landscapes are captured with reasonable detail, and macro shots benefit from the camera’s optical zoom lens, which offers decent close-up capability. The lens, concealed within the body, avoids the protruding zoom mechanisms of its contemporaries, maintaining the camera’s sleek profile.
Low-light performance is one area where the X50 shows its age. Without the sophisticated noise reduction algorithms of modern cameras, images can become grainy and lose detail in darker conditions. The built-in flash, while useful for close subjects, often produces harsh lighting and washed-out colors. The camera also produces fairly dramatic chromatic aberration, or color shifts in high contrast areas of the image. There’s also significant distortion which can easily be seen whenever long lines of a composition are placed near the horizontal or vertical edges of the frame. And highlights have a tendency to blow out to pure white.
Despite these aberrations, there’s a certain charm to the imperfections. The limitations of the camera put the user in a relaxed frame of mind. It is more important to just make the picture than it is for that picture to be perfect.
[ Images provided as samples are edited in Lightroom for exposure and white balance. Minimal edits have been applied, and these are all edits that could be accomplished in any photo editing app, including cell phone editors.]
-
- Flash On
-
- Flash Off
-
- No Zoom
-
- Max Zoom
Usability and Features
There are no complex menus or myriad settings to navigate. Basic shooting modes—auto, manual, macro, and scene—cover most needs. The manual mode is limited compared to modern standards, offering control over exposure compensation, ISO, and white balance, but little else, but this simplicity can be liberating. It allows the photographer to focus on composition and subject rather than getting lost in settings. It’s also nice to just point and shoot, to pay attention to the donut you’re eating or the bird you’re watching more than whatever is happening inside the camera in your hands.
The camera’s startup time is impressively quick, thanks to the sliding lens cover mechanism. This design ensures you’re ready to shoot almost immediately, a feature still appreciated in spontaneous photography. The shutter lag, however, can be noticeable, especially in low light, where the autofocus struggles to lock onto subjects.
The camera chews through batteries. Luckily, new replacement batteries are very cheap. If you buy an X50, buy two extra batteries and enjoy a full day of shooting.
The camera also offers an admittedly primitive movie mode. The stunningly tiny resolution of 320 x 240 is hilarious. The videos it makes are grainy, muddy, and quite frankly, awful. But I sort of love them, and wouldn’t be surprised to find some 17-year-old becoming TikTok famous for creating an entire career out of arthouse videos that look like the ones made by an X50.
Final Thoughts on the Dimage X50
Though undeniably a nostalgic trip, for me, given that I bought this camera a very long time ago, using the Minolta Dimage X50 today is more than just an exercise in nostalgia. It’s a reminder of the joys of simple, straightforward photography. The camera’s limitations promote a less stressful approach to capturing images. I spent the day on Martha’s Vineyard doing nothing (photographically) more taxing than simply pointing and shooting. It was easy, and fun, and though the camera can’t record RAW files (offering less editing latitude after the fact), I was happy with the images I got from the camera.
There’s also a tactile pleasure in handling the X50. The weight and feel of the metal body, the satisfying click of the sliding lens cover, and the simplicity of the controls all contribute to an enjoyable user experience. It’s a stark contrast to the touchscreen interfaces of modern devices.
In a world where the latest technology often becomes obsolete in a matter of years, the Minolta Dimage X50 is an example of enduring design and functionality. It may not compete with today’s cameras in terms of technical specifications, but it offers something arguably more valuable: a different perspective on photography.
For those willing to embrace its quirks and limitations, the Dimage X50 can still capture beautiful, memorable images. It’s a reminder that sometimes, the best camera is the one that inspires you to see the world differently, to appreciate the art of photography in its simplest form. I wrote in an article many years ago that even the worst camera ends up pointing at what’s most important. The X50 does that, and as it happens, it’s also a pretty great camera.
Get your own Retro Digital Point and Shoot from eBay
Or from our own F Stop Cameras
Follow Casual Photophile on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]
Wonderful photos, lovely colors! Really makes me want to take my 7d out today.