Minolta Dimâge EX (1998)
The Minolta Dimâge EX, announced in April 1998, was one of Minolta's first consumer digital cameras. As far as the record shows, nobody else was building anything like it at the time. The body comes apart into two pieces: the main body with controls and grip, and a lens/CCD head. A hinge joins them. The head folds flat against the body for storage or stands at 90 degrees, and it rotates 180 degrees. The CCD lives in the head, not the body, so swapping heads changes the lens and the sensor unit together. Minolta sold two versions: the EX 1500 Zoom with a 2.4x zoom lens (36-90mm equivalent, f/2.4-f/3.5) and the EX 1500 Wide with a fixed 13mm wide-angle lens.
The core specs are well documented. The 1.5-megapixel 1/2-inch CCD captures 1344 × 1008-pixel images, with a second 640 × 480 resolution option. Shutter speeds run from 1/16 to 1/2000 second. Sensitivity is fixed at ISO 100. Exposure is program auto with center-weighted and spot metering. There's no optical viewfinder, so you compose on either a 2-inch LCD or an electronic viewfinder. A QuickTime movie mode records 320 × 240 clips up to 45 seconds each. DPReview notes no audio, though some marketing materials imply otherwise. Images store on CompactFlash Type I or II cards, and a 4MB card came in the box. Power is four AA batteries, with Ni-MH recommended.
He called the swivel design "very appealing and quite workable" and praised it as one of the most comfortable digital cameras to hold. He was blunt about the compromises, though. Image sharpness is soft in some situations at default settings (in-camera sharpening helps). The buffer is very limited, so the camera stops shooting while it writes to the card. Manual controls are minimal. He also noted that dynamic range and contrast are typical for a 1998-era 1.5MP CCD, which is not great by later standards. On the Wide version, he flagged the fixed f/2.4 aperture as the biggest weakness, limiting both sharpness and low-light use.
A few spec conflicts exist between sources. DPReview lists the LCD at 2 inches and 110,000 pixels. Rob Sheppard describes the EVF as 0.55-inch with 180,000 pixels. These may describe different displays (LCD vs. viewfinder), or one source may simply have it wrong. Dimensions are given as 4.2 × 2.5 × 1.3 inches, with the caveat that this excludes the lens unit. Weight is 9.6 oz without battery or lens.
No original retail price, production end date, or collector market data have surfaced in the research to date. If you own an EX 1500 Zoom or Wide and can fill in the blanks - what it cost new, how the swivel mechanism has held up after twenty-five years, or how the two lens heads compare in practice - the Archive would welcome the record.
- Type: Digital camera with interchangeable lens/CCD heads
- Sensor: 1/2-inch 1.5MP CCD; 1344 × 1008 max resolution
- Lens (EX 1500 Zoom): 2.4x zoom, 36–90mm equiv., f/2.4–f/3.5
- Lens (EX 1500 Wide): Fixed 13mm wide-angle
- Shutter: 1/16 – 1/2000 sec
- ISO: 100 only
- Exposure: Program AE, center-weighted and spot metering
- Storage: CompactFlash Type I/II (4MB card included)
- Power: 4× AA Ni-MH (alkaline included)
- Released: April 1998
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.