Minolta DiMAGE F100 (2002–2004)
The Minolta DiMAGE F100 is a compact four-megapixel digital camera announced on 13th March 2002 at CeBIT. Production ran from 2002 to 2004. Minolta aimed it at the higher end of the compact market, as a direct competitor to Canon's PowerShot S40 and other four-megapixel compacts of the era. The average street price landed around €690.
Minolta's press materials led with three marketing firsts: the "World's First Area Autofocus and Subject Tracking Autofocus," the "World's First Automatic Digital Subject Program Selection," and image processing built around the Minolta GT Lens, CxProcess™ technology, and 12-bit A/D conversion. A production review unit running firmware V100-001 confirmed how the camera behaves. The large white brackets in the viewfinder mark the autofocus area while composing. Once focus is locked, a small red rectangle highlights the active area.
The record on this model has some gaps. Sensor resolution is consistently documented at 4.0-4.1 effective megapixels on a 1/1.8-inch CCD. One manual spec description claims 6.1 megapixels. That conflict is flagged here rather than resolved, since the 4MP figure is corroborated across far more sources. Optical zoom is given as 3x in most materials, though one source claims 5x. The 3x figure appears more widely and matches the "four megapixel three times zoom" description. ISO goes up to a maximum of 800. The camera runs on a CR-V3 battery. Beyond that, the sources found so far give no lens focal length range, aperture range, shutter speeds, LCD specifications, storage media, or dimensions.
What survives today is mostly reseller inventory. Listings describe a "Retro 2002" compact with case, and one unit offered "in good order." A specs aggregator lists the lowest current asking price at $99.99. Two users on one review site have given it an average 8.5 out of 10. Minolta meant this camera as its bid for the upper tier of the compact digital market in 2002, and the documentation trail is still surprisingly light.
Known specs:
- Sensor: 1/1.8-inch CCD, 4.0–4.1 effective megapixels
- Zoom: 3x optical (2.5x digital combined for 7.5x total)
- ISO: up to 800
- Battery: CR-V3
- Announced: 13 March 2002, CeBIT
- Production: 2002–2004
- Average price: €690
- Folder prefix on storage: 100MLT08 (the "08" identifies the F100)
eBay Listings
As an eBay Partner, we earn from qualifying purchases. This helps support our independent vintage technology research.