Looking closer and seeing the 12x optical and the video recording that not only does zoom and stabilization but also 640x480 at 30fps (Mavica does only 15 second 320x240) and the deal was done. I bought a 1GB SanDisk Ultra2 (60x) sd card which allows up to 350 highest res pictures (and/or up to 28 minutes of wonderful stutter-free video) and now I am taking shots of my little moving target with no more blurring results.

My wife isn't into tweaking any camera and the controls are great, a little more complicated than the Mavica but not by much. Really it's point & shoot ease with only having to know four other buttons (one to switch between playback and "record", the toggle to go back and forth between stored images, a dedicated delete button to get rid of ones you don't like and the shutter button. If you are into doing more then there's a lot more on the camera from macros to in-camera video editing and on and on.

I know that most people don't buy a still camera for video and so I have to stress that the stills are blowing me away ... but also mention that if you do care about the video option then consider that the reason I only gave the unit a 4 is that the videos are Quicktimes. If you're a Windows person then you'll have to pay Apple (the real monopolist of PCs) $30 for a copy of QuickTime Pro to convert them to AVI and then use Microsoft's free Media Encoder or the consumer-grade freebie "Windows Movie Maker" to convert the AVIs to WMV format for best viewing in Media Player or use the AVIs in Pinnacle Studio 9 to make DVDs (why the heck don't cameras just record to WMV? This Quicktime default is so old fashioned). The quality of the videos IS good enough for your DVDs.

Aside from the video conversion pain, as a still camera This is the one.

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Stay Away from this Camera, June 2, 2005
Reviewer: Arlington J. Trombley Jr. "arttrombley"

I have taken literally thousands of pictures with my Dimage Z1. I was very excited about getting the Z5. I thought the anit-shake technology and extra zoom would make this an amazing camera. Unfortunately this camera is HORRIBLE compared to the Z1. Here is why:
1. I used the 400 ISO setting quite often on the Z1 with great results. The 320 ISO setting on the Z5 is completely unusable unless you want pictures that look like they were taken with a first generation digital camera.
2. The pictures are not even close to as clean and clear. The colors are muted and I can not seem to set the camera to get anything close to white. None of this was a problem with the Z1. I frantically looked around for my receipt to return this (not from amazon.com) but I cannot find it. I am stuck with a very expensive but nearly useless camera.

The only reason I gave this 2 stars is for the anti-shake feature. This works quite well. I suppose I could use the 100 ISO setting, but I still do not get great colors.

Please keep this in mind...I seriously took thousands upon thousands of pictures with the Z1. I am actually quite heartbroken about this. I own a ton of Minolta products and this if the first time I have been let down. I guess I can let the kids use this camera. It is not much use to me.

Please find another camera. I am not a frequent review writer but I feel so strongly about this that I want to warn others.

I hope I have saved someone the $$$$.
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Best camera I've ever owned, but not quite fulfilling expectations, April 5, 2006
Reviewer: Celestia "The Math Nerd"
Having owned only a Fujifilm Finepix A200 before this and being all of sixteen years old, I consider myself to be an amateur in the professional camera field; however, I have had this camera for almost four months now, and I have noticed some shortcomings.
For months, I had been eyeing the Canon S2 IS. I had done extensive online research, and that seemed to be the best camera in the field: it was definitely an improvement from my old camera (which was a PHD camera: Push Here, Dummy), yet at the same time was not so complicated that I, the amateur, would not know what to do with it. I waited with bated breath on Christmas Eve, hoping for the camera of my dreams and fearing that it would prove too expensive for my parents to afford (as it turned out, my father had rallied all twenty or so of my aunts, uncles and such and had collected a contribution from each of them; that camera was the reason I got no other gifts that year). When the time came, I reverently opened an appropriately-shaped box with my name on it, hoping against hope...and all of my expectations came crashing out the sky, trailing smoke, as I saw something that, while still a camera, was definitely not the Canon S2 IS of my dreams. The first thought that ran through my disappointed brain was, "Oh, no! Dad's gone and gotten some crappy Japanese look-alike!"
The Dimage Z5, obviously, is neither crappy nor a look-alike; it does, however, lack a fold-out screen, which is not a great loss, but there have been numerous times when that nifty little feature would have come in handy. It works beautifully in bright sunlight, and the colors are perfect; however, it has trouble focusing when I zoom all the way out to 12x, requiring me to set up my tripod for want of a steady hand, and when I use the zoom under dimly-lit conditions it cannot focus at all. Having had no experience with other brands and types, I cannot say whether this tendency is a shortcoming or not, but I suspect that it is.
One of the reviews I have read mentioned a lack of explanation concerning technical jargon. I find that I must agree on this point ("What on earth does 'telephoto' mean??"). While paging through the included instruction manual, I was frequently forced to ask my father what some term or other meant and which feature did what. But this lack is not serious.
I must admit that I love almost everything about this camera. I am planning to be a professional photographer someday, and this camera seems a good place to start. I am disappointed, however, that there seems to be no fisheye lens available for this model. And, relevant or not, I feel that I have to include the following:
My father paid almost $500 for the Dimage Z5 a little over four months ago.
Currently, the Dimage Z6, a newer model, is going for about $250, and the Z5 is not even available straight from Amazon.

Go get yourself a Z6.

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