Manual Control Options
The DiMAGE Z6 offers manual control of all basic elements – aperture, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, focus, and a range of image parameters.
Focus
Auto Focus (6.0)
The ends of the DiMAGE Z6's 12x zoom range unfortunately highlight the limitations of the camera's autofocus mechanism. At wide angle and short telephoto settings, the mechanism is accurate in outdoor and bright indoor light, but it gets uncertain in dim light. At the extreme end of the telephoto range, the lens needs bright light and a subject full of much contrast to perform passably. Compared to the bulk of the ultra zoom models we have tested, the Z6 is a bit behind the competition in terms of autofocus capabilities.
The DiMAGE Z6 offers both macro and a super macro mode. Macro simply allows the camera to focus closer than it can in normal operation, though the focus range changes as the lens is zoomed. At the wide angle end of the zoom range, that's about 4 inches to a bit more than 3 feet. At extreme telephoto, that's a little less than 4 feet to a bit more than 8 feet. Super macro does not allow zooming, but it focuses anywhere from less than 0.4 inches (according to Konica Minolta – we didn't measure it, but it's certainly a very close distance) to a bit more than 3 feet.
Manual Focus (3.0)
When the DiMAGE Z6 is set for manual focus, a vertical distance scale appears on the screen, and the up and down buttons on the four-way controller adjust focus. Tapping the buttons prompts the camera to enlarge the center of the field of view, which helps a little, but I found that the enlarged image was too poor in quality to reliably show good focus; the view doesn't “snap” into focus, so much as it slides into focus. DSLRs – even the cheap ones that cost only slightly more than the Z6 – allow much more precise manual focus. As far as manual focus goes, the Z6 doesn't even stack up well against its super zoom competition.
Metering (7.5)
The DiMAGE Z6 offers center-weighted, spot, and multi-segment metering. The multi-segment setting uses readings from 256 separate zones to evaluate the image, and is designed to get good exposures in difficult lighting, such as backlighting. Spot mode measures exposure in only a small area at the center of the frame, indicated by a superimposed circle on the screen. Center-weighted averaging mode takes a single reading that includes the entire frame, but emphasizes the middle.
The metering modes are selectable in manual, shutter priority, aperture priority, and program modes. Though we typically like to see as much flexibility as possible in camera settings, spot and averaging modes are really only useful when the photographer is monitoring and controlling exposure.
Exposure (7.5)
The DiMAGE Z6 offers exposure compensation of up to two stops above or below the metered exposure, in 1/3-stop increments. This is a standard scale. Compensation is available in every mode except Auto and full Manual, including movie mode, which is certainly worth mentioning. The “i+” button calls up a small live histogram, and the display shows the effect of exposure and white balance controls.
White Balance (7.5)
The DiMAGE Z6 offers automatic white balance, five presets, and a custom white balance setting. The manual says that the DiMAGE Z6's auto setting handles mixed lighting well, but we were disappointed by its performance in window light. Images went blue, making our hale and hearty editor look pale and wan. The custom setting worked just fine, and very much like other cameras' setting mechanisms – the user takes a reading from a white surface. The Z6 offers a live preview of white balance, which is a helpful feature.
The five presets are Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, and Flash. That's a limited selection. Daylight and Cloudy are fine, but you can't use either in open shade. Tungsten is likely to give inaccurate but pleasingly warm results in home use, and Fluorescent tubes vary so much that a single setting is unlikely to suit any given lighting setup. But the Flash setting is appropriate for the built-in flash on the Z6.
ISO (6.0)
The DiMAGE Z6’s condensed 50-320 ISO range limits the camera's usefulness; we have to speculate that the continued use of a 320 max sensitivity setting by Konica Minolta is again attributed to the imaging chip's noise performance. There are few cameras on the market today that do not extend to at least ISO 400, and Fuji offers both 800 and 1600 on some of its consumer cameras.
Many photographers look at image stabilization (Anti-Shake in Konica Minolta parlance) as a passport to friendly low-light shooting. But with its limited ISO range, the Z6 really doesn't deliver on this promise.
Shutter Speed (6.5)
The DiMAGE Z6 offers a shutter speed range from 4 seconds to 1/1000. Many competing cameras offer 1/2000 or higher. With its minimum ISO of 50, the Z6 will be capable of shooting a well-exposed shot in even very bright scenes at 1/1000 and f/8 (its minimum aperture).
Aperture (7.5)
The DiMAGE Z6’s 5.83 – 69.9mm zoom has a maximum aperture of f/2.8 at 5.83 mm, which decreases to f/4.5 at 69.9 mm. The minimum aperture remains steady at f/8. Optical systems as small as the one in the Z6 – the CCD is 1/2.5 inches, and the minimum focal length of the lens is less than 6mm – can't offer good quality with small apertures. The apertures shrink to the size of pinholes, and quality drops as if the image were shot through a pinhole instead of a lens.
