Konica Minolta Freedom Zoom 150EX Panoramic

Camera broke quickly and took forever to fix. They eventually sent it to Japan to fix. Broke again soon afterward.

Compact. Good Zoom

Unstable

Other Nixon and Kodax Point and shoot.

I purchased this camera because of the more powerful zoom and the size. I use it mostly for travel. This pictures are terrible!!! My $110 Fuji takes far better pictures. When I switch to panoramic the pictures are dark. Often times it locks up and won't allow me to take certain pictures. I called Minolta and sent the camera back within the warranty time but it's still not right and they won't even look at it for less than $95. Guess they don't stand behind their work. I agree that the customer reps aren't friendly or sympathic about problems. Don't buy this camera!!!

Size

poor quality pictures not user friendly

Not helpful

BEWARE:I wanted to help alert people to stay away from the Minolta Freedom series of point & shoot cameras. My Freedom 125 scratches the non-emulsion film surface on winding or rewind. Notice the similar review by another consumer(on this webpage)of the Freedom 150. Minolta supposedly has a $120 minimum charge to fix this, so I am left with trashing the camera and buying a different make. I''ve had scratches from day one, but I waited too long to deal with it and I''m now outside warranty. It''s too bad, because if not for the scratching, I''d have loved this camera.

I had a very bad experience with this camera. I have children and purchased it mainly for family photos and vacations. My first pictures came back okay and then the next came back with faint scratches. I thought it was the developers fault. Each subsequent roll of film showed increasing more noticeable scratches. I finally returned the camera and got another of the same model. ( I really wanted to go with a different camera but the customer service people at the store were awful.) It soon began to do the same thing . It seemed to be scratching the film when it was rewinding. You could hear it sometimes. When I was finally able to find a real person at Minolta he was not very friendly and not very helpful with the questions I asked. I sent an email question in but only receiceved an automated. The instrucion booklet reads that there are rewinding problems when using polaroid 35mm film. I believe there are rewinding problems with any type of film. I used mainly Kodak which is what is packaged with the camera. I could hardly believe that I got two cameras that damged film in the same way. I finally did exchange it for a different manufacturers camera. I had purchased a service plan from the store. This whole process took over a year to settle. The pictures I took with the camera were not very good even when they were not scratched. The flash is terrible. Red eye is the worst problem. The red eye reduction feature is very slow. It makes 3 flashes before it takes and kids (and adults) either couldn''t be still that long or were confused by it. It did not always produce good results either. If you didn''t use it you would almost always have red eye with flash pictures. The zoom feature is not as good as I had hope either. It only has set stops and ypu can''t stop it exactly where you want it. The price has come down since I first purchased my camera and I think there have been some rebates. I my opinion, I think minolta is trying to unload these things before the word gets out. It was definely not worth the almost $300 I had to pay. I haven''t developed my first roll from my new camera yet. I hope it''s better

compact size

Problems with 2 cameras scratching film Red eye awful Red eye reduction feature too slow to be practical

Nikon One touch Olympus zoom 170

Inadequate- hard to talk to real person, not responsive on phone or email

I spent lots of time reviewing different point and shoots to replace my 10 year old Canon Sure Shot. I bought this camera when it first came out. I bought it based on the size, zoom, Minolta name, perceived lens quality as well as some of the initial reviews. I really had a hard time deciding between this camera and the Canon Sure Shot Classic 120. WHAT A MISTAKE I MADE! I am pretty good with a camera-not pro but not a beginner. From the first roll I noticed out of focus shots, lots of red eye and really poor picture quality even at modest zoom levels. In addition, every roll would advance past the end of the roll and give me an additional 2 or 3 shots beyond 24 or 36, which I was charged for when developed. These pictures were dark, skewed and half exposed. It was obvious that the film wasn''t being advanced correctly. We also had problems loading the film, as it always took a few times to correctly load. I finally decided to send the camera back to Minolta for warranty service when the camera stopped loading the film altogether. Maybe I just had a lemon. After a few WEEKS they finally got back to me with more good news about this camera. They informed we that there was "impact damage" and the warranty was void! When I called they said even if it hadn''t been dropped it may have been "bumped" as there was a scratch or something on the front cover. They want $110 to repair! After they assured me someone at a management level would call me I am still waiting over a week later for that call. In the meantime, I bought a new Canon Sure Shot Classic 120. What a difference. GREAT camera! Beautiful color, flawless film loading/advance and really crisp, focused pictures. I will NEVER buy a Minolta product again. I have Canon and Nikon and that''s what I''ll stick with. Do yourself and favor and don''t make the same mistake I did.

None except small size

Picture quality Red eye Film loading and advance Customer Service

Canon Nikon

Terrible. Basically none.