Alphatracks

Don’t look now, but photos of the Nikon D60 are starting to appear throughout the web. Why should A-Mount shooters care about Nikon’s latest offering? Aside from the fact that the D60 probably will use a Sony built sensor, rumors suggest that the D60 may replace the D40, which has been Nikon’s low end dSLR up until now. Before the introduction of the D40, Nikon lagged behind Canon in sales. Although I haven’t seen total world wide sales figures for dSLRs, shortly after the D40s introduction, Nikon began outselling Canon - at least in the Japanese market. There might have been other factors, but the D40 was a landmark camera for Nikon and undoubtedly helped Nikon regain its strength.

Of course the biggest reason the D40 has sold so well is price. The 6MP D40 carried a list price of $599. This was far less than most dSLRs and gave Nikon a real advantage in the dSLR marketplace,

A worthy competitor to the Sony A200?

If the rumors are accurate, the new Nikon will carry a 10.2mp sensor, making it a true competitor to the brand new Alpha A200. Here is where things get interesting. As I said, many rumor sites are indicating that the D60 will replace the D40. Which begs the question, if the D60 will replace the D40, will Nikon retain the $599 price for their introductory model?

If so, this is significant, because it will mean that the brand new Sony A200 will soon have to face a 10.2MP Nikon that will be priced about $100 less.

Of course the details of Nikon D60 are still cloudy, but it is believed that it will be a 10.2MP dSLR with an anti-dust system and similar internal processing as the upper level Nikons.

Nikon hasn’t acknowledged the price of the D60, but it is awfully hard to raise prices in the world of digital cameras. If the D40 is actually going away, I think both consumers and resellers would start howling if Nikon suddenly raised the list price of their introductory model above the D40’s $599 kit price.

If the D40 remains in the catalog, then Nikon is free to price the D60 however they wish. If the D40 has reached the end of the line, however, the D60 almost has to sell for a similar $599 price.

What does the D60 mean to Sony Alpha Users?

So where does that leave Sony and the Alpha lineup? The A200 has at price of $699. That wasn’t a big problem when facing the D40, which could only muster 6MP. Against a similar 10.2MP model, however, the A200 starts looking overpriced.

Alpha A200’s great advantage: Super Steady Shot

The one great advantage the A200 will continue to enjoy is in-body image stabilization. The D60 can’t match that, so the A200 can be considered a superior camera. In fact, unless Nikon were to offer an image stabilization lens as the kit lens (highly unlikely at $599), D60 users will have buy an expensive IS lens to enjoy the image stabilization Sony users get with all lenses. I’m not an expert on Nikon lenses, but most IS lenses I have seen would cost more than the D60 body.

So Sony probably could justify the higher price tag of the A200 on this single feature alone. Those who realize the value of in-body IS would probably feel it was worth it.

But many of the people moving from basic digital cameras don’t necessarily understand the value of Sony’s Super Steady Shot. (Great system, really dumb name.) For the bulk of first time dSLR users, the pixel count is still the determining factor. While some of the better camera shops may take the time to explain Anti-Shake to prospective users, Sony can’t expect the sales people at the big box stores to steer people into the A200.

So that $100 could be a real liability, unless Sony either drops the price of the A200 or introduces a lesser priced dSLR. If the D60 does list for less than $600, I expect Sony to react quickly.

What is your take?

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Is your Minolta SRT model looking a little rough? What about your old reliable XD-11? Does it still look pristine? Maybe your XG-7 could use a little refurbishing. If you got an old, but well loved Minolta SLR, you can make into something very special. With a little elbow grease and a replacement leather kit from CameraLeather, you can turn your run-of-the-mill SLR into a one-of-a-kind show camera.

While CameraLeather won’t necessarily make your camera take better photos, it will definitely increase your pride in ownership. I’ve always found that when I value a special instrument, I tend to work harder at getting a result that matches the quality of the tool. So in the end, these kits might just improve the caliber of your photos after all.

Make your classic Minolta a real standout. CameraLeather offers a wide variety of colors and textures as these SRT models demonstrate.

Photo: CameraLeather, used with permission

CameraLeather, as the name implies, offers a line of leather kits that any handy DIYer can use to resurface the grip area on their classic SLR. DSLRs, with their molded, composite bodies probably don’t lend themselves to leather covering. The older metal bodied cameras, on the other hand, are the perfect target for one of these leather kits. Since CameraLeather offers a wide range of colors and styles, you an customize your aging SRT or XD-11 to look better than new. Best of all. the kits are inexpensive, ranging in price from to $10.50 for synthetic materials to $44 for the exotic kid skins. Most of the pre-cut covering kits for 35mm SLRs are less then $20.00. The biggest investment required in the time you invest to remove the old overing and apply the new one.

CameraLeather offers an incredible array of coverings.

Photo: CameraLeather, used with permission

To my mind, these leather coverings evoke an earlier era, when wealthy people would tote beautifully crafted classics with them on far flung-travels. I could imagine seeing one of these aboard the Orient Express or on a trip up the Nile in one of Agatha Christie’s novels. These cameras wouldn’t look out of place in a stateroom on the Titanic, either.

Too British for you? How about a fellow named Gatsby slinging one of these over his shoulder, bound for a day of yacht racing off Newport, Rhode Island. I would think a leather endowed XD-11 would be just his thing.

Ok, enough romanticizing. These leather covered cameras are uber-cool, but are they practical? I don’t want to lock my camera up in a display case — my cameras are for taking photos. How well will these coverings hold up?

That is one of many questions I had for Morgan Sparks of CameraLeather. Following are my questions and the answers provided by Sparks::

How difficult is it to recover Minolta SRT and X series SLRs?

How well does the leather stand up in use? Can someone use the camera regularly without damage from sweaty palms or oily skin?

Has anyone tried your fabric on lens barrels? After long use, some of the rubber grips on my Rokker lenses have stretched or come off completely. It might be interesting to buy a matching fabric sheet and cut it to fit the lens, making the lens and camera match. Impractical? What do you think?

Hmm. This seems like a very interesting project. There are a couple of hitches, however. First, it’s been years since I actually shot film. I still have some of my old SLRs and it might be fun to take one out and play with it now and then, but the film train has pretty much left the station. And she ain’t ever coming back.

Secondly, I am at a loss to think of which of my old SLRs I would want to cover. My old SRTs are pretty well used. They have been dropped, nicked, exposed to all manner of hard use — one has even been run over by an errant race car.

Other metal bodied Minolta SLRs, like this XD11 are also good candidates for the leather treatment..

Photo: CameraLeather, used with permission

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not careless about my equipment, but sometimes getting the shot is more important than keeping the camera in pristine condition. So these scars are a badge of honor as far as I’m concerned. But I’m afraid an immaculate leather covering would clash with the scared metal housing. I would have to distress the leather to make it match — that doesn’t seem like a very good idea.

I do have a mint Minolta SR-7 and I’m sure a leather covering would look great on it. CamaeraLeather doesn’t offer a kit expressly for the SR-7, but it is so close in appearance to the later SRT series that I think I could adapt a SRT kit. If not, CameraLeather sells uncut sheets of the adhesive backed leather so I could go that route and custom make my covering.

But as I said, the SR-7 is in mint, nearly unused condition. It probably isn’t greatly valuable today, but I would guess in the coming years it might be worth something. But it I remove the original hard covering and replace it with leather, the camera probably will not have any real value to a collector. Sigh.

Maybe I could look around for an old XD-11 on ebay. It would lend itself well to the refined look of leather and Minolta made enough of them that they wouldn’t be as much of a collector’s item as the older SR model.

Leather is precut for every supported camera model.

Photo: CameraLeather, used with permission

I wonder what it would be like to shoot film again? I’m going to have to think about that. I would never return to film in place of digital for my professional work…but it might be fun to haul around a leather bound film SLR for family events and the like.

While I’m studying on the problem, if you have a suitable candidate for a leather treatment, check out the CameraLeather website.

If you do try your hand at recovering an old Minolta SLR, send in some photos so I can share with other Alphatracks readers. Who knows, maybe we can spark a revival of classic Minolta SLRs.

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Alphatracks has always been aimed at Sony and Minolta SLR users. Not that there is anything wrong with non-SLR gear, There have been numerous great non-SLR cameras sold under the Sony/Minolta brands. You have to draw the line somewhere, however, and since I have primarily used SLRs, I like to stick to what I know.

I’ve noticed that many readers are somewhat unclear as to which cameras are actually SLRs. Some appear to think it means any camera that uses interchangeable lenses. (Which is not the case.) Others mistakenly apply the term to so-called “bridge” or pro-summer cameras. These cameras typically rely on an electronic view finder (EVF) , which disqualifies them as a dSLR. So what exactly makes a camera SLR?

Shouldn’t that be a MLR?

It’s the instant return mirror (and supporting system) that puts the reflex into a SLR.

Most people know that SLR stands for “single lens reflex,” which in itself is fairly confusing. After all, nearly 100 percent of the SLRs ever produced are designed with an interchangeable lens mount. Shouldn’t these cameras be called Multiple Lens Reflex cameras?

To understand just why we refer to these cameras as single lens units we need to examine a bit of camera history, The early cameras, such as those used by Matthew Bradey during the American Civil War, recorded a single image at a time. The photographer looked through the lens, focused, composed and then inserted the film plate behind the lens to make an image. While the entire process was crude by today’s standards, the photographer enjoyed great control, since he looked directly through the actual imaging lens to compose the shot.

While this was satisfactory for still life, portraits and landscapes, this process did not lend itself to rapid photography. These early cameras could only record one image at a time. Which is why you have never seen a motor-driven view camera.

Realizing the need to offer sequences of exposures, camera makers begin to experiment with various roll-film designs, With a roll of film in the camera, the photographer could fire off continuous images without reloading. While this improved throughput dramatically, it caused another problem. The roll of film had to pass closely behind the camera’s optics, which meant that the photographer could no longer look through the camera lens to design the shot.

Rangefinder cameras appear to keep things in focus

There was no problem with the lower-end consumer roll-film cameras, because these generally used an inexpensive “fixed-focus” lens. Better quality optics require the lens to be focused, however, and as we’ve seen, the photographer couldn’t look through the lens with a roll-film camera. One of the first solutions to this problem was the Rangefinder — a type of camera that offered a distance measuring scale in the viewfinder. By determining the range from the viewfinder, the photographer could then adjust the focus to match — usually with very good results.

Twin Lens Reflex cameras offer another solution

Twin lens reflex used upper lens to focus, lower lens actually took the photo.

While the rangefinder type cameras worked well, the camera industry is always evolving. A second method of allowing the photographer to focus and compose appeared in the “Twin-Lens Reflex” cameras. These cameras used two identical lenses, arranged one on top of the other in the manner of an over-and-under shotgun. The film winds past the lower lens, while the photographer can focus through the upper lens. Since most of the twin-lens cameras were fairly bulky, designers added a mirror and ground glass to the top of the camera, hence the term “reflex.

Now the user could hold the camera at waist level and look down at the ground glass which previewed the image via the mirror behind the upper lens. As the user adjusted the focus on the upper lens, a gear mechanism moved the lower “taking lens” to match.

While both rangefinders and twin-lens cameras offered a credible way to focus and preview a shot, neither allowed the photographer to look directly through the imaging lens. This made exact composition difficult in certain situations.

SLRs take cameras another step forward.

Cut-away view shows the light path through a typical SLR. Light enters through the lens, hitting the lower mirror, where it is reflected upwards. It then strikes the top of the prism, where it is reflected again to strike the front of the prism. It is reflected yet a third time to pass through the viewfinder.

In their quest to allow users to see through the actual “taking” lens, camera makers turned to the periscope — a simple device using two mirrors placed at opposite angles to bend the light path. Periscopes are easy to understand — any kid can construct one from a couple of mirrors and some scrap wood. In a camera, the lower mirror is placed at a 45 degree angle directly behind the lens. Light striking the mirror is projected upwards to a ground glass. A pentaprism, which contains two additional mirrors, is located behind the viewfinder. The prism is used to flip the image so it can be viewed “right-side up”

There is just one hitch. If you’ve been paying attention, you no-doubt realized that the lower mirror blocks the light path to the film (or digital sensor as the case may be.) Now the photographer can look though the lens, but the image can’t be projected on to the film plane.

So the camera designers had to add another wrinkle. They had to move that mirror. Just long enough to make an exposure, since when the mirror moved, the photographer couldn’t see anything through the lens. So they designed the “instant-return” mirror.

At the instant of exposure, the mirror flies upward, the shutter opens, closes and the mirror snaps back down. It is a incredible feat, when you consider that instant return mirrors have to flip up and back in a heartbeat, over and over for the life of the camera.

Once the instant return mirror was perfected, photographers could once again design their images by looking through the lens. Unlike the twin lens reflex, this new breed of camera needed only one lens to focus and shoot with. So they became known as… you guessed it…. Single-Lens Reflex cameras.

Digital SLRs work exactly the same way — the same reflex system of mirrors and prism is used in front of a a digital sensor instead of film.

For further reading:

Wikipedia SLR page>

How Stuff Works - Single Lens Reflex

Images on this page published under the GNU Free Documentation License.

SLR Cutaway derived from image provided by:
Juhanson

Rolleiflex Twin Lens Reflex provided by
Jean-Jacques MILAN/Photographie - 40

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I’m sure this won’t apply to most Alphatracks readers, but if you shot Cord Industries film and slides in the 1970s, I suggest you check your media. Like now. Don’t even wait to finish reading this. If you have any valuable images on Cord film stock, you should dig them out and make sure those images are still intact.

If you were in to photography in any level in the seventies, you undoubtedly saw ads for Cord film products. You would be hard pressed to find a photo magazine from the era that didn’t have at least one Cord advertisement. They also advertised in newspapers, Sunday supplements, and anywhere else they could reach photo enthusiasts.

Cord: slides and negs from same roll

The offered free rolls of film in order to get film processing revenue. Many other film makes did the same thing, but Cord was unique. You sent an exposed roll of film in for processing and you got back both slides and negatives for each image.

This might sound quaint in this era of pixels and flash memory cards, but it was a big deal in the seventies. There was no electronic publishing in those days, so if you sold to magazines like I did, you had to provide them with transparencies (slides). Color prints or color negatives were useless to magazines of that timeframe. On the other hand, if you wanted to make a color print from a slide, you were likely to be disappointed. Kodak and other labs would make prints from slides, but the prints always seemed to have too much contrast. So you had to take your choice when you shot color: transparency film or negative film. You couldn’t mix and match.

The Cord secret: motion picture film adapted to 35mm cameras

Enter Cord Industries. The story I heard was they discovered that the major move studios wee literally throwing away short ends of film stock. Kodak and other manufacturers made a special “master” film. After a major movie had been edited and was ready for distribution, the studios would duplicate it onto a special master negative. once they had the master, they could make as many film “prints” as they needed to distribute to theaters. The master negative stock was identical to 35mm still camera film, complete with sprocket holes.

It was a clever idea. Film studios didn’t want to bother with all the short lengths of master film left over after duping the film. The master would fit into a 35mm camera and make useable negatives. Because it was designed to make distribution film prints, Cord could process the master like an ordinary still camera negative, then create a set of sides from the negative.

This interested me for two reasons. First, it would allow me to shoot transparencies for the magazines, while at the same time I could get much nicer prints if a client requested one. Even more importantly, when I sent slides out to publications, I was sending the original, irreplaceable image. If it was lost or damaged, there was no back up. With the Cord product, I would still have the negatives and could create another transparency — just like the studios when they made multiple films for distribution.

It sounded good in theory, but I soon found it was less than ideal. In the first place the film wasn’t designed for still cameras and didn’t offer the same detail as the Kodachome or Ektachrome slide films. It wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t feel the quality was as good as the true Kodak slide film.

The biggest drawback, however, was the time it took to get the slides and negs back from Cord. I could get same day service for Ektachome and Kodak would return my Kodachome slides back to me in 48 hours. With Cord, it usually took a week to ten days to get the slides back. I found that delay was unacceptable for a working photographer, so I stopped using their product.

That is probably a good thing. Last week, I was digging through some of my old film archives looking for some old negatives for a project i am working on. In the process, I happened on some of my old Cord slides and opened the box to refresh my memory about what was inside.

My Cord slides and negatives are fading fast!

I was shocked to discover that the film was in very bad shape. Most of the images have a strange pink cast and the slides appear to be fading. On some of them, the color saturation is nearly gone.

I thought that having the original negative would provide a solution to the deteriorating transparencies. When I checked the negs, however, I found they too appear to be fading. The Kodak and GAF slides I have from the same era appear to be in excellent shape. All of the Cord stuff is slowly turning to mush, indicating that I will have to get busy scanning or duping the original media before it is totally useless.

Fortunately, I didn’t shoot a huge amount of this stuff, probably less than a dozen 36 exposure rolls in all. Still, there are images I would hate to lose, either for sentimental reasons or because they still have commercial value. There are persons, places and things on that film that no longer exist. That makes those images valuable from a historical perspective, if nothing else.

I’m sure that a number of digital shooters are unconcerned about the fragile nature of celluloid media. Before you get too smug, read this story about the life expectancy of CD media. Or this one about how long a hard drive will last. Of course, I have owned both hard drives and CDs that have lasted a very long time, but I have also seen some failures.

I love shooting digital, but I am concerned about long-term storage of my digital images. Flakey hard drives and short life-span CDs could make my minor Cord problems seem really insignificant. Imagine losing thousands of irreplaceable images due to a faulty hard drive and bad back-up media.

Anyone know where I can find a cheap tape backup system?

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Hey! Need a user manual for your SRT101? Or maybe for an old XG-M? Your father in-law gave you his old Maxxum 800si, but you’re unsure how to use it? Look no further than the original source.

I get lots of questions from users asking about manuals. “Where can I get a manual for my Minolta (insert camera model here) ? Since almost any Minolta you acquire will be pre-owned, there is a good chance it will be missing that all important manual.

Many people don’t realize that Konica-Minolta still maintains an excellent collection of original user manuals at the KM support site. Even though KM has exited the camera manufacturing business, they haven’t taken their manuals and software offline. Thus, as this is written (August 2007), you can still find downloadable manuals for almost all of KM’s digital cameras, as well as the majority of AF models. If you are lucky, you will even find a manual for your forty year old manual-focus SLR at the site.

The downloads are free, so if you need a manual for any Minolta camera, scanner, printer, etc. this is the first place to look.

Of course there is always the chance this resource might disappear at some point, and not every Minolta model is represented. If you can’t locate what you need at the KM site, the following sites offer various collections of user manuals.

http://www.vikenk.com/minolta_manual.htm

A fairly comprehensive collection of user manuals covering the Maxxum A-mount and the earlier Minolta manual cameras. There are also some accessory manuals. Most of the manuals are available for free download, although to conserve bandwidth the site requires you to request some of the more obscure items. Viken also sells some Minolta service manuals

http://www.geocities.com/eskoufos/fmm.html

Another great Minolta manual collection. I have used this site in the past and found everything I was looking for. The site offers auto and manual SLR users guides, as well as rangefinders, individual lens manuals, even some free service manuals.,

http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/repairmanuals.html

Site offers free service materials, including four pages of SRT101 disassembly drawings.

http://www.rokkorfiles.com/Manuals.htm

In addition to tons of information about the Minolta manual focus cameras, the Rokkor Files also offers a large selection of scanned Minolta instructions and guides. You can download the PDFs for free, but Andy also has a number of original paper factory manuals for sale.

http://www.ephotozine.com/equipment/manuals/Minolta/64

Lots of scanned manuals covering scanners, flash guns, lenses and of course, cameras.

http://www.photobooksonline.com/books/userbk12.html

The manuals on this site aren’t free, but you’ll find lots of stuff that you won’t see anywhere else. Instead of online PDFs, this site offers reprints of the original paper manuals. They have a large collection, some of it predating the Minolta SLRs, including Autocords and folding Minoltas.

http://www.camerabooks.com/category.aspx?categoryID=1187

Another site selling original instruction manuals. Obviously, the available manuals will vary.

http://www.micro-tools.com/pdf/Minolta/index.html

Great site for free parts manuals. It covers mostly the Konica-Minolta digital stuff, although I did see the Maxxum 5, 7 and 9 film SLRs listed. Sorry, the Maxxum 5D and 7D don’t appear to be available here.

http://www.retrevo.com/samples/Konica-Minolta-manuals.html

This site focuses on electronics, and as such offers lots of printer and scanner manuals. You will find most of the Dimage series camera manuals as well.

Maxxum Dynax AF Lens Repair Manual CD

Pete Ganzel is the original Minolta hacker — he is responsible for a number of incredible Minolta upgrades and mods. Ganzel sells a CD entitled the Minolta Maxxum Dynax AF Lens Service Repair Manual Mini CD, which covers most of the popular Minolta a-mount lenses. The $24.00 CD features 693 pages of information along with hi-res exploded parts diagrams. A must it you are into repairing or modding you Minolta AF lenses.

http://www.tradebit.com/filedetail.php/830435

A site selling a download of a 190 page service manual for the X-700. I haven’t seen it, but if i had a sick X700, I would consider it.

This is only a sampling, but I hope it helps those looking for information on their old, out-of-production cameras. If you know of any other manual sites that shoul be listed here, leave a comment so I can add it to the list.

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Part 1 of the Alphatracks Minolta/Sony SLR lens guide

Second only to questions about vertical grips for the Sony Alpha A100, the most numerous Alphatracks searches involve lenses. Questions like “Can I use old Minolta lenses on Sony A100?” are frequent. Intriguingly, I have even gotten questions like “Will my new Sony lenses fit on my dad’s old X700?”

Confusion reigns when photographers, especially those new to the dSLR scene, attempt to sort out which Minolta lenses fit which camera. Minolta produced SLR lenses from the 1950s until 2006 — and Sony is still selling re-branded versions of some of the more popular Minolta glass. That is a heck of a lot of lenses. Those new to the world of SLRs hear that the A100 will accept Minolta lenses, so they can be forgiven if they expect an old MC lens from 1972 to attach to the A100. Conversely, there are brand new A100 owners who are doubtful that recent A-mount Minolta lenses will work on their camera.

This will be a three part series focusing on lens options for Minolta SLRs, as well as the KM and Sony dSLRs. I’m not going to explore any particular lens — instead I will delve into the different lens mounts and attempt to dispel some of the confusion.

First up, the Rokkor SR, MC and MD lenses.

Minolta — or at least the company we know as Minolta — had a long history producing cameras long before the era of SLRs. After making a variety of rangefinders and the famous Autocord Minolta the the plunge and entered the SLR ranks. The first Minolta SLR, oddly enough, was known as the the SR2, even though it was released before the SR1 model.

Both these SLRs introduced the Minolta designed, three blade bayonet mount. Introduced in 1958, the Minolta mount was superior to most competing contemporary SLR lens mounts. At the time, many competitors still relied on the old-style screw mount. Most SLR makers ended up redesigning their lens mounts to keep up with technology — but the Minolta mount was so well designed that the camera maker was able to consistently update their technology while still keeping backwards and forwards compatibility between cameras and lenses.

The original SR mount lenses were “stop-down” lenses, meaning you had to manually close down the lens to the aperture you wanted. In theory you would focus wide-open, then stop the lens down to make an exposure.

By the time the Minolta SR7 arrived is 1962, Minolta and others had figured out ways to allow the camera to automatically stop the lens down to the correct f-stop. In Minolta’s case, you could focus wide open, then when you pressed the shutter, a rod would cause the lens to close down to the f-stop you had set. As soon as the exposure was finished, the lens would open up again to provide a bright view finder.

The first “MC” lens appeared with the original SRT101 in 1966. This was the first SLR to offer through-the-lens metering. Minolta added a tab to the lens to allow the camera to tell which f-stop the photographer had set. Minolta dubbed these lenses MC for “meter-coupled.” It utilized the same SR lens-mount — but the MC lenses had the extra tab.

Many MC lenses featured a depth of field preview button. It was redunant, because nearly every Mnolta SLR of the era featued a DOF preview. The DOF lever disappeared from the MD lenses.

It is important to understand that, despite the rapid change and improvements, virtually all Minolta lenses would fit on any Minolta SLR. Of course you needed a MC lens if you wanted to meter with an SRT, but you could use the older SR lenses in manual mode on the SRT. At the same time, you could use a MC lens on a SR series camera with no side effects. There wee a couple of very specialized lenses that might need slight modifications to work properly, but virtually all SR and MC lenses were fully interchangeable.

This happy state of affairs continued as Minolta introduced the improved SRT102. I don’t have any accurate production figures, but in the mid-seventies, Minolta claimed their main lens factory was cranking out 40,000 lenses a month. Add in specialty lenses produced elsewhere, and it appears Minolta was producing nearly a half million MC lenses per year.

The Minolta SLR system, circa 1975. Taken from an old Minolta marketing piece, this probably shows the Rokkor-X lens lineup, as the XK, the SRT 102, the SRT 101 and the SRM motordriven camera are shown. The XK used Rokkor X (MC) lenses. The MD lenses wouldn’t be introduced for another two years. Sadly, with the exception of the filters, copy stands and ambient light meters, almost nothing shown in this photo can be used directly on any current dSLR.

Minolta’s first electronic shutter cameras

1973 saw the first Minolta with an electronic shutter, the legendary (and expensive) XK. This was followed up quickly with the more affordable XE-7 and XE-5. All three of these cameras offered a new option for Minolta shooters. In addition to shooting manually (the only option with previous Minolta SLRs), the new X series camera now offered an aperture priority setting. A photographer could select an f-stop and the camera would set a shutter speed that would provide the proper exposure. The Minolta engineers were able to make this work with no changes to the MC lens mount. So once again you could use all Minolta lenses on the new cameras in manual mode. If you wanted to use aperture priority, you needed an MC lens.

At first, I was a little disappointed that my new XE-7 only offered aperture priority since I was shooting auto racing full time and a fast shutter speed was of major importance to me. I quickly found out that I was worrying about nothing, as I could just rack the aperture ring back and forth to cause the camera to set the shutter speed I wanted. Still, at the tme, I didn’t understand why Minolta didn’t offer a shutter priority option. The reason was simple. The camera had no way to adjust the aperture with an MC lens. So you couldn’t select a shutter speed and have the camera set the aperture to the correct exposure.

1977: the XD-11 and the first MD lenses

The two tabs on the aperature ring indicate this is a MD lens. The first tab is located near the green f22 marking, while the MD tab can be seen near the orange 50-135 marking.

Always thinking toward the future, the Minolta engineers solved the shutter priority puzzle in 1977, They released the XD-11 — the world’s first SLR that offered a choice of either Aperture or Shutter priority (as well as manual) modes. In order to bring off this magic, however, they had to make a slight change to Minolta lenses. Nothing drastic. Just a small tab added to the aperture ring. With this small change the XD-11 and subsequent X700 variants could stop down or open the lens when in shutter priority mode. Since this lens was designed for a dual mode camera, Minolta adopted the name MD for these dual mode lenses.

The original SR lens mount was now nearly twenty years old, but full compatibility was still maintained. You could attach the new MD lenses to an old SR2 or you could use any old SR or MC lenses on your new XD-11. Of course you couldn’t use the old lenses in shutter priority mode, but you still could shoot in aperture priority or manually.

The X700, released in 1981, was Minolta’s first Program mode camera — it could set both f-stop and shutter speed when in the program setting. This required no changes to the lens mount or lenses. You could use any MD lens in program mode. You could still use the older lens as well — with the same aperture or manual limitation.

Auto focus — death knell for the Rokkors

Finally, in 1985, advances in camera design finally caught up with the famed Minolta lens mount. That year, Minolta introduced a full system of automatic focusing cameras. It was a major advancement, and placed Minolta well ahead of all other camera makers. To bring this off, however, Minolta had to drastically redesign their lens mount for the first time. Even the wizards at Minolta couldn’t find enough space in the X-mount to incorporate autofocus.

Almost all of the original Minolta lenses were identified as Auto Rokkor while the MC lenses carry the legend Rokkor-X. The early MD lenses also carried the Rokkor-X designation, but the name disappeared along the way. Even Minolta’s economy Celtic line carried the MC marking.

The new Maxxum A-mount spelled the end of backwards compatibility. The X-mount lens opening was too small to allow for the various sensors and contacts required for the electronic focusing components. So the A-mount was born, with a larger opening and electronic connections to replace many of the X-mount’s mechanical workings. The two mounts look similar, but the lenses are not interchangeable between the systems.

Contrary to popular belief, however, the introduction of the A-mount did not spell the end of the X-mount. Minolta continued to produce variations of the X700 and X-570 cameras for many years after the introduction if the Maxxum and the A-mount. I was quite shocked to see that Minolta still offered the X700 in it’s product line in 2000, some fifteen years after the introduction of the A-mount.

That means you cannot use a timeline to identify whether a lens will fit the A-mount dSLRs. A Minolta lens purchased in, say 1996, is probably a A-mount, but could very possibly be an X-mount.

In addition, that also means that there is a huge amount of older SR, MC and MD glass out there, some of it fairly new. No wonder there is so much interest in using these great old lenses on modern dSLRs.

There are options to use the Rokkor lenses on the A-mount and other cameras — with some severe restrictions. We’ll discuss that in part three. Before we get into that, however, we need to explore Minolta’s (and Sony’s) A-mount lenses.

While I used my own experience and my collection of old Minolta literature to assemble this article, I did use some other Minolta-related websites to check some facts and dates. If you want to delve deeper into Minolta manual lenses, try Minman at http://members.aol.com/manualminolta/. You’ll find a wealth of information about manual-focus Minolta cameras and lenses. Another excellent source is Peter Blaise Monahon’s website at http://www.geocities.com/peterblaise/minoltamf/. Either of these sites should provide you with all the info you want on the SR, MD and MC lenses.

Next time we will look at the A-mount and which Minolta lenses fit the Alpha dSLRs.

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In my previous discussion on how I came to shoot with Minolta, I explained how I started toting my dad’s old Wirgin stereo camera until I out grew it’s capabilities. I was taking an advanced darkroom class and my mentor suggested I pick up a nice Pentax.

On his suggestion, I headed off to Adray’s intending to buy a Pentax SLR. In those days, Adray Appliance in Dearborn was THE place to buy camera equipment in the suburban Detroit area. There were some other good camera stores in downtown Detroit, but Adray’s owned the western Detroit suburban camera market. The only place I saw that offered better camera selection and prices in that era was New York City. And Adray’s approached even that.

It took me less than thirty seconds to determine I wanted nothing to do with the Pentax SLRs. The tiny pentaprism looked like a toy to my eyes and the whole feel of the camera seemed toy-like. Even worse, at that time Pentax had yet to offer their K-bayonet mount. The idea of a screw-mount SLR camera just didn’t fit my idea of a serious camera for travel and adventure. I knew I would be doing a lot of shooting in the outdoors, in wilderness conditions. Cross-threading or getting sand and dirt in the screw-mount threads seemed inevitable with the use I had planned.

My new friend behind the counter, sensing a sale, suggested a Nikon — I don’t remember the model. Now, many Nikon owners are known to be fanatical about their cameras, feeling that Nikon is a step above anything else. If you are one of those, why not do us both a favor and stop reading right about now. You probably don’t want to hear what I have to say.

I hated that Nikon. It was bulky and square-cornered and heavy as a brick. In fact that was it felt like — a brick with a flat pentaprism and a lens stuck to it. On top of that, my sales friend explained that I would have stop down the lens to meter correctly. To be fair, Nikon has produced some excellent cameras and their current crop of dSLRs seem to have excellent ergonomics. Too bad the current engineers weren’t around in that era to prevent Nikon from producing bricks. Maybe I would have gone with a Nikon back then. As it was, I knew i would never be happy with that Nikon.

I asked my sales-friend what else he had. “Well, there is the new Minolta SRT102,” he replied. He handed me the demo model and that was all he had to do to make the sale. Unlike the Nikon, the 102 felt good in my hands. The controls were extremely well laid-out, and the view finder was bright and clear, No stop-down metering here. The SRT102 could meter at full aperture.

In all, I felt the Nikon was an old farm truck, while the SRT102 was a sports car. I was sold. “Write it up,” I told the counter guy.

Amusingly enough I recently read the comments of a Nikon lover who claimed that the Minolta SRT series was ergonomically flawed compared to Nikon because the meter on/off switch was on the bottom of the camera. I would certainly prefer living with the SRT’s bottom mounted meter switch over the bulky, sharp-cornered Nikon any day. The only time the bottom switch caused any problem was when the camera was on a tripod or equipped with a flash bar that attached to the tripod socket. In these cases, the meter switch could be inaccessible. Even this was never much of a problem, primarily because the SRT102 was an all manual camera with a mechanical shutter. This meant the only thing the battery had to do was power the meter, so there was little battery drain. My usual procedure was to turn the meter on when I first brought the camera out of the case. I would then leave it on for as long as the shoot lasted — which might be all day when I covered major racing events. Then I would turn off the meter when I put the camera away for the day. Following this procedure, I usually replaced the battery once a year — whether it needed to be or not. Hardly seems to be much of an ergonomic problem — especially when the rest of the camera handled so well.

Unlike today, it wasn’t all that common to own a SLR in that era. To be sure, many amateurs and well-to-do folks owned SLRs and range-finders but it was much less common than today. The Minolta SRT and the rest of the offerings of that era were metal bodied cameras with mechanical shutters. In another decade, plastic bodies and less-expensive microchip controlled shutters would allow camera makers to slash the price of a SLR to the extent that they were affordable by even casual users. Today, you’ll find dSLRs in the hands of casual shooters as well. In the early seventies, SLRs were priced beyond the reach of most people. Even among those who could afford the sticker price, the idea of spending “that” much cash on a camera just didn’t seem practical.

There was second reason the average Joe (or Jill) avoided SLR cameras. They were perceived as difficult to operate — requiring a skilled expert to use properly. Only trained photographers knew how to operate a SLR. Of course this was a myth — early seventies SLRs were far easier to use than the dSLRs of today. But today’s cameras have auto exposure, auto focus, auto ISO (ASA back in the seventies), auto white-balances, auto x-ray vision. Okay, I made the last one up, but you get the idea. The older manual SLRs didn’t really require a PHD in Photographic Studies to operate — but many people assumed they did.

I remember the time I was photographing an auto race for a national publication. One of the racers that I knew casually approached me about some photo work he needed, He looked over my SRT102 equipped with a side grip flash and external battery pack. Shaking his head, he exclaimed “Man, how did you ever learn what all those dials and buttons are for? I couldn’t even begin to know how to use that thing!”

The hilarious thing was, this same man built racing engines for a living. Here was someone who understood all the intricate details of assembling a race engine to the finest tolerances and how to tune it to get the maximum power — yet he assumed my SLR was too difficult for him to use!

The SRT series was simple to use and required far less thumbing through the owner’s manual then any auto-everything film or digital SLR available today. Yet the older cameras were thought to be difficult to use, while almost anyone assumes they can use a dSLR. After all dSLRs are “automatic.”

I guess that’s what you call progress.

I’ll talk more about the SRT102 in the next post. Until then, stay focused! — Tom

Have comment on this post? Let me know what you think!

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Most of the activity on this weblog has consisted of posts about the Sony A100 — with good reason. The A100 is Sony’s first SLR and it provides an upgrade path for current Minolta users. Minolta shooters want to know whether Sony got it right — or not. If you have a large investment in lenses and accessories and a new company shows up and becomes the only outlet for new and improved gear — it is natural to be a little apprehensive. There is a lot riding on the Alpha camera line, and anyone with a vested interest in Minolta auto-focus SLRs is watching the A100 to see just how true Sony will remain to the Minoltas of the past. So, in a sense, the eyes of most Minolta shooters are on the A100.

This weblog is about more than Sony, however, and it isn’t restricted to digital SLRs — although I think most of the posts will focus on digital offerings from Sony and Minolta. Film isn’t quite dead yet, however. There are still a host of photographers shooting film, either because they still aren’t comfortable with digital — or because certain occasions or circumstances call for film for best results.

With the introduction of the A100, I started to think about how I got involved with Minolta — and photography — in the first place. More years ago then I really want to think about, I was serious about a career in film making. Not Hollywood style chase-scene and explosion films, but travel documentaries — better known as Travelogs. I took a series of classes taught by Adrian Lustig. Lustig had created and produced travelogs for many years and proved an excellent trainer.

After competing my classes with Lustig, I thought I should develop my still photography as well. I had recently spent three weeks on Isle Royale National Park, a small patch of wilderness located in the middle of Lake Superior. I had packed along my trusty Kodak 110 Instamatic. Besides images of the breath-taking scenery, I managed several dramatic close-ups of moose and fox. That was with a 110, non-telephoto snapshot camera. Imagine what I might have achieved with a telephoto lens! Fresh from that experience, I thought a little camera training might improve my shooting.

Instead of a class on how to take better photos, however, the class I enrolled in turned out to be a class in darkroom techniques. Although it wasn’t what I expected, I was immediately intrigued by developing and printing my own images. I loved the class and soon had my own black & white darkroom.

There was just one problem. My 110 negatives were just two small to really get the great prints I was after. The film choices were limited, the grain in 8X10s was huge, and most enlarging lens were designed for larger negatives. Obviously, I needed a camera that would produce better negatives — at least 35mm in size.

My dad had an old Wirgin Stereo camera. He had a boxes and boxes of 3D Stereo slides that looked three dimensional when you wore those funny glasses. I had no interest in stereo photography — but the Wirgin actually took standard 35mm film. I started loading the Wirgin with Tri-X and Plus-X pan film. Because it was a stereo camera, it actually produced two negatives of every shot — today people order double prints, back then I was shooting double negs. In addition, the negatives weren’t standard 35mm size — they were square “half-frame” negatives measuring 7/8″ wide by 15/16″ high.

There was no light meter either. I had a hand-held Norwood Director that measured ambient light. The camera had a flash-shoe, but I don’t remember ever taking anything but available light images with the Wirgin.

If you are interested in finding out about the long-forgotten Wirgin camera company, try the following link:

The History of Kamerawerk Gebr.Wirgin

I dragged dad’s old Wirgin around for several months and soaked up as much photo-craft as I could. I learned the ins and outs of the black and white darkroom. I inhaled too much Dektol, D-76 and Fixer to be healthy. I helped the owner of local film store put his kids through college.

Most of the images from the Wirgin seemed to be slightly over-exposed, either because I developed the film too long or because the camera and/or light meter were out of calibration. Still, I got some nice images. Few and far between, perhaps, but the Wirgin did give me some good images.

Even so, It was obvious I was outgrowing the Wirgin with it’s fixed 35mm, f3.5 lens (To be correct, I should say lenses because of the dual stereo setup.) The half-frame negs were much larger than my old 110 negs, but still only half the size of a true 35mm camera. The ambient light meter was fine for close-ups, but often inaccurate for distant objects where the light characteristics might differ greatly from where I was measuring the light. I had to custom make gear to allow me to use the half-frame negatives in my enlargers. My film cost was higher, as well, because each shot was recorded twice. Most importantly, there was no interchangeable lenses for the Wirgin Stereo.

I needed something more. I needed another camera. I needed a 35mm SLR.

Next time, I’ll discuss how I settled on Minolta as my camera of choice. Until then, Stay focused — Tom

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