How does a twelve-year-old dSLR compare to the modern crop of mirrorless cameras? This time around, I will be comparing a dSLR from 2008 to a modern Evil camera. Spoiler alert, unlike the movies, Evil wins this one.

While creating sample images for my Rokkor 58mm f/1.4 review, I found myself shooting test shots of a high-energy worship service with my aging Sony A350 dSLR.

Trying to focus in the faint light proved quite challenging. I recall obtaining excellent photos with this camera in the past. Same camera, same lighting conditions. The images from 2010 were sharp and clear. Why did I have so much difficulty in 2022?

Then I realized that when I shot with the A350 a decade ago, my lenses of choice were Minolta A-Mount autofocus lenses. Sporadically, I would use an adapter to mount one of my old Rokkor lenses. But generally, I would only break out the Rokkors in good lighting. When the lighting started to fade, I would switch back to an autofocus lens.

The rise of the E-Mount and EVF

I bought my first E-Mount camera, a Sony NEX-5n, in 2012. I never expected it would become my primary camera.  I had no idea at the time that the E-Mount mirrorless designs would eventually evolve into Sony’s top-of-the-line cameras.

My idea was to experiment with the new mount. I was especially keen on reusing my old Rokkor lenses on the new “evil” camera.

Fast forward ten years and I couldn’t recall when I‘d last used a dSLR, including the A350. I have nothing against dSLRs, but mirrorless cameras are much more useful, especially when using my old manual-focus Rokkors.

Why an Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) is More Desirable for Manual Focus Lenses.

My current main camera is the Sony A7s and I carry an A6000 as a backup. Thanks to the Electronic Viewfinder on both, I can easily compose and focus with all of my old manual-focus lenses, even in poorly lit situations.

I have customized a button on my mirrorless cameras to instantly magnify the preview in the viewfinder. This allows me to effortlessly rack the focus to obtain needlelike sharpness. Focus peaking is always enabled as well. The combination of magnification and focus peaking makes my ancient Rokkors compare very favorably with modern lenses.

It is second nature for me to use these EV tools to obtain great results. The fact the EV can also increase the brightness of the preview is another major advantage in murky light.

I had forgotten just how much I had depended on these focus aids. It was nearly impossible to focus the A350 in the lackluster illumination.

I truly missed my A7s with its bright, easy-to-magnify electronic viewfinder.

Modern cameras also feature great ISO performance

Of course, the A7s, with its high ISO capabilities, provides another major advantage. An ISO of 800 is about the top of the A350‘s useable sensitivity, and I am more comfortable with 400. Image noise is unacceptable at any higher ISO settings. In contrast, with the A7s I can shoot at ISO 3200, confidently knowing noise won’t be a factor.

Of course, a higher ISO won’t affect the brightness in a dSLR viewfinder. But a higher ISO permits extra depth of field, which increases the chances of getting the subject in decent focus.

I struggled to get acceptable photos with the A350 in the meager light available to me. With the A7s, I can magnify the focus to clearly discern details such as eyelashes and fine hairs. The lack of light in the auditorium made it next to impossible to find focus with the A350.

I don’t remember ever being as frustrated as a photographer as I was that day. Attempting to make adequate images with my manual focus lens was a discouraging ordeal. It was especially dishearting to capture a stunning facial expression only to discover the overall image was shapelessly soft.

As you might expect, I saw a huge decrease in the number of satisfactory shots taken with the dSLR. Once I imported them onto my computer, a disappointingly high number of the images just missed being acceptable. My eyes hurt as they tried to resolve edges that were almost, but not quite, sharp.

I was able to salvage a handful of photos. Some were actually in sharp focus, more by luck than skill. I was able to manipulate some of the near-misses into tolerable photographs using Lightroom’s Sharpening and Noise Reduction filters. I trashed most of the rest.

You shouldn’t interpret this as a blanket condemnation of using an adapter to mount Rokkor images on older dSLRs. I captured a number of tack-sharp photos in good light. It was only when the light started to fade that the number of acceptable results from the A350/Rokkor combination faded as well.

In the current digital camera landscape, the A350 is a dinosaur. It is still usable, but its capabilities are easily outstripped by any modern dSLR. Even so, I suspect that the latest ground-glass and mirror cameras would struggle with manual focusing in mediocre light. When it comes to seeing in the dark, dSLRs cannot compete with modern electronic viewfinders.

I am still a big proponent of shooting with classic manual focus lenses on modern cameras. A-mount dSLRs are tricker because the Rokkor adapter requires an extra internal lens element. But that hasn’t stopped me from creating lovely images with this combination.

Ordinarily, I am usually comfortable shooting with either a mirrorless camera or a dSLR. When the lights go down, however, I have learned a mirrorless camera has some distinct advantages.

The post Mirrorless vs dSLR Cameras in poor Light: the EVIL avantage appeared first on Alphatracks.

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.

Technorati Tags:

Minolta SLR

film camera

photography

camera mod

Tom Bonner

Alphatracks

The post Your Minolta SLR: make it new again with real leather appeared first on Alphatracks.

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

Technorati Tags:

single lens reflex

DSLR

digital camera

photography

Alphatracks

Tom Bonner

The post What exactly is a Single Lens Reflex anyway? appeared first on Alphatracks.

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.

The post Rokkor lenses: bedrock of the Minolta SLR legacy appeared first on Alphatracks.

There was just one problem — there is no Seagull D55 planned. It was all an elaborate April Fools day hoax.

It is a really, really well done hoax, however. There are photos of the prototype, complete specs of the proposed dSLR and a review of how Seagull came to build a new manual focus dSLR.

I have to admit, I was taken in for the first part of the article. It was entirely plausible, since the Chinese Seagull camera company had produced several film SLRs with the Minolta MD manual focus mount. There are thousands of excellent Minolta MD lenses out there, many of which you can pickup for a song on ebay. The idea that a Chinese company might just offer a dSLR that could take advantage of all those MD lenses makes a certain kind of sense. A manual focus dSLR? Why not?

As I continued through the detailed review, I stated to get the idea that something was fishy. I switched to another browser tab and googled Seagull camera. I found several references, but no mention of any D55. I returned to the Rokkor Files, already suspecting the worst. I clicked on the supposed distributor link at the bottom of the link and immediately got the “Aprils Fools” message.

So I was had. But only for a short while. It was amusing, but it bothered me that it was too good of a hoax. I suspected that a lot of people might read the article, but never click on the link that informed them it was a joke. They might go away thinking that the Seagull D55 might appear in the near future.

Antony Hands isn’t the first blogger to plan an elaborate April Fool’s Day prank. Even the more traditional media outlets sometimes engage in this sort of thing. Many years ago, a major computer magazine published a tech tip claiming that you could improve the data transfer speed of your hard drive by disassembling it and spraying the platter with Lemon Pledge. It was, of course, a April Fool’s day prank. I wasn’t fooled, because I knew that you needed a Class A clean room to safely open a hard drive. The magazine, however gave no indication that it was a prank — readers just had to figure it out from the April issue date. No doubt most people did, but it bothered me that some people might just take the article at face value. Would someone really be naive enough to take apart their hard drive and coat the platter with Lemon Pledge? The magazine in question was highly valued for their excellent technical advise and at that time most people were fairly unsophisticated about computer technology. I’m fairly certain that somewhere, someone acted on the magazine’s advise and destroyed a perfectly-good hard drive and all it’s data. Probably more than one someone.

So I wasn’t totally comfortable with the Rokkor Files prank. Some people would be so taken in by the hoax that it might affect their purchasing decisions. When I mentioned the Rokkor Files in my earlier post, I made a point of warning readers to check the date the story about the Seagull D55 was filed. I didn’t want to spoil Antony’s hard work, but I didn’t people going off thinking that Seagull was actually developing a camera that would support their lens collection.

I had pretty much forgotten about the mythical Seagull D55 until today, when I checked my server logs. I had recently been visited several times by someone who had been searching on Google for the Seagull D55. Since I had posted my somewhat cryptic warning on Alphatracks, gogglebot had indexed that term and sent several readers to my blog. Curious, I opened a new Google search and typed “Seagull D55”. I got several pages of results.

Some of these were well-known sites that apparently used the Rokkor Files story as the source for their own news story. There were also numerous posts to forums and discussion groups as people eagerly speculated when the D55 would be available.

I can’t fault people for falling for this story. It was plausible, the images and specifications looked real and the April Fool punch line was fairly obscure. Still some of these web sites should have done some homework before jumping on the story.

For the last time. There is no Seagull D55. It is a myth.

Of course, the fact that this hoax has spread so far on the web does indicate that there is lots of interest in using older Rokkor X lenses on a dSLR. There is a rare adapter that will allow you to use MD lenses on a Minolta AF lens mount — which would include the Sony A100. These show up on ebay now an then — but they usually end up selling for a couple hundred dollars. The Rokkor Files also has an in depth article about a real solution for using MD lenses on a digital camera. A company called Cameraquest offers an adapter that will mate Minolta MD lenses to an Olympus four-thirds dSLR, such as the E300. This isn’t hoax, but it isn’t inexpensive since you need a fairly recent Olympus dSLR and the Cameraquest adapter. Still if you absolutely need a digital option for your manual focus Minolta lenses, this might be the best option. I intend to look into this more fully in a future post.

Of course if someone at Seagull is paying attention to all that traffic clamoring for the non-existent D55, they would be smart to produce such an animal. If Seagull — or any other manufacturer were to provide an affordable dSLR that accepts Rokkor MD lenses — it is apparent they wouldn’t have to search very far for customers.

Until next time, stay focused! — Tom

Rokkor Files – Seagull D55

Rokkor Files Cameraquest adapter page

technorati tags:Minolta, Hoax, Rokkor, MD lenses, Seagull D55

The post Enough already — spoof Seagull D55 still has legs! appeared first on Alphatracks.

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!

The post Minolta SRT102 — superior to the competition appeared first on Alphatracks.

The post Minolta manual focus SLRs live on…in the Rokkor Files appeared first on Alphatracks.