365cameras.com

Being a Minolta lover, I feel compelled to share a site with great technical Minolta information. Here are the categories offered at http://minolta.eazypix.de.

Minolta SR Lens Index
Minolta SR Lens Database
Minolta Coded Lens Shades
Minolta Master Lenses
Minolta SR System Chart
Minolta SR System Guides
Minolta SR Instruction Manual Database
Minolta SR Promotional Literature
Minolta SLR’s of 1980 (german Datasheet)
Minolta SLR’s vs. Canon, Nikon & Pentax
Rokkor BLOG (german)

I really like the Minolta SLR’s vs. Canon, Nikon & Pentax link. It is a great chart showing the different models of SLRs by year from Nikon, Pentax, Canon and Minolta.

The technical Minolta information is very good. This is a site worth reading and bookmarking especially if you are a Minolta fan or collector.

Minolta photography equipment on ebay

Shhhh. Here’s a secret we don’t want everyone to know.

You can use inexpensive older lenses with new cameras. Maybe even lenses and cameras from different manufacturers.

Yep. Just get an adapter.

Here’s a video with someone adapting a beautiful old Minolta Rokkor 50mm 1.4 lens to a Canon EOS 5D. There’s no sound. But there doesn’t really need to be.

You can also find adapters that will allow you to use old screw mount lenses with most cameras. How beautiful is that? Got a beautiful old Super Takumar SMC that you want to use on an old school Minolta XD-11 or the upcoming Canon EOS 7D or a Nikon D700? Get an adapter.

Here’s one of a Jupiter M42 screw mount lens being used with a Pentax K Mount camera.

Since new digital camera bodies may be bank busters for you, and you might have thought you couldn’t afford a camera system, now you can get some good old glass or use the camera lenses you already have with your new body.

Caveats, well, yeah, of course. So some adapters might not allow focus to infinity. You might need 42mm for Pentax and 39mm for Leica, but that’s not that hard to figure out. Some lenses might run too deep and hit your mirror. That would be a no-no. Oh and worst yet for the modern picture taker, your auto everything mode probably won’t work so you might have to use that thinking thing that’s on top of your neck and use it in manual mode. Oh the horrors.

In any case, there are some wonderful old lenses in most people’s houses that aren’t being used. Just don’t tell everyone our secret. I like buying old lenses cheap. Then again, I’ll probably use the film camera that goes with it.

Here are some searches that will get you started.

M39 Adapters on ebay

M42 Adapters on ebay

Canon Adapters on ebay

Leica Adapters on ebay

Minolta Adapters on ebay

Nikon Adapters on ebay

Olympus Adapters on ebay

Pentax Adapters on ebay

I’ve never mentioned it here. It never came up before, but I’m a Minolta lover.

The Minolta X-700 was the first camera I purchased once I got out of high school and didn’t have access to the Pentax cameras I first used. It was a beauty. It had a very nice, bright Acute-Matte screen. Good feel. Very nice glass. It wasn’t long before I just instinctively knew how to spin the f-stop ring and the shutter speed dial. It was and is still a part of me.

I still have that X-700 and I still love it. I’ve taken untold thousands of pictures on it without really any problems. I think I finally may have a scratch on my pressure plate and I don’t know how I did it. So, I’m checking out brand new (to me) 20-30 year old Minolta bodies to add to the collection. My local photo store doesn’t have these very often. Of course, I’ve been to ebay. What an amazing place to shop.

Anyway, to make a long story longer, I had to spend a few hours reading Minolta information a couple nights ago. I ended up on The Rokkor Files, www.rokkorfiles.com and realized I had never written about it. I love this site.

So what’s so great about it. First, it was built by someone with a love for Minolta. (Sadly, it seems he converted most of his gear to digital for his wedding photography business, but that’s another matter.)

Secondly, it is a fantastic resource. It has a guide to all the manual focus Minolta cameras, the lenses, accessories, advertising, and technical reports. There are links to purchase manuals for most Minolta photography equipment. It also has a brief but good links page. There are articles from Dick Sullivan’s SRT Resources. And if that isn’t enough, there is even a downloadable Minolta font.

So if you have a Minolta manual focus film camera, this is a great resource. If you don’t have a Minolta camera, why not? Get one. Like all film cameras these days, prices are down. Quality is extremely high. This is a great time to be picking up cameras you might have never owned. I have my eye on that cute little number over there. No her size isn’t 36-24-36. It’s XD11. And I think she’s looking at me.

Classic Minolta 35mm SLRs

Minolta 35mm SLR Lenses

Minolta Rangefinders