23 replies to this topic

[iNYONi]

Ok, this is one hell of a challenge for anyone willing to help me out.

 

in 1992 my parents got me a 35mm slr camera for my 21st birthday, I was serving with the uk army at the time and they had it shipped out to my whilst I was serving overseas. Now as it happens I had it stolen a year later whilst in South Africa. I cannot for the life of me remember what make or model it was...so I have a very dark picture of me holding the camera, I've tried to run it through PS but still cant quite figure out what it is. Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE help me out and see if you can identify it for me.

 

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[Upham]

Do you remember if it had a metal or plastic body?

[iNYONi]

I'm quite sure it was plastic.

[Merco_61]

The shutter button in the centre of the speed control knob makes me think Minolta X-something, probably x-700 in the early nineties. Seven white numbers seems right too. The x-sync speed was red, and then the four high speeds under your finger.

[Jerry_]

Based on the photo I think it will be hard to identify the camera, unless with some major luck.

What I (seem to have) identified on the photo is that:
(1) the camera is all black
(2) the shuter button has a white point on the top
(3) it has two settings, prob. one for the shutter speed and the second one (with the shutter button with ev. Exposure correction (it seems to be set to the middle setting, which could be coincidence))
(4) the brand name seem to use a space as of the mid-segment of your finger to the nail (8 cm?)
(5) it seems that the middle of the brandname has more spaced characters.

You might want to check sites like camerapedia viewing the cameras and maybe ave a "flashback".

HTH

[Merco_61]

I forgot to mention that the letter that shows between your fingers is in the right place for the X in the model names.

[Russ]

Did it ever beep at you? I had a Minolta X500, it beeped if the shutter was below 1/60th (I think).

[Jerry_]

Peter has a number of valid points. Indeed, if it was a Minolta, then it was an X-700, as both the X-300 and X-500 were using the left ring for setting the ISO value of the film, yet not showing figures as visible on the picture.

Minolta would fit 5 out of the 4 points mentioned above. The one that (if correct) is not matching is (2)

[Merco_61]

The top of the shutter button looks about right to me, a ring and a centre dot with black isolating paint in between. With a finger on the button, the meter started as the salt on the skin made contact between the ring and dot.

[iNYONi]

Its such a long time ago now, 1990=1991, not too sure about the beep noise. it may well have done.

 

Having looked at some pics online of the X700...it's looking like the right one.

[Russ]

The top of the shutter button looks about right to me, a ring and a centre dot with black isolating paint in between. With a finger on the button, the meter started as the salt on the skin made contact between the ring and dot.

Yeah that I remember from my X500, just touch the shutter button for it to wake up.

[Eagles1181]

I am amazed that Merco was able to ID it based on that photo.

[iNYONi]

Thank you all for helping me out. I'm now going to see if I can get hold of a second hand Minolta X-700.

[TBonz]

I think the X-700 came out in the late 80s though I could be wrong...I seem to remember that was the model my Dad had and he would have purchased around then...I was guessing Minolta just by what I could see where the brand was and the number of letters...it just didn't look like Olympus...Amazing Peter!

[alden]

Not trying to change the topic here, I had a Minolta SLR myself back in the 80's... what ever became of that company? 

 

Does anyone know why they did not jump on the digital camera bandwagon? They made great cameras. 

[TBonz]

Good question - looked it up...from Wikipedia:

 

In 2003, Konica - Wikipedia Corporation merged with Minolta to form Konica Minolta.

 

On January 19, 2006, Konica Minolta announced that it was leaving the camera and photo business^[1] and that it would sell a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony - Wikipedia as part of its move to pull completely out of the business of selling cameras and photographic film.^[2]

Wikipedia also states that the X-700 was introduced in 1981 and sold through 1999 and the Maxxum 7000 in 1985 as the first camera with built in autofocus...

[Merco_61]

KonicaMinolta tried to make a DSLR, but were too late, too expensive and since they tended to underexpose the files had too much noise. The Dynax 7D nailed the coffin shut and the camera division was sold to Sony.

[alden]

Good question - looked it up...from Wikipedia:

 

In 2003, Konica - Wikipedia Corporation merged with Minolta to form Konica Minolta.

 

On January 19, 2006, Konica Minolta announced that it was leaving the camera and photo business^[1] and that it would sell a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony - Wikipedia as part of its move to pull completely out of the business of selling cameras and photographic film.^[2]

Wikipedia also states that the X-700 was introduced in 1981 and sold through 1999 and the Maxxum 7000 in 1985 as the first camera with built in autofocus...

 

 

KonicaMinolta tried to make a DSLR, but were too late, too expensive and since they tended to underexpose the files had too much noise. The Dynax 7D nailed the coffin shut and the camera division was sold to Sony.

 

That's too bad. They were one of the leaders in the 35mm SLR business back in the 70's and 80's. 

[TBonz]

I definitely sold a good number of them back in the day...probably sold more Canons than anything, but they were definitely right up there...

[Merco_61]

They made some lovely lenses in the MC-Rokkor era, the 58/1.4 was about equal to the Takumar 50/1.4 and the S-Nikkor 50/1.4 and the 200/4 was much sharper at the edges and corners than both the Takumar and the Q-Nikkor, but it was heavy.