The 7sII is a gem, definitely a keeper. If not for the VMLP, I would never have tried one, but I am so glad I did. Before the 7sIl, I had only used a rangefinder once, my father-in-law’s Leica, which was probably an M3. I did not like theContinue Reading
Minolta went crazy with “si” models. There seem to be more of them than any other AF line by far. By my count, there were 15 main models with additional variations of some of those. The XTsi arrived in 1998 and seems to be the more advanced of the laterContinue Reading
Back in the 1980s, I dreamed of owning a Minolta 7000i. At the time, it was far beyond my budget, so I never got one. In February 2019, after deciding I wanted a film camera to record my garden, the first camera I looked for was a Minolta MaxxumContinue Reading
Once I added manual focus cameras to the VMLP, I had to decide which lenses to explore. Initially, I settled on zooms because I had the standard 50mm lenses, and prime SR lenses were more expensive than the AF lenses I used. Once I had a decent collectionContinue Reading
The XE-5 and XE-7 intrigued me because they were part of the Minolta-Leica collaboration, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. My first XE-5 was a Goodwill buy. It arrived with a good 50mm f2 lens, but the film advance was stuck. Fortunately, a little tinkering resultedContinue Reading
The “Back to Film” wave continues to move along, and as it does, it’s bringing back into use cameras set aside for their digital successors. The last film cameras I remember from the late 1980s and early 1990s were inexpensive, disposable P&S cameras. We used these a lot, taking picturesContinue Reading
It had to happen eventually. Five years of reading photography blogs and magazines extolling the virtues of Leica cameras and lenses (and knowing of the Minolta-Leica collaboration) made me want to try Minolta’s Leica-inspired offering. I have used a Leica, and that initial experience was not a favorableContinue Reading
Folding cameras were not supposed to be part of the VMLP. I was drawn to SLRs and was quite happy limiting my photography journey to them. That feeling held until I used an Autocord. Yes, the Autocord is a TLR, but the 6×6 negative yielded such clear,Continue Reading
By May 2019, I was three months into my photography journey. My camera collection consisted of a Maxxum 7000i with a crumbling grip, a Maxxum 5 with a discolored focus screen, 600si, 7xi, 700si, 7, and 7000. It had been maybe a little more than a month since IContinue Reading
Taking only a 135mm lens out for a walk proved to be just as jarring as the 24mm. Taking the 24mm and 135mm out on separate walks has given me a new appreciation for quality zooms. As with the 24mm, I quickly discovered I’m a poor judge ofContinue Reading
