The Film Retriever

If there is an award for the most underrated camera, the Minolta X-700 is definitely within the top three. I am not joking, in a forum, people were asked to name the camera they think it is the most underrated and i suggested the Fujicas but one constant contestant was the Minolta x-700. Eventually a participant in that conversation offered his old X-700 to anyone who wanted it and this is how this camera landed on my hands (Thanks Richard). There are plenty of reviews on the Internet about the X-700 therefore I will not go into the historical bit of the story, just check out MIR's fantastic page for more information. I will just focus on how this camera feels after I've shot a couple of films with it. When i picked up the camera, the first overall impressions were..errr.. OK-ish.... Extensive use of plastic (remember, we are in the 80's), both top and bottom are plastic and the camera feels light without feeling cheap thought. A typical problem with th...

Another car boot sale find, just confirms my impression that there are plenty of great cameras out there that can be had for peanuts. This camera, together with the Sigma 28 f/2.8 and the winder-G cost me only £10. It was a buy-to-sell buy, i thought i would keep the lens and the winder for the Minolta X-700 that has recently landed on my hands and sell the XG-2... But i am not so sure if that's what is gonna happen. We are back in the distant 1977, the year I was born actually, and Minolta shakes the world once again with the new Minolta XD-11. The camera became an instant hit with professionals but with the production of the XE-series been seized the gap between the SRT-series and the new XD-series meant that there was potential for Minolta to capture the very lucrative part of the market, the casual shooter who would like a camera newer than the SRT but who couldn't afford the XD. The response to that was the XG-series. See this camera as XD's little ...

Fujica is probably the camera make you’ve heard good things about but you never bothered looking on that auction site for one. Fujicas were quite popular at their time, they were offering a good mixture of quality and low price backed up by a beautiful line of Fujinon lenses. Fujica was the camera-making section of Fuji industries, starting the manufacturing of cameras in 1948 with the Six I BS – a 6X6 folder and continued to the very popular for the 50’s-60’s rangefinder sector before introducing the Fujica ST 701 in the early seventies. The ST X01/X05 series became popular as they were carrying the famous M42 mount, giving the photographer a vast range of lens choices, from the world famous Takumars to the FSU lenses. By the late 70’s, things had moved on, the offerings from Nikon/Canon/Minolta/Olympus/ Pentax meant that the M42 mount was outdated so Fujica presented its own mount, the X-Fujinon mount which they sadly discontinued 5 years later when they pulled the SLR ...

I think that I've reached a point that I'm done with Prakticas. This is the fourth one that develops an erratic shutter AFTER I've put a film in and honestly I cannot afford spending money on cameras that die a film later. Unfortunately I cannot recommend you buying one, I think the much cheaper Zenits are better build or you can pay a bit more and get a nice Fujica or Chinon.

Some say that cameras are nothing but a light-tight box; it is the lens that counts. I disagree with that, cameras are very sophisticated devices that operate with accuracy and can expand to suit our needs. The pinhole cameras teach us that a lens is not necessary to take a picture but on the other hand, the lenses made today produce pictures that astound us with their clarity and level of detail they record. New, CAD aided programs offer new designs and “better” – if we can say - lenses. Or not? I think it is only fair to make a post about the lenses I’ve used so far and compare them with each other to give a sense of scale. I am basing my scoring on usability, personal preference and most important performance for the price.  I will limit this post only to the prime lenses I use; maybe at some point I will start adding the plasticy zoom lenses.. we’ll see.   Prakticar 50 f/1.8 I start with this lens because it is historically the first prime I ever use...

How strange it feels to realise that back in my teenage years, I just wanted to have all the Nikons in the world because they were the “best” cameras. Minoltas were…ok-ish… whatever.  Now, 20 years on, I have 5 Minoltas and not even one Nikon (the L35AF is been sold), I am a sucker for my 9xi and I would love a XD-11 too. Makes me wonder how these cameras where advertised/promoted by the photography magazines I used to buy back then.  Anyway, contrary to what you might expect, I will start this review with a little bit of Leica history. Back in the mid-seventies, Leica realised that if they wanted to keep up with the rapid developments on the SLR field, they needed to acquire the Know-How of the Japanese electronics industry. Their Leicaflex series, although mechanical masterpieces, they started to look dated when you compared them with cameras such as the Olympus OM’s, Canon’s AE-1 or the Minolta’s XE series. A joint venture between Minolta and Leica was...

I actually bought this camera accidentally - I saw it and I thought it was the Fuji Silvi which is more sought after camera and have the same user interface. I bought it for £1 and when I returned home I realised my mistake. Ohh.. what the heck, it is just a pound so it stayed in the cupboard for some time, thinking most of the time to sell it. Eventually I forgot all about it and a month ago, as I was tidying up the closet I found it again. I thought to run a film through it and see how it performs. Fuji's User interface. Big and easy to follow The little Fuji comes from the distant 2002 and it was marketed as an upper class hi-end compact. It had a street price of £200 when new and Popular Photography reviewed it along with cameras such as the Minolta TC-1, the Contax T3 etc and gave it a 3.5 out of five. No bad at all actually. According to the magazine the lens performed very well to excellent with very low flare due to Fuji's EBC coating.  The pi...

Drop dead gorgeous Have I ever mentioned about the legendary third issue of the 1989 Φωτογράφος (Photographer) magazine ? It was a camera-porn galore, forty cameras within four pages, it was the issue that inspired all this love for cameras. It included cameras such as Contax RTS and 164, Canon F1, EOS 1, EOS 650, Minolta 9000 and 7000i, Nikon F801, Nikon F4, Leica R6 etc.. etc... The Yashica 200-AF was the cheapest AF-SLR in that issue and although way out of my budget, I thought that if i ever buy an AF camera, it would probably be this one. Yashica was a wealthy company back in the mid-60's. It became popular with camera lines such as the Lynx's or the Electros. Yashica was probably the camera your father or grandfather had when they were young. In the early 70's, Yashica began collaborating with Contax, with yashica focusing on the production of the affordable line of cameras and Contax producing the Hi-end and more expensive ones. Things were going OK ...

This cute little Canon was literally landed on my hands when a senior couple donated it to me to use it. It came in a pristine condition together with an original canon lens hood, canon skylight filter (!), a speedlite flash and a cable release. Going through the boxes, i also found the original receipt for the flash (£9.99), hood and cable release (£9.86) but not for the camera. Everything was bought on the 18/8/1977. It even had the original 1.35V mercury batteries in which were actually working fine after all these years. Canon describes this camera as "A camera for the masses" and the biggest selling point was the date printing feature which goes up to 1983, so i am not going to bother with it. The camera operates with two 1.4V mercury batteries which are long banned. I am using two SR44 together with some silver foil to make up for the difference in size. I did not see any difference in exposure due to voltage difference, for those seeking the perfect...

I will tell you right from the start. This is one of the best (if not the best) camera I've ever laid my hands on. It's fast, it's well build and the exposure and focus is always spot on. This is a pro camera - no doubt about it - it's heavy and I dare to say it has the best design I've ever seen. This camera was meant to compete with the likes of Nikon F4 or the Canon EOS-1but unfortunately it did not do so well. There are plenty of theories out there as to why this happened and I am going to stir in one more. Some say that it was the lack of a build in flash that cost Minolta good sales but this is certainly not the case as neither F4 or the EOS-1 had one. Another very popular theory says that the 9xi didn't do so well was due to it's awkward user interface - and that is true to some point but the EOS-1 had a similar interface, with most functions hidden under a compartment door and so did the Pentax Z-1p which sold well actually. And le...