Minolta X-700

I have a Minolta X-7A that I love shooting, so much so that I decided I wanted another Minolta. Something a bit higher up the Minolta food chain. There were some options, the A9 is a great pro-spec Minolta, but I was leaning toward something manual focus. The XD-11 is a great Minolta, and my Dad’s SR-T101 was the first SLR I used, but the X-700 was their most popular and best selling, so perhaps that was worth looking into.

I went with the X-700.

Minolta unveiled this camera in 1981 and didn’t cease production until 2001, and they sold a whole lot of them. It was a lot of people’s favorite Minolta, and it was the last manual focus model they produced. It has a bright viewfinder, stainless lens mount, and offers shooting in manual, aperture priority, bulb and program modes. It’s all black, every bit of it. So much black you could mistake it for a goth teen. So many manual cameras are black and chrome but a few are all black and for some reason I really like those. They look sharp. They look clean. Along with the hip goth blackness is an exposure compensation knob, TTL metering, depth of field preview, basically anything you could want from a manual focus camera in the 1980’s and 90’s.

The “MPS” on the camera body refers to the Minolta Program System, an intelligent light metering system that uses precise shutter speeds, not rounded up to 1/60, 1/125 and such, but as finely tuned as, say, 1/153.6. That’s something, huh? While my own eyes might not notice such nuance in the resulting photo, I still want the best exposure settings possible, even though my go-to setting is aperture priority when shooting (which the X700 handles remarkably well).

The X-700 is very similar to my X-7A as far as look and feel goes. It’s a bit plasticky but yet it doesn’t feel fragile. The textured plastic plus the lightweight build and incorporated finger grip makes it super comfortable and ergo’riffic (not a real word). I can carry this around all day and forget I’ve got it with me. I just have to not TRULY forget, as it feels like I could crack it open if it bangs against the wall I’m standing next to.

The shutter snap feels particularly nice, too. It has a gratifying sound and feel. That shouldn’t make much of a difference, of course. Yet, it does. There are a lot of irrational reasons one would enjoy pushing buttons on outdated machinery. Old cameras are great for satisfying that, so many great buttons. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I prefer SLRs to rangefinders, noisier shutters. More moving parts. More buttons.

Minolta lenses are actually pretty great, too. Unsung heroes as good as any Nikon or Canon lens. The camera kings at Leica even have collaborated with Minolta at one time or another. Pretty cheap too, comparatively speaking.

I understand, in vintage camera lore, if the serial number begins with a 1 it’s the better option, but if it begins with a 2 (these were made in China and Malaysia) you might need to have the capacitors replaced sooner or later. This hasn’t been an issue with me, the electronic shutter works perfectly every shot under all conditions, and I have no idea what my serial number is. My camera is downstairs at the moment, and I don’t feel like getting up to go check it (plus I’d have to remove the base plate to find the number and I just don’t care enough right now to get the camera AND my teensy screwdriver). If the capacitors fail it’s a pretty simple fix at any camera repair shop worth its salt.

I still have the X-7A, and it still shoots well. I usually use it as a beach camera, or in any situation where I would fear damage to the camera, because I can always get another for 20 bucks. Also, because it’s sturdy and lightweight and I can get great photos with it. The X-700 meets those same needs, though I don’t think of it as easily replaceable, but it’s still very plentiful, and can be replaced for $75 (for now, at least… prices always go up on cameras that people blog about. Sorry for that). So I don’t worry about it as much, but I also don’t expect I will need to.