Minolta is a storied identify in pictures, relationship again to 1928 when Kazuo Tashima (1899-1985) began Nichidoku Shashinki Shōten (“Japan-German Digital camera Firm”) and launched the Nifcarette, a folding roll-film digital camera in a 4×6.5 cm format, with a German-made lens and shutter.
The agency turned a number one digital camera maker and in 1931 adopted the Minolta model, an acronym for “Mechanism, INstruments, Optics and Lenses by TAshima.”
Over time Minolta made many cameras, some fairly distinctive, just like the Minolta Vest of 1933, with a collapsible Bakelite bellows, and the Leica CL of 1973 (made in cooperation with Leica). However what pursuits us right here is the event of its early SR collection of SLRs.
My first actual job was to handle the digital camera division of a now long-gone Canadian division retailer in Whitehorse, Yukon. Though we offered many manufacturers, the principle digital camera line was Minolta – and I offered a whole lot of them in my transient, two-year tenure there. They had been all dependable, well-made machines with glorious glass.
The collection started with the SR-2 in 1958, that includes an instant-return mirror, 1/1000-second prime shutter pace and semi-automatic aperture operation through Auto Rokkor lenses. The SR-2 pioneered the now-standard, non-rotating shutter pace dial, though with out the click-stops of extra fashionable cameras.
The Auto-Rokkor lenses might focus at full aperture however, when the shutter button was pressed, a pin within the digital camera physique launched a spring-loaded diaphragm within the lens, immediately transferring it to the capturing aperture. After the publicity was made, the spring was reset by the photographer by transferring a lever on the lens earlier than the subsequent publicity.
This may increasingly appear primitive by fashionable requirements, however on the time it was an enormous advance over earlier preset and even absolutely guide diaphragms. Curiously, such semi-automatic diaphragms had been offered as “Computerized”.
So when the subsequent technology of auto-diaphragms developed, which closed to capturing aperture for the second of publicity after which robotically reopened for greatest viewing and focusing, they had been branded as “Totally Computerized”.
The subsequent 12 months, the SR-1 adopted. It was a simplified mannequin, with speeds to 1/500, and got here with a considerably slower 55mm f/2 lens, somewhat than the 55mm f/1.8 commonplace optic of the SR-2. In 1960, the SR-3 added a split-image focusing assist and a bracket to mount an exterior gentle meter.
In 1962 Minolta led the best way, as soon as extra, with the SR-7, the primary digital camera to have a mirror lock-up – enabling using deep-seated wide-angle lenses. It was additionally the primary digital camera to have a built-in CdS gentle meter. This far more delicate meter was externally mounted and powered by a PX-625 battery.
In 1966, Minolta adopted the SR line with its SR-T collection of SLRs, which was an enormous success.
Constructed on the dependable mechanics of the SR collection, they featured TTL (by the lens) metering with a coupled match-needle meter seen by a brilliant pentaprism viewfinder. With the primary mannequin of the collection, the SR-T 101, the SR lens bayonet was modified for MC lenses – which transmit the aperture worth mechanically to the digital camera meter’s match-needle.
The SR collection’ final hurrah was the Minolta SR-M, which was the primary SLR with built-in electrical sequential motor drive and auto movie rewind. It was a modified Minolta SRT 101, with a everlasting bottom-mounted motor drive (utilizing eight AA batteries) with a removable hand grip, and will shoot a gentle three frames per second. Curiously, it had no gentle meter.
All through each the SR and SRT collection, the lens mount remained primarily the identical. As enhancements had been constructed from the Auto Rokkor (1958-1966) for computerized indexing, to the MC Rokkor (1966-1976) with meter coupling, and eventually MD Rokkor (1977 onward) for superior publicity modes, backward compatibility was maintained.
Older lenses could possibly be used on newer cameras, even when they lacked the latest characteristic. Focal lengths ranged from 7.5mm fisheye to 1600mm telephoto, once more all sustaining this backward compatibility.
Finally Minolta would merge with Konica, creating Konica-Minolta in 2003. Solely two SLRs can be offered below the mixed model – the Maxxum 7D (the Maxxum 7000 within the USA, Dynax 7D in Europe) and 5D (Maxxum 5D in North America, Dynax 5D in Europe and Hong Kong, and Alpha-5 Digital in Japan) – earlier than leaving the digital camera enterprise altogether, in 2006.
The digital camera division and its patents had been offered to Sony, however Konica-Minolta stays in enterprise, making photocopiers, commercial-quality printers, and designing and manufacturing each lens assemblies and full lenses for different digital camera producers.
Discover out extra about pictures’s previous in David Younger’s e book, A Temporary Historical past of Images.
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