phthenry
Member
I just bought a Minolta 70EX for 1 dollar at ebay. My understanding is that they received high ratings for a sharp lens in their class, back when magazines rated such cameras. While pulling out of the driveway I saw a box sitting in my driveway, and guessed my new camera had arrived. I opened the box and found the Minolta loaded with 800 ASA film, so I took the camera with me to the coffee house and shot pictures of my girlfriend and of the street.
As many as 10 of the 24 pictures did not come out focused. The 70EX has a very small rectangle representing the equally small focusing zone. Only what lies in that small zone will be focused, so if your model's head smiles just 3 inches left of the rectangle, and the actual rectangle frames a sign 3 feet behind her, the sign will come out crisp and sharp, while your model's head will look like a blob. Unlike digital point and shoots, this camera does not have a lot of depth of field. Fortunately, the camera does have a focus lock(and AE lock, I believe), so for the next roll, I made sure to center my subject in the small rectangle, half press the shutter, compose my picture like I wanted, and then press the shutter. I haven't sent this roll out yet to get processed, but hopefully this roll will come back with focused pictures.
One of the pictures, the one we took of us together using the self timer, cut off the top of our heads. When I finally got hold of a manual on line, I realized that the little lines in the viewfinder meant that you shouldn't use the area above them when close to your subject. I looked through my rollei 35, and discovered the same lines, so now I now how to frame my subjects better.
Almost all of the pictures came out with good exposure. Like many of these point and shoot cameras, the flash goes off even when light falls amply and you wouldn't think you needed it. But the weak flash works as fill. You can't override any of the automatic settings on this camera, not even by changing the ASA, because the camera sets the ASA by the DX code on the film, so one is left at the mercy of the camera. Still, the camera's automatic meter worked well. The only problems I found occurred with pictures taken outside. The grain in these pictures made the photos look like I had taken them with a cell phone. I am hoping that this grain results because of the 800 ASA of the film, and not because the camera improperly exposed the photos. I have never used ASA 800 film before.
However, many of the pictures taken inside came out very nice. In one, I zoomed the lens to its maximum length, 75 mm and framed my girlfriend's head. You would not think that the photo was taken with a point and shoot, with the face sharp and the background blurred.
Originally, I had wanted to get an Olympus XA or an Olympus Mju II, but I got outbid on an Olympus XA2. However, since I take a lot of close up shots, I didn't want the distortion that occurs when taking a close up of a person with a wide angle lens. The Minolta camera can zoom to a length that gets rid of this distortion, while the Olympus models, though probably having sharper lenses, do not. If the camera continues to take sharp pictures like some of the ones it took the first time, and if the grain problem disappears (and I can't imagine it won't), then this camera will serve me well as a camera I can carry everywhere for unexpected shots.
I do wish it had full manual control, allowing me to focus and set the shutter and aperture, but of course such cameras are bigger, and to get one with an 80 mm lens would cost at least 200 times the 1 dollar cost of this camera.
As many as 10 of the 24 pictures did not come out focused. The 70EX has a very small rectangle representing the equally small focusing zone. Only what lies in that small zone will be focused, so if your model's head smiles just 3 inches left of the rectangle, and the actual rectangle frames a sign 3 feet behind her, the sign will come out crisp and sharp, while your model's head will look like a blob. Unlike digital point and shoots, this camera does not have a lot of depth of field. Fortunately, the camera does have a focus lock(and AE lock, I believe), so for the next roll, I made sure to center my subject in the small rectangle, half press the shutter, compose my picture like I wanted, and then press the shutter. I haven't sent this roll out yet to get processed, but hopefully this roll will come back with focused pictures.
One of the pictures, the one we took of us together using the self timer, cut off the top of our heads. When I finally got hold of a manual on line, I realized that the little lines in the viewfinder meant that you shouldn't use the area above them when close to your subject. I looked through my rollei 35, and discovered the same lines, so now I now how to frame my subjects better.
Almost all of the pictures came out with good exposure. Like many of these point and shoot cameras, the flash goes off even when light falls amply and you wouldn't think you needed it. But the weak flash works as fill. You can't override any of the automatic settings on this camera, not even by changing the ASA, because the camera sets the ASA by the DX code on the film, so one is left at the mercy of the camera. Still, the camera's automatic meter worked well. The only problems I found occurred with pictures taken outside. The grain in these pictures made the photos look like I had taken them with a cell phone. I am hoping that this grain results because of the 800 ASA of the film, and not because the camera improperly exposed the photos. I have never used ASA 800 film before.
However, many of the pictures taken inside came out very nice. In one, I zoomed the lens to its maximum length, 75 mm and framed my girlfriend's head. You would not think that the photo was taken with a point and shoot, with the face sharp and the background blurred.
Originally, I had wanted to get an Olympus XA or an Olympus Mju II, but I got outbid on an Olympus XA2. However, since I take a lot of close up shots, I didn't want the distortion that occurs when taking a close up of a person with a wide angle lens. The Minolta camera can zoom to a length that gets rid of this distortion, while the Olympus models, though probably having sharper lenses, do not. If the camera continues to take sharp pictures like some of the ones it took the first time, and if the grain problem disappears (and I can't imagine it won't), then this camera will serve me well as a camera I can carry everywhere for unexpected shots.
I do wish it had full manual control, allowing me to focus and set the shutter and aperture, but of course such cameras are bigger, and to get one with an 80 mm lens would cost at least 200 times the 1 dollar cost of this camera.