Koolzakukumba
Real men use B+W
Great wee camera though my Minolta A2 digital is, it's not much good when it comes to taking night shots as noise levels go way up at higher film speeds. I decided, therefore, to take a Minolta Hi-matic 7s with me on a recent holiday to the south of France with the intention of shooting hand-held.
I loaded it up with XP2 Super and shot everything at either 1/15 or 1/30 wide open at f1.8. Having checked a few scenes with a separate light meter, I knew this wouldn't be far off the mark. Generally, I shot at 1/30 unless there was something I could brace the camera against such as a wall or a door frame.
Surprisingly, most of the shots turned out fine. The exposures were there or there abouts and I lost only a couple of shots to camera shake. However, it did show up some faults in the quality of the Minolta lens wide open. It was OK but not exactly razor sharp and there were signs of coma in some of the pin-points of light from distant street lamps, etc. Flare and ghosting were better than I had expected, though.
It's hard to say if this Rokkor is typical of the 7s and it's possible that, after four decades, it's not performing at its best. I've since picked up a Hi-matic 9 and will do some comparisons to see if there's much difference. It's also quite possible that camera shake has just taken the edge off the sharpness and it has to be borne in mind that depth of field at 1.8 on a 45mm lens isn't great.
Overall, though, I'm pleased with the end results from the 7s which are much better than I would have got from the A2.
Bruce
I loaded it up with XP2 Super and shot everything at either 1/15 or 1/30 wide open at f1.8. Having checked a few scenes with a separate light meter, I knew this wouldn't be far off the mark. Generally, I shot at 1/30 unless there was something I could brace the camera against such as a wall or a door frame.
Surprisingly, most of the shots turned out fine. The exposures were there or there abouts and I lost only a couple of shots to camera shake. However, it did show up some faults in the quality of the Minolta lens wide open. It was OK but not exactly razor sharp and there were signs of coma in some of the pin-points of light from distant street lamps, etc. Flare and ghosting were better than I had expected, though.
It's hard to say if this Rokkor is typical of the 7s and it's possible that, after four decades, it's not performing at its best. I've since picked up a Hi-matic 9 and will do some comparisons to see if there's much difference. It's also quite possible that camera shake has just taken the edge off the sharpness and it has to be borne in mind that depth of field at 1.8 on a 45mm lens isn't great.
Overall, though, I'm pleased with the end results from the 7s which are much better than I would have got from the A2.
Bruce
