It lacks any kind of focussing aid like a split screen or prism, so you have to use the magnifying glass to be sure of focus. I don’t think mine has ever been cleaned – it may well get better with a thorough CLA. The viewfinder is a little dim but totally fine in good light. The lens focuses down to 1 metre, not close enough to do a tight headshot but OK for about a 1/4 length portrait. 75mm equates to about 40mm in 35 mm terms. Lots of people claim that this lens gives the Planar-equipped Rolleis a run for their money and is better than the Tessar lensed Rolleicords and ‘flexes.
MINOLTA CAMERA FLASH PROFESSIONAL
Sharp enough wide open, and gets progressively better as you stop down, I wouldn’t hesitate to use this lens for professional work. The Rokkor lens on the Minolta is excellent. This is a much better ergonomic arragement than the Yashicas where you focus with your right hand via a knob and then have to switch hands to wind it on. This means that you can hold and focus the camera with your left hand and trip the shutter and wind on the film with your right hand. Instead of using a knob on the side of the camera, the Autocord has a lever underneath the taking lens. The two little arrows point to the lever that operates that function. You can see the shutter speeds and f-stops in these two windows. Mechanical speeds on a 60-year-old camera aren’t that accurate anyway. I have a digital meter that matches some of those speeds, but for others I just pick the closest speed. The shutter goes in the old Europen progression so from 1/400 the speeds are 1/200, 1/100, 1/50 etc. It’s an unmetered version with an Optiper shutter that maxes out at 1/400. My camera is an early version, made around 1956-8. The Minolta Autocord is a handsome camera. I found it great for candid portraits like this one, and a real conversation piece. First Impressions of The Minolta Autocord To test out the Autocord I brough it along to a few weddings I shot during the summer. Taking a deep breath, I got out my debit card and took the plunge. I was looking for a Yashica or Minolta Autocord, and one day a decent user Autocord was there on the counter. Luckily it is on one of my regular routes so I got into the habit of popping in a couple of times a month. The bad news, such is the popularity of these cameras that they barely last a day in the shop! Worse still the stock isn’t on the internet so you have to go in and just see what’s there. Luckily, I have a very good vintage camera shop near me, that gets TLRs in fairly regularly. So I wasn’t that keen on buying one off of Ebay without knowing much about them, especially with so many different models that look so similar. The obvious choice would have been a Rolleiflex but I had rarely even seen one in the flesh. So I decided to shake things up and started looking for a TLR. I stuck to the same aspect ratio when I started to shoot 4×5. Going straight from 35mm to 6×7 after university and never looking back. I had never shot in the square format, despite being a photographer for 20 years. One of the unforseen advantages of shooting with a waist level finder is that it makes it much easier to shoot younger children.
MINOLTA CAMERA FLASH PORTABLE
So I ended up looking for a portable 120 camera, and settled on a TLR. I still have a Pentax 67 system, but decided years ago that it was too big for casual carrying. For most of my career, I had really been more of a user of 120 film than 35mm. After that I got hold of an EOS 3 but that was perhaps a little too close to the digital cameras I used, and the batteries are expensive.
Compact cameras were where I started, with the Olympus XA and MjuII, which I liked but didn’t quite gel with. I had been searching for a ‘walkaround’ film camera for a while. I bought my Minolta Autocord on something of a whim.
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