Minolta

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Company

Minolta was a japanese company manufacturing cameras from 1931 to 2003. They produced cameras for several film formats, even for their own 16mm miniature film format. In the 1950s Minolta expanded its businesses beyond production of cameras and binoculars. Most branches of the company were related to optics, like the copiers branch, the exposure meters branch, etc. Minolta was succeeded by Konica Minolta.

History

Minolta, although once counted among the big five, has often been thought of as a second-rung camera manufacturer in the photography world, a step below Nikon and Canon. This has not always been the case. For five years beginning in 1985 Minolta was the biggest seller of SLR cameras in the world. The reason for this dominance was the release of their Maxxum/Dynax system; the world's first 'in body' Autofocus SLR. Before this time manufacturers had dabbled with lenses that focused themselves but that fitted to their existing, manual focus SLR cameras. Minolta was the first manufacturer to put the mechanism and electronics for the autofocus system into their SLR camera bodies and so the modern SLR was born.

This huge success was not foreseeable when Kazuo Tashima founded his Japanese-German camera shop in 1928 (called Nichidoku). In 1931 this was transformed into a stock corporation named "MOLTA", soon renamed to "MINOLTA", an abbreviation for the sentence "M_echanism, IN_struments, O_ptics and L_enses from TA_shima". From 1937 to 1961 the company name and brand name were different, the brand name was MINOLTA, but the company name CHIYODA KOGAKU, or abbreviated CHIYOKO.

Kazuo Tashima got support from the German camera technicians Billy Neumann and Willy Heilemann (see Neumann & Heilemann). The first cameras of Molta needed parts and lenses from German manufacturers. In 1929 they had already managed to produce the first models of their "Nifcalette" camera series. In 1934 the "Minolta-Best" was the first Minolta which differed from average camera designs. In 1936 Minolta's first reflex camera appeared, the "Minolta-Flex" for 60x60mm film. One year later they began manufacturing own lenses. During the world war Minolta also produced cameras for aerial photography, which were used by the japanese air force. Minolta's first big innovation after the war was a quite little one, the first camera for their own 16mm miniature film format, the Konan-16.

In 1957 Minolta began to produce planetariums, great optical machines which project all the visible stars of the night sky onto the ceilings of planetarium halls. In 1958 Minolta took the first step towards their success with SLR-cameras in the mid-80ies by introducing their first 35mm SLR-camera SR-2, which was the first one to combine several of the modern SLR-cameras' features like pentaprism viewfinder, smooth mirror mechanics, easily exchangeable lenses, easy film transport etc. In 1959 Minolta started to produce photocomposing machines, copiers, and special projectors. Parts of these businesses (like copiers) are kept up nowadays by Minolta's succeeding company Konica Minolta whilst it has given up photo business.

Before the great times of the Maxxum/Dynax SLRs Minolta had another phase of cooperation with German experts, especially the cooperation with Leica in the mid-1970s. The Minolta XD-11 (same as XD-7) was the final result of this, the first 35mm SLR camera combining both automatic exposure modes, aperture priority and exposure time priority (=shutter priority). Many new Rokkor-lenses usable for both modes were produced for this exciting camera.

The Dynax 7000 AF remains an iconic symbol of the 80's, however, Minolta did not hang on to their technological lead for long and Canikon fought to regain their position as market leaders. By the 90's Minolta was back to its former underdog-brand status. Minolta still offer a large line of products covering the gamut from the most basic to the most 'serious' of cameras. Among camera intelligentsia Minolta are known for their amazingly competitive price/performance ratio. What does that mean to you and I? When you buy a Minolta you get a lot of camera for your buck.

Minolta continues to innovate. After popularizing the plastic bodied, push button controlled SLR with the 5/7/9000AF the mid-90's saw them reinventing the camera user interface with the 600si Classic. The Classic insignia indicates a move back to knobs and dials and away from buttons and menus. Photographers applauded this return to a logical control layout that didn't require them to memorize pages and pages from their camera's manual before they could take a shot. This interface was carried forward into their popular pro-level Maxxum/Dynax 7 and similar control layouts were adopted by other manufactures.

With the DiMage X, Minolta solved the problem of the protruding optical zoom lens on pocket digicams. Their folded lens design alows an optical zoom lens to be totally contained within the body of the camera. This makes the cameras that use this design trully pocketable, faster to turn on and better protected from knocks and damage.

Minolta have been criticized for their slowness to get onboard with a digital SLR camera that was compatible with the Maxxum lenses. In late November 2004, Konica Minolta finally released the much anticipated Maxxum 7D DSLR and the innovation continued. What sets the 7D DSLR apart from the competition is the built in image stabilization which works with any lens you can attach to the camera body. History has a way of repeating itself. If Minolta can compete better on image resolution and price point Minolta may at some point in the future, take the SLR market by storm yet again.

In October 2003 Minolta merged with Konica to form Konica Minolta. All new cameras after that time were badged as Konica Minolta (see also Konica Minolta) although, with reference to their camera designs, Minolta remains the dominant partner.
As of spring 2006, Konica-Minolta have withdrawn from the camera business entirely. The digital camera manufacturing assets have been acquired by Sony, but film camera production is ceasing.

Digital

DSLR

newer cameras, see Konica Minolta (Dynax/Maxxum 5D and Dynax/Maxxum 7D)

Fixed lens

Minolta and Konica Minolta use the Dimage nameplate on all the fixed lens digital cameras.

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newer cameras, see Konica Minolta

35mm film

Autofocus SLR (Dynax/Maxxum)

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The Dynax/Maxxum (Maxxum in North America, Dynax elsewhere) line of Cameras is an Autofocus line of SLR cameras. The cameras are not compatible with the previous manual focus SLR lenses.

Manual Focus SLR

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Rangefinder, interchangeable lens

Rangefinder, fixed lens

Viewfinder

  • Minolta Autowide
  • Minolta f12
  • Minolta F35 Big Finder
  • Minolta Freedom I
  • Minolta FS-E II
  • Minolta Hi-Matic 5
  • Minolta Hi-Matic C
  • Minolta Hi-Matic CSII
  • Minolta Hi-Matic G
  • Minolta Hi-Matic G2
  • Minolta Hi-Matic GF
  • Minolta Hi-Matic S
  • Minolta Hi-Matic S2
  • Minolta Hi-Matic SD
  • Minolta Hi-Matic SD2
  • Minolta Memo
  • Minolta Minoltina-P
  • Minolta Repo (half-frame)
  • Minolta Repo-S (half-frame)

compact cameras

  • MINOLTA AF-DL / FREEDOM DL
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 75 w / FREEDOM ZOOM 75w
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 90 EX / FREEDOM ZOOM 90 EX
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 105i / FREEDOM ZOOM 105i
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 110 / FREEDOM ZOOM 110
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 115 EX / FREEDOM ZOOM 115 EX
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 130 / FREEDOM ZOOM 130
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 140 EX / FREEDOM ZOOM 140 EX
  • MINOLTA RIVA ZOOM 150 / FREEDOM ZOOM 150

and a lot more like that

newer Minolta zoom cameras, see Konica Minolta

APS film

SLR

  • Vectis S-100
  • Vectis S-1
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compact cameras

  • Vectis 300L (on image at the right side)
  • Vectis Weathermatic underwater camera
  • Vectis 2000
  • Vectis 3000

120 film

Folding

  • Arcadia
  • Auto Minolta
  • Auto Minolta I
  • Auto Press Minolta
  • Auto Semi Minolta
  • Auto Semi Minolta IIIA
  • Auto Semi Minolta P
  • Happy Hand
  • Happy Hand -- type S
  • Minolta
  • Minolta Best
  • Minolta Marble
  • Minolta Six
  • Nifca Dox
  • Nifca Klapp
  • Nifca Sport
  • Semi Minolta I
  • Semi Minolta II
  • Sirius

TLR

  • Minolta Autocord
  • Minolta Autocord CDS I
  • Minolta Autocord CDS II
  • Minolta Autocord CDS III
  • Minolta Autocord I
  • Minolta Autocord II
  • Minolta Autocord III
  • Minolta Autocord L
  • Minolta Autocord MXS
  • Minolta Autocord MXV
  • Minolta Autocord RA
  • Minolta Autocord RB
  • Minolta Autocord RG
  • Minolta Autocord RI
  • Minolta Miniflex
  • Minoltacord
  • Minoltaflex
  • Minoltaflex Automat
  • Minoltaflex I
  • Minoltaflex II
  • Minoltaflex IIB
  • Minoltaflex III

127 film

  • Baby Minolta
  • Minolta Miniflex
  • Minolta Vest
  • Nifcalette
  • Minolta Autopak 800
  • Revere 3M Automatic 1034

16mm film

  • Minolta 16
  • Minolta 16 Automat
  • Minolta 16 Cds
  • Minolta 16 EE
  • Minolta 16 EE2
  • Minolta 16 Electro-Zoom-X
  • Minolta 16 II
  • Minolta 16 MG
  • Minolta 16 MGS
  • Minolta 16 P
  • Minolta 16 Ps
  • Minolta 16 QT
  • Minolta Sonocon 16 MB-ZA

Disc film

  • Minolta ac 101 Courreges
  • Minolta ac 301 Courreges
  • Minolta Disc-5
  • Minolta Disc-7
  • Minolta Disc-S
  • Minolta Disc-K

110 film

SLR

pocket camera

  • Pocket Autopak 200
  • Pocket Autopak 250
  • Pocket Autopak 270
  • Pocket Autopak 430-E
  • Pocket Autopak 430-EX
  • Pocket Autopak 440-EX
  • Pocket Autopak 450-E
  • Pocket Autopak 450-EX
  • Pocket Autopak 460-T
  • Pocket Autopak 460-TX
  • Pocket Autopak 50
  • Pocket Autopak 70
  • Pocket Pak 40
  • Pocket Pak 440-E
  • Pocket Pak 60
  • Weathermatic A underwater camera

126 film

  • Minolta Autopak 400-X
  • Minolta Autopak 500 / Ilford Monarch / Revuematic 500
  • Minolta Autopak 550
  • Minolta Autopak 600-X
  • Minolta Autopak 700

Instant film

Links

Camerapedia page of Minolta related links

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