Minolta Sky

Minolta Sky

The Minolta Sky was created in 1958. It was a 35mm rangefinder prototype, and as such it was never mass produced.
There is a huge technological gap between the Minolta 35 series and the Sky. Creation of the Sky started in 1955, one year after the launch of the Leica M3. In March 1957, a first working prototype was presented. It featured:

• focal plane shutter from 1s to 1/1000th
  • It was possible to use shutter and self-timer in conjunction, and obtain speeds down to 15s
• X and FP flash synch
• automatic frames for 50mm, 90mm and 135mm
• parallax correction

Lenses for the Minolta Sky

Several lenses were planned (10 in total), including a 50mm 1:1.4 normal lens, a 21mm 1:4 super wide angle lens, a 25mm 1:3.5 wideangle lens, a 135mm 1:2.8 moderate telephoto lens and a 250mm 1:4 telephoto lens.
The camera never made it to mass production, since by the time the prototypes were completed '1957), Minolta was already focusing on interchangeable lens SLR rather than interchangeable lens rangefinders (the Minolta SR-2 was released in 1958).

References

• Francesch, Dominique and Jean-Paul. Histoire de l'appareil photographique Minolta de 1929 à 1985. Paris: Dessain et Tolra, 1985. ISBN 2-249-27685-4.
• Minolta Mirror Magazine, 1981 issue. Questions & Answers page 127. No ISBN number.

Links

• Replica of a black Minolta Sky, created from a Yashica YF, in this page and this page at Fukusenbankō's site (some pictures show the real Minolta Sky exposed at the JCII museum)