Talk:Minolta

Would be nice if there was a concise 1-paragraph company summary above the "history" section. That way people can get a quick overview before they see the table of contents. --Lbstone 08:50, 12 Jul 2005 (EDT)

o.k.

History

history 1928 - 1970ies, sources:

A.R. & J. Scheibel "Minolta's Kameratechnik"

minolta-forum.de

Links

The minolta related links can now be found under Minolta links. This outsourcing is necessary since the "Minolta"-page is already very long because of the product lists.

pic links

the pictures on this page are partially icon sized. it's useless to set links on flickr originals of those ones.

the first picture collection is an abbreviated contents list. I'll change the pic links to the text link's destinations -- edited on the 20th June 2006 by U. kulick

Useless or not, these are Flickr's rules, and they must be applied for any image they are hosting, whatever its size. If Flickr decides to forbid Camerapedia to link to their images, we will be in really big trouble.

However I agree that the links were unnecessary in the first picture collection, because they are already present with the other pictures of the page. --Rebollo fr 16:29, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Precisions needed

Imho, the page needs to be more specific for some of the firsts attributed to Minolta:

• about the SR-2: what is the exact list of features that it was the first to combine? Was it the first SLR with pentaprism, instant return mirror, bayonet mount and lever advance all in one? Apparently not, the 1957 Miranda B has these four features. Indeed, the Miranda B only has external auto diaphragm, but on the SR-2 the diaphragm only reopens when you advance for the next exposure, so it is not a true "internal auto diaphragm" either.
• about TTL off the film metering, there is a problematic sentence:
  • "During this time, Minolta invented and patented TTL OTF exposure - through the lens off the film -": Olympus presented the OM-2 in 1975, and Minolta presented the CLE in 1981. This would mean that Minolta filed a patent and left it unused for 6 years. It contradicts the common belief that Olympus invented this system, and that it inspired other makers. Such an assertion needs to be sustained by pointing to a specific source.
  • "in order to manage accurate electronic exposure in their Minolta CLE M-class rangefinder camera": If we accept the first assertion that Minolta filed a patent for TTL OTF before 1975, this second assertion would give us a development time of more than six years for the CLE, that is surprisingly long, and that means much innovative research invested by Minolta for a comparatively marginal body.
  • "- how else to meter exposure with no pentaprism but off the film?" It can be made by mounting the cell on an arm like the Leica M5 and Leica CL, and calculating the correct shutter speed before the retraction of the arm, the same way an ordinary (not OTF) SLR calculates the exposure before retracting the mirror.
  • "This was 18 years before Leica did it themselves in their own M-line of rangefinders." Indeed the CLE was the first rangefinder camera with TTL off the film exposure, but this is no great achievement, Minolta and Leica being the only non-Soviet companies to make focal-plane rangefinder cameras at the time. And even today's Leica M7 does not use off the film exposure automation, only off the film flash automation (exposure measure is taken by reflection on a white spot on the first curtain, in auto and manual mode).

--Rebollo fr 10:53, 6 May 2006 (EDT)

Name variants

The new Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha table is great. The same sort of table will probably be needed for the manual focus SLRs.
Now I am wondering about the page naming scheme for the Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha models. Ultra long page names like "Minolta Dynax/Maxxum/Alpha 7" are certainly tedious, must we focus on one geographical area and go for "Minolta Dynax 7" or "Minolta Maxxum 7", or simply adopt the short title "Minolta 7"? --Rebollo fr 14:44, 7 May 2006 (EDT)

The name "Minolta"

I find it hard to think that anyone would really believe "Minolta" came from "Machinery and Instruments Optical by Tashima". Still, that seems to be the official story. Meanwhile, the idea that it's from homophonous 稔る田 / minoru ta is widespread in Japan (the more elaborate version has the boss looking out over the rice-fields to Mount Rokkō, and simultaneously naming his cameras and his lenses) and it appears on p. 16 of Niimi Kahei's charming book Kamera-mei no gogen sanpo (カメラ名の語源散歩, Strolls in the etymology of camera names). Incidentally it would be pleasing if camerapedia supported the <REF> extension. -- Hoary 04:28, 8 May 2006 (EDT)

Deleted minor section

Minolta history: Streamlined section referring to minutiae of Minolta SLR design of knob/dial interface as it was unclear, poorly written and irrelevant. glenmark 3 June 2006

Deleted a minor part of a sentence

In the following sentence: "True to its tradition of innovation, the company was one of the first to offshore production of its cameras from Japan to Malaysia, China, and other countries offering less expensive labor costs."

I deleted "True to its tradition of innovation" because the 'tradition of innovation' mentioned above in the article has the sense of 'technological advance", while outsourcing the production to Malaysia or China is an innovation only in the sense of 'new practice'. --Rebollo fr 06:29, 3 June 2006 (EDT)