Talk:Minolta

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This is the discussion page for Minolta. Click here to start a new topic.


Discussion pages are for discussing improvements to the article itself, not for discussions about the subject of the article.


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)

Peter Blaise responds: Alphapetically, it's Alpha/Dynax/Maxxum. Also, slashes (/) in a page name act as sub page identifiers, so we probably need to be aware of that. For instance, a page named Alpha/Dynax/Maxxum would be treated by Mediawiki/PHP/MySQL as a page named Alpha with a sub page named Dynax, and under the Dynax page, there yet another sub page named Maxxum. This may be a trivial point since we are probably not going to have a separate page named Alpha are we? Or are we? We MAY eventually have a Sony Alpha page or a Minolta Alpha page, and then if we also have a Minolta Maxxum page and a Minolta Dynax page, then how do we deal with the potential for a Konica Minolta Sony Alpha/Dynax/Maxxum page ... if we ever get brave enough to combine ALL nomenclatures into a single, central source for all "Alpha-mount SLR" commers? Just exploring. Click! Love and hugs, Peter Blaise, Minolta Rokkor Alpha DiMage Photographer -- peterblaise 13:52, 26 January 2008 (EST) PS - Great work so far, everyone, thanks for a terrific resource.

Expanded the names some more, listed more detailed variations of the same basic model across regions. example, american Maxxium 450si and japanese alpha 303si are on the same line as those model revision both have date and panorama features. Previously they were combined together with dynax 500si, maxxum 400si / RZ400si / RZ430si / 550si and alpha 303si. I'm not familiar with enough Dynax models to say which ones are closest to the alpha or maxxum variations. --Tkmedia 22:49, 31 October 2011 (PDT)

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)

ridiculous attempt of X(HT)MLization

Since we have several XHTML preachers around here I try to XHTMLize this page.

The XHTML validator showed the error "value of attribute id invalid: digit cannot start a name" 18 times. I already reduced it by changing wiki headers to status "not beginning with a digit". The kind of error shows some of the absolute stupidness of the XHTML standard. Luckily it's nor really a standard but just a recommendation, and it should stay so - forever.

Now I'll try to finish the work on just this page, but I really cannot recommend any XHTMLization like this. The disadvantages are obvious: Many links refering directly to headlines of the page may have become invalid now. And this page is a popular one, maybe linked 100s of times!!! U. Kulick 11:03, 25 April 2011 (PDT)

I've finished that xhtmlization, see: http://camera-wiki.org/index.php?title=Minolta&curid=4244&diff=102945&oldid=102564
Here'e the related XHTML compliance check - live!

Reverted Contributions

I notice somebody reverted the edit I did to the very first picture listed on the page, that of the 35mm body with no lens. When I changed that before, I did so with the reasoning that I don't think the same exact picture needs to be represented twice on the same page. It's redundant, especially when there are so many other good pictures to choose from. If it's just a matter of somebody not wanting the particular picture that I chose at the top, which was a picture of mine, fine. The page doesn't have to have my picture there. But I do think that the top picture needs to be changed for it's also used farther down the page. I'd like to think that my reasoning for not wanting to use the same picture twice on one page is valid or that my contributions are valid. If either is incorrect, just say so, and I'll stop creating problems. If it's just that this was an oversight because everything's in flux, I apologise. I do want to contribute, but not if my efforts aren't going to add anything positive and continually get reverted. HaarFager 14:25, 25 April 2011 (PDT)

Sorry, these six first images are a delicate case. They are used there as part of the page design, thus having links to sections of the text. In these sections or in sections near below, there one of the six images appears again, then with the correct link back to Flickr. Otherwise we can't have that kind of graphical contents table. Some main camera maker pages have a very individual design, the Zeiss page using text boxes, the Minolta page using that illustrated contents table, the Argus page a whole series of images showing company buildings, the Kodak page a long row of nice old ads (in our ads-free wiki ;-) , but historical documents are allowed but photos usually prefered.) I just hope we are really "creative" commons who will achieve more page-design efforts, for example for other major makers like Nikon.
I had to make this series of images consistent (all images re-appearing in cameras-list) to assure correct image usage. U. Kulick 14:49, 25 April 2011 (PDT)

Binoculars section

I just added a binocular section - work in progress. I might format the technical data into a table.

Does anyone knows more about the full-size range? Specifically, what are the differences between "Standard" and "Classic II" series? Any help appreciated! thanks User:Fragarach 29 February 2012

Is Minolta Back?

Tonight, my girlfriend showed me a current mail-order catalog that listed two new Minolta cameras for sale. I saw elsewhere on the internet that the name "Minolta" has been licensed to "Elite Brands" to use. These cameras say "Minolta" right on them. How are we going to list these "Minolta" cameras on Camera-wiki? I've been a Minolta fan since the 1970s and own about 30 of them. Something doesn't smell right in the state of Denmark. HaarFager (talk) 08:05, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Maybe have a separate Elite brands section within Minolta page?--Tkmedia (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
How about a brand new page entitled something like (ignore the quotation marks) "Minolta (Elite Brands)" instead of sullying the REAL Minolta name and page? HaarFager (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2019 (UTC)
The sale of the brand is already mentioned in the History section. Elite Brands, as its name says, is a company collecting renowned brands. It offers other photo-optical brands too, like "Rokinon". Thus an artice about Elite Brands may come, sooner or later, and a redirect Minolta (Elite Brands) too. U. Kulick (talk) 12:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)