Friday, January 20, 2006

Popular Photography Magazine: Konica Minolta To Exit Camera Business

Yesterday I read that Minolta is getting out of the camera business, which makes me kind of sad. I don't use my Minolta film SLR as much anymore because we have a digital, but I love my Maxxum 5. When it came out in 2002 it was the smallest, lightest film SLR you could buy, and it took fabulous pictures. I did a lot of research before I bought it, and it seemed much more advanced than the competitive models available in the same price range. Now you can get fine digital cameras for about the same money (around 300 bucks), but nothing beats the satisfaction of taking a great picture with a film camera. All of my pictures from San Francisco were taken with that camera, and even though at my skill level you get a couple of good shots per roll, that still leaves me with dozens of great shots (luckily a friend of mine gave me 40 rolls of film as a going-away present).

Anyway, I guess now it's a collector's item, but it's still too bad that they have to exit the business.

2 comments:

George said...

you're not kidding. it's amazing how technology can shift companies out of business.
i have a minolta XD11 given to me from my father. he was an avid photographer in his youth and this camera was his starter.
now with all the automatic cameras out there, you don't get to play with aperture, exposure, shutter speed, or even development. something is missing in the whole digital photo age. but i would like to think, like all things great, they always come back.

Meagan Vanover, CWP said...

i have a minolta x700 slr which i freaking love. i used to sing, "i've got a minolta camera, i love to take photographs, mama don't take my kodachrome away" instead of nikon.

haha. what an eighth-grade dork.