Photoclub Alpha

I don’t have an Alpha 500 or 550 here yet, even though Photoclubalpha has been second in the Google search results for ‘Sony Alpha 550′ for some time and remains so as I write (the New York Times is first). That’s not bad for a Wordpress blog website which does NOT employ the services of the dozen or so ‘search engine optimisation’ experts who contact us each week! Hopefully we’ll have a review camera very soon, preferably the 550.

In the meantime, a few samples have been posted on various sites which show the raw conversion engine of the camera/s (not necessarily the JPEG compression stage, as always seems to be assumed) has been radically revised. Sony call this ‘enhanced BIONZ’ and I think there’s a clue to how it has been enhanced in the relationship of Sony Europe and DxO Labs, the French company which specialises in in-camera process analysis and development.

A long-demanded 1.15X eyepiece magnifier – compatible with all APS-C format Sony Alpha DSLRs – is just one of a rollout of new minor accessories for the system. The Magnifying Eyepiece FDA-ME1AM is designed to fit the A700, A380, A330, A230, A350, A300 and A200 and should also be fully compatible with A100, Konica Minolta 7D and 5D.

Photoworld 2008 #2 is now being mailed to subscribers!

Our Spring edition features -

The launch of the Alpha 350, with its small 0.74X viewfinder, makes a proper eyepiece magnifier attachment an essential addition to the Sony accessory range. Olympus, Nikon and Pentax all have such magnifiers, which permit a full view of the screen for most wearers and make all the difference to the manual focusing and general comfort in composing shots. We tested two devices, one of them the highly affordable Seagull 1x-2.5x right angle finder, and the other Olympus’s ME-1 1.2X ocular magnifier.

The Sony Alpha 350 14.2 megapixel DSLR pioneers a new type of Live View, related to Olympus’s original Mode A of the E-330 where a beamsplitting arrangement allowed a video CCD to view the actual focusing screen of the SLR system.

NOT everyone will want the live view offered by the A300 and A350 – it does turn out to be more or less as we suggested, a secondary optical path adjacent to the eyepiece inside the prism housing. I’ll explain here exactly what the implications are, and why a future model – let’s call it the A500 – offering the 14.2 megapixel sensor without the live view may be worth waiting for.

IN 1998 Minolta published, for their 70th anniversary, a large poster featuring all the landmark cameras from their own museum and employee collections. Many of the cameras shown – all fairly small on the poster – were well used and worn examples. The original image-files for the poster, which we have archived, are of poor quality. They are Japanese inkset CMYK sharpened for pre-press, with very dark gamma. This page re-creates all the information from the original poster, complete with the photographs. This page has been updated so that each period now appears as a separate section – simply select the next page to move on after reading each one. Page 1 is 1928-39, Page 2 1940-1959, Page 3 1960-69, Page 4 1970-79, Page 5 1980-89, and Page 6 is the 1990s. If you know the period of the camera you want to see, go straight to the page.

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1928

The Minolta Co. Ltd was established by Kazuo Tashima in November 1928, under the name ‘Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shoten’

1929 Nifcalette Folding Camera

Minolta’s first camera. 40 x 65mm on 127 film with scale-estimation focusing.

1930 Nifca Sport Folding Dry-Plate Camera

65 x 90mm image, with a standard tilt and shift lens.

1931 Arcadia Folding Dry-Plate Camera

Compact camera using the first ever Japanese-made shutter.

1932 Semi Minolta Folding Camera

45 x 60mm on 120 film, Minolta’s first diecast folding camera and the first use of the Minolta name.

1933 Minolta, Strut-Folding Dry-Plate Camera

65 x 90mm image, the first Minolta camera entirely manufactured in Japan.

1934 Baby Minolta Bakelite body Roll Film Camera

40 x 65mm or 40 x 30mm on 127 film, with a Bakelite body and pull-0ut lens.

1934 Minolta Vest, Strut-Folding Dry-Plate Camera

40 x 65mm or 40 x 30mm image on 127 film, the first Bakelite body collapsing camera manufactured in Japan.

1935 Auto Minolta, Strut-Folding Dry-Plate Camera

65 x 90mm image, the first press camera with a rangefinder to be manufactured in Japan.

1935 Minolta Six, Collapsing Bakelite Body Camera

60 x 60mm on 120 film, collapsing Bakelite body.

1937 Minolta Auto Press, Strut-Folding Dry Plate Camera

65 x 90mm image, the first ever press camera with built-in flash synchronisation system manufactured in Japan. Editor’s note: at Icon, we owned and used an Auto Press during the 1990s. It was equipped with a rollfilm back as well as plate holders. The flash synchronisation worked, and the 105mm f/4.5 Anastigmat lens was sufficiently good to permit one commercial studio shot to be completed using the camera, though contrast and light transmission were both low. The camera has a folding sports finder (the wire frame) as well as an optical coupled rangefinder and an optical viewfinder. It was a copy of the German Plaubel Makina.

1937 Auto Semi Minolta Folding Camera

60 x 60mm on 120 film, rangefinder and automatic film wind-on spacing (incorrectly described on the poster as ‘auto film rewind stop’). Note the spelling ‘Tiyoko’ in place of the later ‘Chiyoko’.

1937 Minolta Flex Twin Lens Reflex Camera

60 x 60mm on 120 film. Minolta’s first twin lens reflex camera.

1939 Minolta Flex Automat Twin Lens Reflex Camera

60 x 60mm on 120 film, first self-cocking (shutter) twin-lens reflex to be manufactured in Japan.

HAODA FU has been supplying alternative focusing screens for the 5D and A100 since 2006 and for many other makes before this. While the Alpha system DSLRs are not intended to have user-changeable screens, it is relatively easy and risk-free.