The 70th Anniversary poster

Share what you know, show off your collection
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

The 70th Anniversary poster

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

I have stashed away a few of the Minolta 70th Anniversary posters - well worth getting professionally mounted and laminated or heatsealed for wall display. I will, at my own discretion, send one of these to forum members who make particularly valuable contributions in the History of Minolta category.

We have now added a page with all the contents of the history poster:

http://photoclubalpha.com/useful-and-vi ... n-decades/

David
Last edited by David Kilpatrick on Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
BrianG
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Jul 07, 2007 5:22 pm
Location: Bideford, Devon, UK

Unread post by BrianG »

There certainly was an SR-1, I have one in my collection. Introduced in 1966. It is slightly heavier and larger than the SR-1s, the main difference being the 1/500 highest shutterspeed. A separate CdS light meter can be attached as with the SR-1s.
Brian
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

I remember that model, I think, the styling was slightly outdated compared to the SR-1s. The first Chinese Seagull SLR appears to have been based on the SR-1 or maybe even the SR-3. Does your SR-1 have a round viewfinder eyepiece with a screw-threaded lens, instead of the rectangular frame which accepts accessories? This was one change around 1966. The original SR models had the round eyepiece, like the Chinese version.

Again 1966 seems a very late for introduction as the SRT-101 was the same year. I am not sure how long Pentax continued to make the S3 and the S1a for after they introduced the Spotmatic. Maybe I'm thinking that TTL metering arrived faster or sooner than it did. I was using an S3 with clip-on CdS meter in 1966 and my father had owned this since at least 1963, as I have pictures taken with it that year. In 1968 I bought a secondhand Spotmatic, so they must have been around for the same time as the SRT-101. I know that by this date, non-TTL SLRs were rapidly becoming hard to sell or exchange.

David
User avatar
Omega892
Oligarch
Posts: 221
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:13 pm
Location: Fareham, Hants. UK.
Contact:

Unread post by Omega892 »

BrianG wrote:There certainly was an SR-1, I have one in my collection. Introduced in 1966. It is slightly heavier and larger than the SR-1s, the main difference being the 1/500 highest shutterspeed. A separate CdS light meter can be attached as with the SR-1s.
According to Ivor Matanle in 'Due Credit', AP 14 October 2000 pp24 the SR-1 first appeared in Britain in 1958 the same year that the SR-2 appeared but not in Britain. The difference between what is claimed to be the world's first SLRs with instant return mirror, automatic lens diaphragm and non-rotating shutter speed dial was that the max shutter speed of the SR-2 was 1/1000 sec whereas that of the SR-1 was 1/500 sec.

This article is worth looking up by any one interested in the evolution of Minolta SLRs.

Ivor Matanle also describes Minolta cameras in his book 'Collecting and Using Classic SLRs' which is worth a look.
'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' - Benjamin Franklin
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

Matanle is out on his own here. One of the 'legends' of Minolta is that the first SR model was the SR-2. Minolta had done something unacceptable in 1958. They copied the Leica shutter mechanism (probably starting the project in 1956) and arrived in Brussels for the 1958 expo with a 35mm Leica M mount rangefinder to replace the Minolta 35, and an SLR based on exactly the same body configuration.

Leica prevented Minolta from releasing the rangefinder, but took no action (as far as can be gathered) about the very detailed copy of the Leica M shutter which was used in the SR reflex. Shortly afterwards, Leica and Minolta began working together, leading to a joint technology agreement a decade later. I visited the Minolta Osaka 'museum' in 1986 and there were many exhibits from Leica - everything from the prism used in the first Leicaflex to complete lenses. Letters from E. Leitz commending the quality of the components supplied were placed beside the items.

I wonder where all those exhibits have now gone. The museum documented 20 years of co-operation with Leitz. It was something which Minolta was enormously proud of and could never use in advertising, but they were able to show it private visitors.

The SR series had a non-rotating shutter speed dial because the shutter was a direct copy of the Leica M - which I bet Ivor did not mention, being a serious Leica enthusiast and probably a little snow-bling to the Leitz-Minolta relationship!

David
ga_dorum
Acolyte
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 21, 2008 9:21 am
Location: Singapore

Re: The 70th Anniversary poster

Unread post by ga_dorum »

Hi David, The Page you prepared for 70th Anniversary is great. It comes out as a great resource for Minolta Cameras.

Is there any way to get the image of 70th Anniversary poster to print like the one we downloaded from your marvellous page for "Minolta lenses 30 years ago".

Thanks very much
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Re: The 70th Anniversary poster

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

email me privately as I do have a few posters for sale, but due to the small number, I have not made that public. They are in good condition and suitable for mounting. Since they are so large and detailed, I can't see that a digital camera copy would work well, but I may get one dry-mounted and try copying it. I thought that I had the Quark XPress layout file for the poster but I don't seem to be able to locate it, all I had from KM in the end was the set of original images and I had to type out all the details manually.

David
User avatar
Omega892
Oligarch
Posts: 221
Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:13 pm
Location: Fareham, Hants. UK.
Contact:

Re: The 70th Anniversary poster

Unread post by Omega892 »

David Kilpatrick wrote:I thought that I had the Quark XPress layout file for the poster but I don't seem to be able to locate it, all I had from KM in the end was the set of original images and I had to type out all the details manually.

David
I magaed to get one of these from you a few years back and it is still on the wall in my work room.

I had not realised that you put this together - very well done. Isn't that Dynax 9 with grip a monster.

If you do find that Quark file would it be worth adding the later additions Dynax 7 and then leading lights from dimage series, maybe the Dynax7D too.

I doubt many would have Quark on their machines, particularly PCs, but a PDF could work for printing from larger format printers and members may appreciate getting hold of one.

I have done a few jobs where I tiled a number of A3 or A3 plus pages together but the result is not all that pretty unless extreme care is taken, I am now practiced.

But maybe it is not worth bothering with.
'Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' - Benjamin Franklin
David Kilpatrick
Site Admin
Posts: 5985
Joined: Sat May 19, 2007 1:14 pm
Location: Kelso, Scotland
Contact:

Re: The 70th Anniversary poster

Unread post by David Kilpatrick »

I didn't put it together - Minolta did send me two CDs with a stack of Photoshop and Illustrator files on for it though. The images are much larger than needed for the poster, and many appear to have been shot at the same time. There was a camera museum in the Osaka building which housed all the older models shown in the poster, and I think they based it on that collection. I have pretty much all the source images from the period when Minolta started storing stuff digitally, and yesterday I was doing some clearing out and found the file of all the studio shots we did for them (in black and white) from 1981 on. I also found loads of other original brochure and PR material from around 1992-5 for many companies, dilemma whether to keep it or not. Someone would value this stuff. I am not sure I do, it's costing me real money to store it all.

What do you do? I have about half a tonne of software. Like every version of Pagemaker from 1987 on, boxed, ditto Photoshop from 1990 (?), almost all Adobe stuff, countless other things. Most of it is totally useless now. I gave away a few items last year to a vintage Mac enthusiast (XRes, Painter, Poser) but I still have things like Letraset Colorstudio. The manuals are wonderful, huge volumes full of information it's hard to find now. Our son Richard has a similar problem - over 20 vintage 1970s-80s computers filling one room, and he needs to move. The national computer museum at Bletchley has taken some stuff off him, he's sold a dozen or more unique items to collectors, and he really does not want to fill a skip with fully restored working early computers which no-one wants.

In theory it could all the photographed and all the info I have in filing cabinets could be scanned before discarding it, but I have no time to do that. It would be a full time job for several months.

David
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests