In this post I’ll describe my previous analog cameras. I bought my first SLR in 1981 at the age of 18. So now you can figure
out my age too! It was a Praktica MTL 3. I’m not sure anymore
whether it was a MTL 3 or a MTL 5. A I remember it, it was a MTL 5, but when I
look at the pictures on the internet and the production dates it must have been
a MTL 3. Anyhow there is not difference between the two models. It was made in
the former eastern Germany (DDR) and everything was manual. Focus was done by
turning the lens and looking into the
viewfinder if the micro prism was clear and exposure was really light metering done
by a meter which had to be exact in the middle of a circle. Shutter speed and
aperture could be adjusted manual also. So in fact this was the ultimate basic
way to make photographs.
I bought this together with a friend of mine
and we started taking pictures in our hometown Dordrecht. Unfortunately I don’t
have them anymore.
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| Praktica MTL3 |
My next camera was a Minolta XG-1N. I think this must have been around 1985. This was a (little)
step forward in automatic camera control. While focus was still manual in the
same way with a micro prism, exposure could be done semi automatically, by
turning the shutter speed on automatic (A). In that case you could choose the
aperture and the light metering system of the camera would choose the correct
shutter speed.
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| Minolta XG-1N |
In 1990 I took the next steps, a Minolta Maxxum 5000i. I bought this camera (tax-free) while on a vacation on the island of Saint-Martin in the Netherlands Antilles. In Europe they were sold under the name Dynax 5000i and the American model was named Maxxum 5000i. Now this camera was really a big step forward because it had an autofocus system and also a fully auto exposure, with the now well-known P, S and A modus. It also had a build in flash. So compared to my old XG-1N this was a huge step forward.
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| Minolta 5000i |
Unfortunately my 5000i broke down during a vacation. If I remember well it was in 2007 when I was in Dallas it didn’t work anymore. So I had to buy a new one and I bought a Minolta Maxxum 500si. Since I was in the USA when it happened I had an American model again. It was more or less identical to my old 5000i, only this one had also some pre-defined scene modes for sports, landscape, macro, etc.
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| Minolta 500si |
This was my last analog camera. I still own it, but since 2003 I didn’t use it anymore by entering the digital camera era!
