Milsurp After Hours

The Minolta Maxxum 7000 is known as the first auto focus SLR with the motor in the camera rather than in the lens like the Pentax ME F which was the first film SLR with an auto focusing lens in 1981. The 7000 was aimed at the advanced non professional photographer and introduced in February of 1985. However, the 9000 was actually made first for the professional market but not released until after the 7000 in August of 1985.

The 7000 was a big hit. Auto focus. Auto film advance, multiple programs. Professionals and amateurs alike took to it. It also had a mostly plastic body to make it lighter to carry around. The 9000 had no auto advance and no auto rewind at the end of the roll. Mostly metal except for the prism housing. You could use it exactly like other non auto cameras as professionals seemed addicted to.... except it had the auto focus means built inside the camera that worked with the Maxxum line of lenses then and going forward. You could also focus manually and do all the manual things previous cameras could do. At the same time, along with lots of intelligent features, there is a window in the bottom of the view finder that tells you everything you needed to know to take pictures in any mode. It also has selective meter modes including a highlight and a shadow metering dedicated modes which nobody else seemed to be offering....as such anyway. It also had an eye focus adjustment for individual eyesight and a cover switch for the view window for taking timed shots. And like the standard mechanical camera you had the film advance lever and the button spindle release on the bottom and had to rewind the film when your reached the end of the roll. You could add a battery operated film advance attachment. It did read the film speed automatically or you could override to whatever speed you wanted.

I have just acquired the 9000 and need to take it for a photo jaunt.

During the advance to auto focus in SLR's Minolta was really out in front by a few months on the competition, with the exception of the Pentax ME F which was really a ME with a lens that had the motor in it and was not a very good camera. Nikon Came out with the N2020 a year later and Canon introduced the T80 the same year.

Got around to taking the 9000 out to see how it performed. Seemed to go well. Used both a Minolta Maxxum lens and one that was made for Minolta by Tamron. The auto focus had some wander in locking in...but considering this was a very early version of auto focus camera, with the focus built into the body.... it was not unexpected. My developing may have been off a bit...or the chemicals getting too old ....or any number of things in some of the images. However all images came out and focus was more often close to right on than not. I didn't notice much difference in spot metering and "average". The highlight and shadow readings were inconclusive. The image of the gardening statue was for Highlight where not much highlight and the statue in partial shade. The manual rewind with the larger handle that flips out as a crank was a new feature to me..... don't know any other camera in my collection that operates that way.