photoworld 25 2010/#1 1 photoworld photoworld • winter2010 HELPLINES AND INFORMATION Authorised & warranty repairs, assistance and enquiries Cover: by Paul Murphy Our website www.photoclubalpha.com is now packed with detailed features photoworld on the Minolta and Sony Alpha systems, has a busy discussion Forum and you Cropped from just one half of can search the site for help on topics. It has a full directory of useful links for an Alpha 700 12 megapixel downloading software or obtaining help. For personal advice from the Club, use 25 frame, our cover is taken by e-mail only please, to [email protected]. one of the North East’s best landscape photographers, Paul A DEDICATED helpline is available for Konica Minolta Dynax and Dimage Murphy. digital system owners, and also for film camera owners. The helpline phone number is 0870 0104107. Paul is just one of many regu- lar contributors of thoughts All repairs for Konica, Minolta and Konica Minolta branded photographic and images to the Forum on products are handled by; www.photoclubalpha.com JP Service Solutions which is now the heart of the Johnsons Photopia Ltd club. His original version was Hempstalls Lane one of the best liked shots of the Newcastle under Lyme recent cold snap (you can see Staffordshire ST5 0SW 2010/#1 the whole – unretouched – shot Tel: 01782 753366 – Fax: 01782 753340 1 photoworld on our Gallery pages). Email: [email protected] SONY may announce further firmware upgrades or indeed products. Your first step should be to check Sony’s website regularly: CONTENTS www.sony.co.uk 2 Contents and Information. Their general helpline, which will have information on any other numbers, addresses, departments or offices which Konica Minolta owners may need to See also – http://www.photoclubalpha.com reach in future, is: 08705 111 999 3 Alpha Hits Silver – the Alpha system is 25 years old. For downloadable printable manuals, legacy firmware and software updates, visit: 8 Gallery – the pick of your pix. http://ca.konicaminolta.com/support/americas/ For the Sony European user service – there is still no UK user club: 12 Alpha Aqua Babies http://www.sony.co.uk/nextlevel Manchester professional photographer To order KM/Sony parts, accessories, and new Sony flash components etc, visit Ian Cartwright uses the Quick Focus the Photostore, where Bernard Petticrew also hosts an advice forum: Live View of the Alpha 350 for super http://www.photostore-uk.com/ quality shots of swimming babies. MINOLTA REPAIRS 16 Svalbard in Summer snow – Duncan McEwan by specialist workshop in Milton Keynes It’s seasonal but it’s also just right for your 2010 summer holiday plans. For many years Camera Repair Workshop, based in Milton Keynes 20 Expedition to Peru – Pako Dominguez close to the original Minolta UK service department, handled the repair of classic SRT, X, Vectis and later film cameras for Minolta UK. Taking a group of fellow photographers, They have obtained many of the spare parts and KM’s stocks of older Pako organised his own tour itinerary. ‘cannibalisation cameras’ like 7000 and 8000i. Their proprietor is David Boyle, and his two technicians are Minolta trained. As an independent repairer they 22 See More with CMOS – Alpha 550 and new 450 will specialise in film and digital, and hold parts going back to models like the The 14 megapixel ISO 12,800 capable sensor. XM. The Dynax 9 is an exception, previously serviced by a special European centre, and must be sent to JP (see above). No VAT is chargeable at present, 25 Club Events Diary. and they offer Photoworld Club members a 10 per cent discount on prices 27 Call The Photostore – accessory hotline. which they say are already better than former retail repair charges. This ena- bles the Club to continue with its 10 per cent service and repair discount offer. The Photoworld Club Camera Check scheme will be operated by Camera Repair Workshop, though in absence of Konica Minolta’s former Published by Whilst every care is taken of MSS and photographs submitted all submissions remain the responsibility of the sender. Return bulk shipping arrangements, the return carriage costs have increased and a Icon Publications Limited postage and packing must be included. The views expressed in this magazine are those of individual contributors and do not charge of £25 per camera/standard lens combination is now required. Maxwell Place, Maxwell Lane represent the views or policies of Icon Publications Ltd unless Your equipment is bench-tested for shutter speed, metering, focusing and Kelso, Scottish Borders TD5 7BB otherwise stated. This issue © 2010 Icon Publications Limited. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by aperture accuracy, externally cleaned and adjusted (this includes mirror box Tel: 01573 226032 any means without permission. and film track, and all accessible parts or adjustments). If performance is Fax: 01573 226000 Photoworld magazine is an independent quarterly from Icon Publications Ltd which provides free membership of the below standard, a quotation will be issued for optional servicing. A certificate e-mail: [email protected] Photoworld Club UK/Photoclubalpha. The aim of the Club is to provide support, information, inspiration and activities for is completed showing the test results and functions checked, and returned owners of Minolta, Konica Minolta, Seagull, Sony Alpha and other PUBLISHED AND EDITED BY equipment compatible with the Minolta SR, MC, MD, VS, AF, AF-xi with the camera. Camera Repair Workshop were actually responsible for and AF-D mounts. Membership of the Club is not dependent David Kilpatrick FBIPP Hon. FMPA on subscription and you may also sign up, receiving emailed most of the Club Camera Check work, and hold a stock of original ‘Minolta Shirley Kilpatrick MSc (Colour Science), information only but no magazine, through www.photostore-uk. Club’ certificates along with all the necessary bench testing equipment. com, www.minoltaclub.co.uk or www.photoclubalpha.com. BA Hons (OU) Subscriptions cost £19.95 for four issues (UK/Europe), £23.95 They are based at: (Rest of World), payable to Icon Publications Ltd, Maxwell Place, Maxwell Lane, Kelso, Scottish Borders TD5 7BB This Unit 9, Wharfside, Bletchley, Milton Keynes MK2 2AZ. ADVERTISING MANAGER publication has no connection with Konica Minolta Holdings or Sony Corporation, or the brands mentioned. The logo typeface is Telephone 01908 378088, fax 08712 427677. Richard Kilpatrick – 0121 476 7445 ‘Minolta Classic’ designed by Justin Bailey. Email: [email protected] photoworld 2 Alpha hits Silver he Alpha System celebrates its Though the system has been known last manual focus model, the X-370S, Silver Anniversary this month was available. It survives even now T– though left uncelebrated by many titles from Minolta AF to as a mount popular in China where by the inheritors of the Minolta AF the Seagull range from Shanghai legacy, Sony. They have no reason Maxxum and Dynax, underneath it Optical includes Minolta fit models. to draw attention to the age of the That mount only ever had one major system, as in four years they have has been Alpha from 1985 revision, to add a linkage for open taken it the same sort of distance aperture TTL metering. The introduc- that Minolta took the world’s first tion of programmed exposure and AF system in the late 1980s. shutter priority was cleverly enabled For Photoclubalpha and the by using the existing design of historic Minolta Club of Great lens mechanism and improving its Britain, the anniversary does accuracy, while adding a simple refer- matter. A good many of you out ence lug to the ƒ-stop setting ring. there have been members since the Nikon’s 1959 F-mount proved launch of the system, often using similarly easy to improve without the earlier SR and X manual focus any basic modification. Both systems before that. We still have a these bayonet mounts celebrated 1985 Minolta 7000AF and it’s still half a century of production in working just as it did when new. 2009 – another landmark, which I don’t mind showing my age Nikon was able to celebrate but to make a comparison. I was 11 in Minolta of course could not. 1963 when I took my first pictures with an SLR camera. My father had The AF mount bought himself a Pentax S3 – and the camera it replaced was 25 years 25 In January 1985, the Minolta 7000AF old, a pre-war Zeiss Ikon Kolibri was launched on a completely unsus- collapsable 16-on-127 model. pecting photographic community. When the Kolibri was made, It had been one of the best-kept 127 was the ‘vest pocket’ format of development secrets in Japan, some- choice. 35mm was on the rise, but thing for which Minolta was never 35mm SLRs had not yet arrived. really forgiven. The 7000 Alpha as it They were as much a thing of the was known in Japan hit the market future as digital SLRs were when running, earning the 1985 Technical the Minolta 7000AF was launched. Image Press Association (TIPA) But within that 25 years, there was Camera of the Year Award.It took the hardly a single camera system made other camera makers two years to with interchangeable lenses that did catch up and enter the autofocus era. not become obsolete. Only the ‘frozen For the Minolta Club, 1981 to 1984 assets’ of the cold war kept some had already been an exceptional systems, like the Exakta bayonet and period with the X-700 and X-500 the Praktina, alive. New brands were attracting more users than ever. launched, from the British Wrayflex The AF system only added to this and Periflex to the Italian Rectaflex growth and by 1988 we had the and many German oddities.