I wasn’t old enough to care about cameras (or buttons) in 1985, so I have no idea what people thought, but I have to imagine they felt that buttons were futuristic. Pentax had buttons on the Pentax ME Super and a large number of lower cost cameras had been using buttons for quite some time as well, but the Maxxum was the first SLR where everything was controlled by either a button, or some other kind of electronic switch. Gone were mechanical knobs and dials and in their place were buttons…lots of buttons.īuttons aren’t bad, and the Maxxum 7000 wasn’t the first camera to have them. With their new SLR came a new lens mount and a new way to control the camera. From that moment forward, every camera maker in Japan and elsewhere was playing catch up. In February 1985, when Minolta released the Maxxum 7000 which was the world’s first 35mm SLR camera with in-body automatic focus, the world was put on notice. History The Minolta Maxxum 7000 took the world by storm as the first successful SLR with in body automatic focus.

+1 for the complete package, one of the most natural SLRs I’ve ever used, excellent knobs I love the Minolta Maxxum 650si and realize that not everyone might share my adulation for it, but considering these can still be picked up for rock bottom prices, you could do MUCH worse with a modern electronic SLR. This is my “go to” cameras when I want to shoot film without having to think. It likely has never appeared on a top 10 list of the best of any camera, yet, it’s perfect balance of semi professional features, excellent ergonomics, lens selection, and value has endeared itself as one of my all time favorite SLRs. The Minolta Maxxum 650si isn’t the most advanced camera or the best at anything. Weight: 818 grams (w/ battery and 50mm f/1.7 lens), 635 grams (w/ battery, no lens) Speeds (auto): 30 – 1/4000 seconds, step lessĮxposure Meter: 2x Silicon Photo Diode TTL meters with P, S, A, and M metering modesįlash Mount: Minolta Hot Shoe with Pop-Up in Body Flash, 1/200 X-sync Shutter: Electronic Vertically Traveling Focal Plane Lens: 50mm f/1.7 Minolta Maxxum AF coated 6-elements in 4-groups + othersįocus: 1.5 feet to Infinity (50mm), 1 foot to Infinity (28mm) The 650si gained popularity by people who preferred a more mechanical feel. The 650si was a midrange model in Minolta’s fourth generation of auto focus SLRs, loaded with nearly every feature available at the time, and upon it’s release, debuted a new user interface that reverted back to physical dials and knobs on the camera’s top plate, instead of buttons as was the trend of the time. When the Maxxum 600si was sold in Europe and Japan, it was known there as the Dynax 600si Classic and the α507si, respectively.

The 650si Date is a slightly updated version of the 600si, adding a date back and a panoramic mode, but is otherwise the same. This is a Minolta Maxxum 650si Date, a 35mm single lens reflex camera produced by Minolta starting in 1995.

Minolta camera maxxum 5