I think the X700 is an excellent camera. I've had mine X700 for over 20 years, and it's still going strong. It's been a great camera; I've taken it all over the U.S.
For business and pleasure, it's never been serviced, and it's still taking great pictures. In fact, we're going on vacation tomorrow, and we'll be taking it along. I have the stock f:1.7 50mm lense, which if I recall at the time was a well-reviewed lense especially for a stock set-up. I also have a Tamron 80-200 zoom. The X700 must be a good design; IIRC it's the only 35mm SLR camera that Minolta still makes. As far as markings, mine is marked 'Japan' on the bottom-center of the back, at the bottom of the ISO-to-ASA conversion table, which is itself centered in the window where you can slide the end flap off a box of film (to remind you of the film type and speed that is loaded).
My f:1.7 lense also says 'Japan' on the front of the lense, around the external lense element, right next to the markings 'f:1.7'. Great Camera One of my favorite 35mm SLR. Have bought and sold several dozen of them over the past 5-6 yrs. Still have one today. Lots of great lenses available for it, has all the features most people ever need. The 360px flash is very versatile, add the MD-1 drive to it and in capable hands it will give you better results than most folks and their fancy digitals or auto focus cameras. IMHO, nicer 'feel' than the T series from Canon and nicer layout and easier to use than the F series from Nikon.
The Minolta SR-T 101 is a 35mm SLR camera made by Minolta Camera Co. Ltd, Japan, premiering in the March 1966 Japan Camera Show. Sales began in April 1966 and it stayed in production with only minor changes for ten years, the result of the thorough development effort that was put into the camera.
I used to collect manual focus Minolta cameras and lenses for many years. The X-700 was one of Minolta's best sellers, and is a very capable camera indeed. The rumor that the made in China model is somehow inferior to the made in Japan one will never die, but there is no basis for it. The cameras were made in China to Minolta's specifications, and quality control was excellent.
Despite the occasional warning to shy away from the Chinese model, you simply don't see more of them fail, and there are not more questions on forums how to fix them, or anything else that would indicate they are inferior in any way. Minolta serial numbers are completely meaningless. They were handed out willy nilly without any association to production dates, countries of origin, and so on. The X-700 was produced for some years after the Minolta auto focus system was introduced, and no more new cameras and accessories developed for the manual focus system.
However, it hasn't been available new for many years now, and the X-370 was in fact the last manual focus SLR camera Minolta still sold. Of course by now Minolta has made a complete retreat from the camera business; meaning the auto focus system (Maxxum/Dynax) has also been discontinued. The system was bought by Sony, that now makes DSLR cameras in the Maxxum/Dynax mount. The biggest disadvantage of the Minolta manual focus system today is that there is no upgrade pass into the digital world, that is lenses and accessories can not easily be used on any DSLR, and the chance that anybody will ever make a DSLR in the manual focus Minolta mount are pretty much nil. For more info about the manual focus Minolta system, there is no better site than the, which is maintained by my old friend Antony Hands. Among lots of info about cameras and lenses, the site also hosts the results of the ',which yours truly organized from Now 2003 to June 2005. Basically we send a Minolta SLR camera once around the world, and had people take photos with it using their lenses and accessories.
To the best of my knowledge, it remains the only such project ever to be completed successfully, and you can see the 30 resulting pictures. The flash synch speed also depends on the design of shutter. Some bodies use cloth or metal horizontal travel shutters, and are limited to 1/60 or 1/80th of a second, like my Nikon bodies (original F model, F2, and F3). Vertical travel shutters usually are somewhere between 1/90 and 1/300 (the Nikon F5 has a custom setting for a 1/300 X synch).
Some digital cameras do synch at 1/500, like the original D40 and some other D-series Nikon bodies. It's been a while since I've looked at a Minolta X-series body, but, IIRC, they were with a cloth horizontal travel shutter, unlike the Maxxum series bodies, which all had vertical travel shutters. With respect to the gold sticker, that was phased out on most cameras in the early-mid '90s. The Nikon FM2 camera also had the gold ovals from about 1982 until about 1994 or so, when Nikon started putting the 'CE' stickers on the baseplate and eventually went to a CE engraving. So, the poster who thought that one of his X-700's was Japanese and one was Chinese, they're both Japanese.
If one was Chinese, it'd likely say Made in China. The anti china bias may be related to the different production sites for the Pentax K 1000. They were first made in Japan, and were all metal and very well made, but then they were made in Taiwan, and then Hong Kong, and maybe Singapore and other places, finally ending up in Mainland China. The problem was that the parts quality kept going down - more and more became plastic and the camera really became something of a sad wreck.
I'm sure that the production equipment was worn out also, and anytime production is moved there is a learning curve, but it was all that sad plastic that really made one despondent. I bought an X-700 when I was in Hong Kong shortly after the model was introduced. I got several excellent Rokkor lenses with it and an automatic flash that I really like.
I used the X-700 for many years but I never liked it as much as my first SLR, the all manual Minolta SRT-102 (also with a semi-automatic flash). I thought that it would be an upgrade but it just didn't work out for me.
I like the predictability of the manual settings and the lolly pop and stick light meter in the 102. I realize that it is me that didn't adjust well to the automatic features of the X-700, an otherwise fine camera I'm sure. I still have it but it hasn't seen light in about 10 years. On the other hand I just had the 102 repaired and the seals replaced. It's good as new again.
Click to expand.I had an X 570 as well, bought in 1986. I think the American market mid-level was the X 570 and the Euro version was the X 500? I thought it was the other way around because I bought mine at the Frankfurt PX, but others I saw in the States were X 500s. Anyway, I wanted the 700 of course, but didn't have the scratch at the time. Took a lot of great pictures with that camera. And I loved the action - truly a fine machine. Then later, late in college, I had to sell my 570 to pay rent.
I had no idea these cameras had such a long run! I had an X 570 as well, bought in 1986.
I think the American market mid-level was the X 570 and the Euro version was the X 500? I thought it was the other way around because I bought mine at the Frankfurt PX, but others I saw in the States were X 500s. Anyway, I wanted the 700 of course, but didn't have the scratch at the time. Took a lot of great pictures with that camera. And I loved the action - truly a fine machine. Then later, late in college, I had to sell my 570 to pay rent.
I had no idea these cameras had such a long run!
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