simon_platt1

Hi If you want a service centre I would add my vote to giving Classic V a ring.

Hi There, for those who like the X-700 but would like the slow shutter sync with flash that the X-500 offered there was an official Minolta Service centre mod that cut a link on the PCB and then the X-700 will offer slow shutter sync go to the Rokkor files andf you can download a PDF to do it yourself or pass to a camera repair shop and have them do it for you. The Rokkor Files - The Minolta X-700.

I use a Sony ADP-MAA adapter and an old Minolta 5600HS flash and they work well together on a Sony A6000 and I get TTL control of the flash output.

Hi there, unfortunately the UK facility to fix the FFB issue closed when Minolta sold its camera assets to Sony in 2006. Sony stopped fixing them and offered a discount on a then new A100. There used to be a Minolta service centre in Germany who fix it but they only had limited number of parts and of course as soon as everything became Sony spare parts for Minoltas stopped being made. Unfortunately there were a huge number of 7Ds made with the part that went faulty. Your best approach if you really like the colours that the 7D gives is to try and find a working one on Ebay. I have three but only one works!!. Its definitely not anything you can fix without the revised part.

Re Eds comment about head up displays and aircraft. Head up displays are optical view finders where you look directly at the scene with information projected onto it. The Link trainers you are thinking of were used to practise flying on instruments only so are not really comparable to either form of viewfinder. The nearest comparable flying experience to an EVF would be flying a drone.

<p>Hi thanks for all the information. I am just trying to improve in camera sound recording at the momennt but will bare in mind the external recorders etc. I decided to go for a Rode Video mic on the hot shoe and see how that works.<br> As Eric says I could spend a fortune doing this!!<br> Thanks again</p> <p>Simon</p>

<p>Hi there<br> Can someone who does video and is in the UK recommend a reasonable quality external mic for use when video recording. <br> Thanks</p>

<p>Hi Walker, I quite agree the menu banks are annoying but personally I value the better dynamic range and shadow noise I get with my Nikons over the possible advantage of different banks with a Canon.<br> Not sure who told you that the larger Canon mount enables them to make lenses cheaper. That's total rubbish, what it does do however is enable them to make faster lenses as the rear element can be physically larger so letting in more light.<br> So as others have said Canon is not 'king' just different.<br> I wouldn't by a camera like a 5d Mk111 now though as a replacement must be along soon and that will in all probability be significantly better. On the other hand the replacement for the D810 may also be along soon and that may do exactly what you want.<br> If you really want to by a new camera I would wait until Nikon and Canon bring out these two replacements and then see what camera has the best balance of features for you. If you want to do it in a scientific way make a table of all the features of each camera and then allocate them a score from 0-10. this will give you an idea of which one may be the best.</p> <p> </p>

<p>As with a number of others I don't miss my SLR because I still use both.<br> I do find it very annoying when Mirrorless evangelists try and say that the SLR is dead and that mirrorless cameras will take over the world. The same thing was said about film and digital, cars and horses, or records and Cds.<br> The mass market will move but some people will always prefer the other way of doing things and in some areas the older ways are better.<br> Some people just don't get on with electronic viewfinders whilst some people love them.</p>

<p>Hi Thomas<br> I also moved from Minolta to Nikon and I think you would find that the advanced amateur cameras in the 7XXX series ie 7100 or 7200 would fufill your need. The 7D did have a reasonably large set of menus as well as the external controls and the Nikons suggested have a good range of dials and switches for many things. Indeed some reviews have complained that with many people now coming into photography and being used to menus maybe they have too many switches etc.<br> Ironically Minolta were among the first to try and market a menu driven camera in the Maxxum 9xi but in those days the LCDS were tiny and the menus hard to read. Not a great sucess and the later Maxxum 9 was esentially the 9Xi with external controls replacing menu features.<br> Do you have any nice lenses for the 7D? if so it may be worth you considering a Sony A77. Perhaps you should post this question again on the Sony/Minolta forum</p>

<p>Hi George an alternative to the hard to read manual is this book,<br />Mastering the D810- Darrell Young- rockynook publishing.-available from Amazon<br />I have his books on the D7000 and D7100 as well and he has a good writing style and explains not only what the settings are but also why you might chose one setting over another.<br> Simon</p>

<p>Lots of half correct information going around on various forums<br> The Xd series actually has two exposure metering systems, one gives a meter reading in the viewfinder and one actually controls the exposure.<br> When you press the shutter release the aperture closes down and the mirror rises. The mirror rise is controlled by a small dashpot to regulate the speed. The exposure control is metering the light at this point and the value once the mirror stops at the top of its travel is held in a capacitor and controls the exposure. This is necessary because different lenses stop down at slighlty different rates and you need to make sure that the lens is stopped down correctly before storing the exposure reading.<br> This is also why you should only use MD lenses not MC lenses in shutter priority, they fit okay and won't cause and damage but the apertyre mechansim is different and may not stop down corectly in time.<br> It is this damper that gets bunged up as the lubricant hardens over time, this is age and use related and every one I have ever had (around 30-40) needs this cleaning. <br> Mostly when people refer to the shutter delay on an XD7 it is this that they are refering to.<br> As an aside the capacitors in an XD-7 are not the same as the ones that fail regulary in an X-700<br> The other exposure related item is the shutter priority exposure automation. If you set a shutter speed that the camera cannot set a corect exposure for by varying the aperture it will alter the shutter speed up or down until it can get a corect exposure.<br> So lets say you set 1/125 but even at f22 the shot would be overexposed the camera will ignore the 1/125 setting and may use 1/250 or 1/500 instead. Equally if you set 1/125 and your lens is an f2.0, if that would under expose the camera will slow the shutter speed down. Unfortunatley you won't actually know what speed was selected.<br> If you need instructions on how to use it this site is very good<br> http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/minoltaxd711/basicimages/basic3.htm</p> <p>Have fun its great camera</p>

Many mirrorless cameras use magnetic focussing where the lens elements are moved by electromagnets rather than being held by a metal or plastic frame that is then moved on a helical thread. There is therefore no mecahnical connecton possible between the rotating focus ring and the moving element. This is also one reason why conventional SLRs focus slower in live view than a mirrorless camera. To focus accurrately a mirrorless camer will move the focus backwards and forwards by a tiny amount which is done easily and quickly with a magnetic system but a mechanical system suffers from a friction effect called stiction which makes moving it a tiny amount hard, you have to move it a larger amount backwards and forwards and then stop it in the right place.

<p>Hi there,<br> Yes all versions of XD-11,XD and XD-7 were made.</p> <p>The XDS was only for the Japanese market and was only ever in black- I have a number of Japanses brochures which show and list the XD in both black and chrome but the XDS only in black.</p> <p>The new Logo came in right at the end of production so relatively few of those were sold in any market. When the new logo first went into production nameplates with the new logo were simply attached over the toplates with old logos engraved on them in order to use up the stock. As stocks of toplates were used up the newer nameplates didn't have the old logo engraved in them. So a camera with a new logo and nothing underneath is a later production.</p> <p>Of course once they had been sold it was possible for any service centre to attach a new logo plate over an older camera just as Leicas were often sent back to the factory for upgrades and changes to controls. There would be a perfectly legitimate reason to do that if the toplate got damaged, or of course if it was badly damaged the whole toplate might be changed.</p> <p>Service centre toplates would usually have their own serial number out of sequence with the mmain production run</p> <p>The only certain guide to age would be if someone ever got hold of the original serial number sheets from Minolta showing in what form the camera was built. Also there are actually more versions than you think as internal parts changed during production, but only so that a service engineer could tell you what had changed.</p> <p>So I think the advice would be that they all look interesting and a collection of the different ones might be worth having but don't pay over the odds for one just because it has what appears to be an unusual combination of model and logo and someone tells you its worth more because of that. Only pay more for great condition regardless of logo and you are probably going to be okay if you pay more for a black rather than a chrome one.</p>

<p>If you have a noticeable lag on an XD camera you need to get it serviced and ask them to clean the internal mirror damper, it's an easy job and shouldn't cost too much to do. Its a dashpot sliding up and down inside a tube and its gets gungy after a while and slows up the shutter action Once you have done that your XD should operate quickly reagardless of whether its on a winder or not.</p>