A tiny Minolta

[alexander_n2]

<p>Hello Everyone,<br>

I saw this little guy at an antique store today and couldn't resist buying it for $5. It's a Minolta 16 P that used the obsolete 16mm film cartridges. The shutter is working fine and the apertures are working as well. The camera goes from f-3.5 to f-16.<br /> <br /> I noticed there's a guy in Minnesota that advertises selling cartridges, loading film, and developing film from these cameras.<br /> Hmmm...I wonder if I should try that out.</p>

[alexander_n2]

<p>Sorry about that, hopefully the image comes out here.</p><div></div>

[JDMvW]

<p>Now that you've got that cool camera, what else can you do?<br>

nice find.</p>

[rick_drawbridge]

<p>Do it! I've seen prints from these little 16mm Minoltas and they surprised me with their high quality, better by far than 110 format. Lovely little camera, $5.00 very well-spent...</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>Neat little camera, www.cameramanuals.org has a very high quality pdf manual for this camera, but please remit $3 via paypal if you download it. It is an honor system for this very valuable website.</p>

<p>The camera has 2 shutter speeds, 1/100 with the lever set at the white dot and 1/30 at the red dot. The focus is fixed at about 16 ft. and aperture controls depth of field. There is a depth of field chart in the manual. The 3 element 3 group 25mm f3.5 lens is quite good in the 5.6-8-11 range. Well able to produce 5X7 enlargements of good quality. If you are not set up to develop and print 16mm film, Blue Moon Camera in Portland, Oregon can develop and print B&W and color.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>Have a look at http://www.subclub.com.<br>

Note that some vendors of reproduction Minolta cartridges use really nasty castings that are not a good choice.</p>

[alexander_n2]

<p>Thanks for the replies.<br>

I will try to contact the guy in Minnesota about buying a loaded cartridge and see what happens.<br>

Alex</p>

[john_cogburn]

<p>I got a 100-foot roll of Eastman 7231 Plus-X 16mm movie film, and re-load Minolta cassettes for my Minolta 16 II (the earlier 16mm series). The film has sprocket holes on each side, but the holes do not touch the image frame.<br>

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I think your 16P uses the same cassette, but I think I recall reading it has a slightly larger image frame than my 16 II.</p>

[john_robison3]

<p>The 16Ps has the same 10X14mm neg size as the 16 and 16II and is fine with any 16mm film, double perf, single perf, no perf. The only Minolta's using the regular cartridge that had larger film gates (12X17mm I think) were the MGs and the QT, last of the line. Even those sizes could use the single perf as long as the perforations are next to the bridge. I purchased a 100 ft. roll of Eastman Double-X B&W negative film a few months ago but have too many irons in the fire at present to use my 16II.</p>

<p>So many cameras, so little time.</p>

 

[n._r._parsons]

<p>I bought a 16II for my wife-to-be about 1966, and she carried it in her purse the last two years we were in Europe before returning to the States. She shot transparency film with it, and back then any film processor would mount the slides in 2"x2" mounts with a 10x14mm window. The photographs were great, but hard to review without running them through a projector--and it was a little bit of a jolt to run across one of them in a collection of 35mm slides when showing slides. I remember, too, that once in a while she'd get a rough cartridge that didn't let the film pass smoothly, making it hard to pump the camera to advance the film and cock the shutter. I don't remember the type of slide film she bought.<br>

The camera was burned in a fire in 2008, and I've thought about getting another to replace it, for nostalgia's sake.</p>

[alexander_n2]

<p>I guess if I could get my hands on a cartridge that fits this camera I could load and develop it myself. I noticed Tri-X B&W 16mm film is available for about $22 for 100 ft.<br>

Alex</p>

[alexander_n2]

<p>Why do I get the nagging feeling this little $5 camera is going to cost me more than I realized. </p>

[mark_medin]

<p>Is that Tri-X and Plus-X reversal or negative film? It wasn't easy for me to find b&w negative film for 16mm even in the '90s. I still have one long-expired 100' roll of Super-XX.</p>

[john_cogburn]

<p>Mark, I develop the Eastman 7231 Plus-X 16mm film with Kodak HC-110.</p>

<p>What is "reversal" film?</p>

<p>Here's a shot I got with a Kiev 30M, which has a larger negative size than the Minolta 16II, so most of each hole shows in the image:<br>

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[Mike Gammill]

<p>The Double X is listed as Eastman 7222. Its daylight ISO is 250. Grain about intermediate between Plus-X and Tri-X, but with a bit less contrast. The Double-X replaced the Super XX around 1959 (give or take a year) and is finer grained.</p>

[rogerwb]

<p>If you also shoot 127 and have one of those film slitter gadgets for reducing a roll of 120 to 127 dimensions, I am told that the leftover strip of film works nicely in 16mm cartridges.<br>

Seems like a good reason for picking up a Yashica or Rollei 4x4. :)</p>