Tannin
02-07-2013, 12:15am
A mate of mine recently inherited camera gear from a relative. It is all Minolta stuff, pretty good quality by the look of things, and quite old. I took notes but left them at the office, so from memory, it includes:
Minolta film camera
3 different Minolta 50mm f/1.7 prime lenses
Minolta 200mm f/3.5 prime
Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 prime
Brand I forget (not one I've heard of) 70-200 f/4 zoom - quite heavy, very well-built, the quality reminds me of Tokina
Minolta 110 film point and shoot thing
A really weird telescope thing with an unreversed Minolta 50/1.7 in it and some other optics and no earthly purpose I could fathom
A tripod
My mate asked me what he can do with this stuff. He's not really interested in money for it so much as simply not throwing fine old equipment into the landfill.
My guess - and it's just a guess as I'm a Canon user and digital all the way - is that at least one of the 50/1.7s is quite good and worth using today, and a 400mm prime must be something a bit special still, even though it (like all the others) is a full manual lens with aperture ring and manual focus.
I was impressed by the solid feel and ultra-smooth, long-throw focus mechanisms some of these lenses feature. Modern lenses just don't feel like that.
Anyway, I'm not looking for offers or anything, just some advice on what my friend can do with this gear other than throw it away, which would be a shame.
Minolta film camera
3 different Minolta 50mm f/1.7 prime lenses
Minolta 200mm f/3.5 prime
Vivitar 400mm f/5.6 prime
Brand I forget (not one I've heard of) 70-200 f/4 zoom - quite heavy, very well-built, the quality reminds me of Tokina
Minolta 110 film point and shoot thing
A really weird telescope thing with an unreversed Minolta 50/1.7 in it and some other optics and no earthly purpose I could fathom
A tripod
My mate asked me what he can do with this stuff. He's not really interested in money for it so much as simply not throwing fine old equipment into the landfill.
My guess - and it's just a guess as I'm a Canon user and digital all the way - is that at least one of the 50/1.7s is quite good and worth using today, and a 400mm prime must be something a bit special still, even though it (like all the others) is a full manual lens with aperture ring and manual focus.
I was impressed by the solid feel and ultra-smooth, long-throw focus mechanisms some of these lenses feature. Modern lenses just don't feel like that.
Anyway, I'm not looking for offers or anything, just some advice on what my friend can do with this gear other than throw it away, which would be a shame.