Minolta Hi-matic G2 user evaluation.

Mmm I remember these cameras from the what late 70's early eighties. A very small little camera. Bit light weight compared to their earlier siblings the Minolta Hi-matic 7. But Ok.

The first roll ive pushed through is Kodak Ultra 400( its what ever I can get hold of at a price point). ITs not the best film, but I wanna have a look at this colour film, its the first time ive used it. And the weather is drab!!!. Test images were shot at probable optimum aperture F8/F11.

I must say that the first impressions of the optical quality is really good. I did read somewhere that there was a possibility that the lens could be a lica design, This camera appeared after the lie up between Lica and Minolta and the creation of the Minolta CLE, a Joint Minolta, Lica project.

The negs, im Just scanning them in now and will post up to the blog asap.

The usability of this little camera is =very good, really bright viewfinder, The symbol focussing is not that much of an issue, after all were using 400, or 800 asa film, This camera is used primarily for Mono street work. And the symbols are a good way of implementing zone focussing, so much easier to see a symbol than see the distance on many of these small cameras. I must say IT worked really well, and when I did need accurate focussing, my hot shoe mounted 1940's range finder attachment to the aid. Its a case of transferring the distance from the range finder unit to the cameras focussing ring.

http://www.subclub.org/minman/leanmean.pdf

Other minolta cameras are the CL & CLE

http://www.cameraquest.com./leicacl.htm

http://www.cameraquest.com./cle.htm

Olympus XA

http://www.cameraquest.com./xa4.htm

Minolta 7 S11

http://www.cameraquest.com./min7s2.htm