Wallace Koopmans Artlog

My first serious camera that I bought for myself was the Minolta X700.  I still consider it one of the last great manual focus SLR cameras and it has always been reliable and accurate.  It was first introduced in 1981 and apparently it was made right up until 1999.  I purchased mine in the late 1980’s at a department store across the border in Washington state.  I’m not sure how many rolls of Kodachrome 64 I ran through it but where ever I traveled it went along.  I recently shot two rolls of film with it and was reminded why it is so good.  It is functional, without frills, with easy to control settings that don’t get in the way of creativity.

It was a sunny day with intermittent gusts of  warm air breathing life into  the long grass of the meadow.  Elongated stems laden with blooms swayed and swirled in the midst of this flowing sea.  A rabbit crossed the worn path, heard but unseen, as small birds filtered and crows fought.

It’s an equal struggle to portray my experience in words as it is in pictures.  I cannot convey how  at times like these the wonderful memories of a childhood seemingly spent entirely enveloped in long grass surge.  I’m unable to show how the grass moves moments after the leaves rustle.  So I can only do my best even if it doesn’t’ meet my own expectations.

As for the camera it’s muted leaf shutter seemed well suited to the quite sounds of nature.  There is a severe limitation with a 1/200 second shutter on such a bright day but the inaccuracy of the aged meter led me to over expose anyway.  The lens appears to have some sort of coating but it is likely a single coating and doesn’t do a great deal for the lack of contrast when used with colour film.  Focusing with the range finder patch was difficult when so much of the scene appeared so similar so I resorted to focusing by using the scale on the camera.  As I stated in an earlier post the Super-A has framing lines for the 50mm lens within it’s larger 35mm accommodating viewfinder.  This is a nice way to see outside the frame for items to include or exclude from the image.  It’s an interesting camera and one I enjoy looking at but it’s heft and other limitations will likely force it to remain largely a display item.

After several years in my possession I finally took my Minolta Super-A off the shelf and ran a roll of film through it.  It is an aesthetically and operationally pleasing camera to use.  The viewfinder is designed to accommodate both a 35mm and 50mm lens  so it has bright lines for the 50mm yet provides a good wide overall view for framing a subject.  It has a leaf shutter behind the lens that provides from 1sec to 1/200 second.  Additionally it has a bulb setting which also releases the add on light meter when selected.  While the meter is coupled to the shutter speed through a mechanical gear the aperture is only suggested by the meter and it is up to the photographer to actually adjust the exposure.  The meter adds an additional 135 grams to the already hefty camera but eliminated the need to carry a separate meter.

I haven’t been able to get much information about the camera off the Internet other than that it was released in 1957 as well as the usual info that is obvious when one is holding the camera.  The 10 aperture blades form an interesting pattern that differs from the usual octagon, I would describe it as a 10 point star at f5.6 which gives unique out of focus highlights.  The focus rack is built into the body and not the lens and allows focus down to 3.5feet.  There is a small indicator on the front of the camera just bellow the shutter release that turns red when the shutter is cocked but there is no lock for the release itself.

In my next post I will provide some photo’s taken with this gratifying example of late 1950’s design.

I think I love the deep greens of spring more than anything else, well that and the yellows.

Green is the colour of the day.

I thought it would be fun to expose a roll of film through my x-700 which I bought new as a teenager.  I shot with colour film and converted to black and white using Lightroom which is just as real as a BW created by a  digital camera.  I may post the images that I left as colour separately.