Minolta XD 7 With the XD 7 Minolta got it all right in 1977. In those days this was a very futuristic camera, because it possessed automatic exposure with aperture and shutter priority as well as
fully metered manual exposure. In fact the later models with the green 's' (shutter priority mode) and the green '125' (1/125th shutter speed) were early program automats. Put everything on green and the camera starts with 1/125th shutter speed and chooses the aperture. But if it's not possible to achieve the correct exposure it changes shutterspeed until exposure is right. In this case the camera chooses aperture and shutterspeed: programmed exposure. Besides this the XD 7's got more exposure tricks on its sleeves. It's called the 'final check'. After stopping the lens down the camera performs a final check to ensure that the exposure will be correct. This means exposure is very, very good. Even compared to todays computer steered measure-it-all fully automatic machines. But not only electronics ticked all the right boxes, also mechanically this is an extraordinary camera. With its 'full metal jacket' Minolta withstood the tendency to use the cheaper plastics of for example the XG 9. In fact it's so good that again Leica took the XD 7 to be the base of a Leica camera, the R4. So this is a solid metal camera, with a nice look and feel. It's right in every way, heavy but not too heavy, large but smaller and more comfortable than the XE-1. This is the Minolta camera I used most. I bought this in 1981 and for years I only used this beauty. Today this still is a very usable camera. If you don't mind manual focus anyway. With autowinder D (see the pictures) it's still a fast camera. One of Minolta's best! You can find the manual here (by the way XD 11 is the American ტელ: 551 90-93-89
