I cut my camera collection down to one digital camera and a zoom lens, but a few weeks ago I had the urge to use some film. I had a number of rolls sitting in the fridge just soaking up cosmic and background radiation but nothing to put them in. I didn’t want to buy anything expensive because I had just sold all my expensive film gear and I wanted something small. Which lead me to the Minolta X-700 and a 50mm F1.4 lens.
Or, I should say, a Samsung Minolta X-700 with a Samsung F1.4 lens. From the late seventies onwards, luxury items were not allowed to be imported into Korea. This included cameras, unless one of the big Korean companies like Samsung or Hyundai stuck their name on it. Then it was fine. My camera has the old Samsung symbol of three stars on the front (Samsung means ‘three stars’) and on the back where most Minolta cameras say “Japan” this camera has “Samsung Aerospace Industries Corporation” written in Chinese characters. I’m not sure if that means the camera was assembled in Korea or not. The lens has Korea written on the front, so possibly it was assembled here.
I put in a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 and went to Seongyojang. Where I discovered that citizens of Gangneung can get free admission instead of paying the usual price of 5,000 Won. That was a nice surprise. I thought about bringing my digital camera to ensure proper exposure, but decided I wanted to see how good the Minolta’s light meter is. Very good, as it turns out. Later testing showed it to give the same results or near enough as damn it as my digital.
I was pleased with the results I got from the camera, and I’m sure I will get better results with the Portra 400 and Ektar colour films I still have in the fridge. Soon I’ll post some black and white photos I made with the camera on the same day I made these.
You didn’t sell your F6, did you?
These look well exposed. Interesting story about Samsung-Minolta – funny how people and large corporations will always find a way to circumvent red tape when there’s the chance of a few dollars.
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I sold everything. I almost didn’t sell the F6, but it’s large and I want to keep things as light as possible.
Forcing foreign companies to team up with Korean companies if they want to sell things in Korea happens all the time. LG-Otis elevators and so on. Less so now than before. It’s a good way to get money for nothing. And I wonder if the big companies didn’t find it an easy way to get some technology without doing all that expensive R&D. Just speculation.
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That’s a Rokkor lens – no slouches and in fact the old Rokkors outperformed most things. I’ve got one on an ancient TLR that is one of the nicest lenses I own.
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