Battery for minolta hi-matic 7s

[xkaes]

John Glenn brought the original Hi-Matic with him, as the first consumer camera in space.

John Glenn brought a heavily modified Ansco Autoset aboard his Friendship 7 spacecraft. Easily confused with the Ansco Anscoset, the Ansco Autoset is the same camera as the Minolta Hi-Matic -- with a few minor cosmetic changes, for some reason. The camera is still on display in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

 

[__Brian]

The difference in size and weight between the HM9 and HM7/HM7s is negligible. Both use 55mm filters. Both have the same body and construction.

If you want a smaller Minolta, the AL-E uses 49mm filters, has a 40mm F1.8 lens, and is much closer in size to a Canonet QL17 GIII.

The meter on the AL-E works on manual exposure, and does not use the EV system.

Minolta AL-E, removing Top Cover to clean the Viewfinder.

Minolta AL-E, removing Top Cover to clean the Viewfinder. - Cameraderie - Photography community & message board forum for sharing photos, information, and talking camera gear. 📷

cameraderie.org

 

[Nzoomed]

John Glenn brought the original Hi-Matic with him, as the first consumer camera in space.

Yes I was reading about that somewhere!

 

[mklw1954]

My 7S is an excellent camera. I get accurate exposures using a 675 hearing aid battery and this adapter: https://www.paulbg.com/Nikon_F_meter_batteries.htm The battery will last if you remove it and cover the holes on the + side with scotch tape.

 

[Nzoomed]

My 7S is an excellent camera. I get accurate exposures using a 675 hearing aid battery and this adapter: https://www.paulbg.com/Nikon_F_meter_batteries.htm The battery will last if you remove it and cover the holes on the + side with scotch tape.

That's good to know, from what I've read, many are using 1.5v cells in theirs with no issues anyway.
Apparently it can handle up to 2v which is what the battery test range goes up to. I dont see any battery test function on mine however, but apparently you are supposed to align the dial to match a black and yellow dot or something? Perhaps this feature was added on later models?

 

[xkaes]

BUTKUS probably has the manual on-line -- apparently you don't have one.

 

[Helge]

The Konica S3 has a 38mm F1.8 and has a cemented pair in the viewfinder. On the one I had: cement became cloudy. The Minolta 7S-II has a 40mm F1.7 and viewfinder allowed to get to all surfaces to clean.

I had a fixed-output flash for the HM9. It worked well, I bought the camera when I was 11 years old. Shot a lot of slide film with it. Worked for Me. Thyristor flash was not around yet. When it was: I bought a Vivitar 283 in 1976, for the Elvis concert at the Capital Center.

The focal length and f-stop ratings are so close as to lie within the bounds of fudgery, especially for consumer “point and shooters”.
It might still very well be the same lens, despite the slightly different specs.

A cemented finder sounds unusual. Isn’t it just layered class plates?

Do you still have the Elvis photos?

 

[Nzoomed]

BUTKUS probably has the manual on-line -- apparently you don't have one.

I found a model for the himatic E, but its completely different

 

[xkaes]

If you are talking about the 7s -- as I was -- the manual is right there:

https://www.butkus.org/chinon/minolta/minolta_hi-matic_7s/minolta_hi-matic_7s.htm

 

[Nzoomed]

If you are talking about the 7s -- as I was -- the manual is right there:

https://www.butkus.org/chinon/minolta/minolta_hi-matic_7s/minolta_hi-matic_7s.htm

Yes I've already got that, sorry I had service manuals on mind. They probably exist, and I found one for other models.
Regarding battery check, nothing is mentioned, but I've read threads where people have talked about it.

 

[__Brian]

The focal length and f-stop ratings are so close as to lie within the bounds of fudgery, especially for consumer “point and shooters”.
It might still very well be the same lens, despite the slightly different specs.

A cemented finder sounds unusual. Isn’t it just layered class plates?

Do you still have the Elvis photos?

I still have the Slides of Elvis. Used a 200mm F3.5 Vivitar on my Argus/Cosina STL1000. I need to use a slide duplicator for them. I found them recently, was 18 when I took them. Great concert, took my High School Girlfriend and her Mother to the concert. Her Mom was sad when we broke up.

I was disappointed to see the fogged elements in the S3 finder. I have taken apart the finders of many Retina IIc and IIIc finder to clean the "glass/mask" stacks. The Konica was different. I sold it, kept the 7s-II.

 

[Helge]

I still have the Slides of Elvis. Used a 200mm F3.5 Vivitar on my Argus/Cosina STL1000. I need to use a slide duplicator for them. I found them recently, was 18 when I took them. Great concert, took my High School Girlfriend and her Mother to the concert. Her Mom was sad when we broke up.

I was disappointed to see the fogged elements in the S3 finder. I have taken apart the finders of many Retina IIc and IIIc finder to clean the "glass/mask" stacks. The Konica was different. I sold it, kept the 7s-II.

I’d love to see a scan of those slides!

 

[__Brian]

With the Minolta Hi-Matic 9, fixed-output electronic Flash and the GN system of the camera. Kodachrome.

Christmas, 1972 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Taken in 1972, I was 15 when I took this. Hard to think of my Nephew being over 50.
I could not have manually set the F-Stop in time to get this expression. I've had this camera since 1969. Sits next to my Black Nikon SP.

 

[swchris]

And you can buy tiny, solar, button-cell battery rechargers for the mercury cells.

Where? Never heard of that. Do you have a link?

regards,
chris

 

[swchris]

I grew up shooting when GN arithmetic was the only thing available. Having flashmetered electronic flash, generally speaking GN are virtually always optimistic, and along with a number of others who did the research and published our results over a decade and half ago, electronic flash GN tends to be 1EV optimistic compared to flash meter readings.
Having grown thru photosensor flash and TTL film flash and now nTTL flash systems, I find the least reliable of all of them is nTTL...sometimes it flashes on full power spontaneously, even with a tripod-mounted camera with flash in hotshoe! Today I often put the flash unit on photosensor automation rather than the unpredicatability of nTTL. When nTTL works, it works well for exposure; it simply does not always work! In comparison, photosensor auto and film TTL are quite reliable. I have gotten shots with TTL that would have fooled photosensor flash.

I never had good results with photosensor flash and TTL film flash when taking pictures of persons at night. The persons were always overexposed.
I've learned to adjust the ISO setting one or two stops to avoid that.
And, after I've got a GN-Nikkor, using GN settings, the pictures were exposed properly. Means person is correct, background is dark.

regards,
chris

 

[Helge]

With the Minolta Hi-Matic 9, fixed-output electronic Flash and the GN system of the camera. Kodachrome.

Christmas, 1972 by fiftyonepointsix, on Flickr

Taken in 1972, I was 15 when I took this. Hard to think of my Nephew being over 50.
I could not have manually set the F-Stop in time to get this expression. I've had this camera since 1969. Sits next to my Black Nikon SP.

It is hard to criticize such a sweet photo, but what would you have done if you were to bounce the flash?
What if you want to use a photo cell slave flash for background or hair line fill?
What if you used a blue or yellow filter to match or contrast the the in room light?

Hard drop shadows, white flat subjects with underexposed backgrounds will not satisfy the ambitious photographer in the long run.

Bounced flash is actually hard to get horribly wrong if you make an educated guess about the distance traveled and the reflectivity of the surface.
Even with slide.

 

[__Brian]

I was 15, and Flashes like the Vivitar 283 were several years off.

Plus- I mowed a lot of lawns to be able to afford the simple flash that I used and the $80 for the Minolta HM-9.

Sure- if I had a time machine, with the equipment that I had years later plus the experience to use bounce flash: the colors would not be so harsh! And I'd use high ISO and a Fast lens, no Flash.

These days- fast film, I tend to shoot wide-open and not use the flash. Those days- Kodachrome-X was ASA 64.

 

[Helge]

I was 15, and Flashes like the Vivitar 283 were several years off.

Plus- I mowed a lot of lawns to be able to afford the simple flash that I used and the $80 for the Minolta HM-9.

Sure- if I had a time machine, with the equipment that I had years later plus the experience to use bounce flash: the colors would not be so harsh! And I'd use high ISO and a Fast lens, no Flash.

These days- fast film, I tend to shoot wide-open and not use the flash. Those days- Kodachrome-X was ASA 64.

My point was mainly that one of the cheap and plentiful bulb flashes, with bare bulb or bounced would have been available and unable to use the GN system.

Using manual flash is really mostly very much about dialing it in through experience and gefühl.

It’s very freeing being able to do it, and you realize that it is actually quite hard to screw up too bad if you combine numbers and simple reasoning.

But yeah you where 15 and the HM9 plus flash was probably just the ticket.

But is that exact setup still the ticket today?

I’d say the shorter lens barrel (better view with a hood and sticks out less) and the the extra 22 stop is actually a lot more useful.
The actual lenses are so close it’s a non issue. If there is a difference at all.

 

[__Brian]

Those Bulb Flashes were expensive!!! I remember as a kid being excited to find packs of AG-3B marked down to 29cents or so, evidently no one realized they would work in an Instamatic 150. M3 flashes- Expensive, used them in the Polaroid 104. Being able to buy an electronic flash for $16 or so saved a lot of money. Also- Sync speed was 1/30th for M Sync, X-Sync at any speed. The HM9 also has 1sec and 1/2sec shutter speed, also would require a bigger mechanism. I'm trying to remember if I have a 7s in the closet- several people would send boxes of non-working cameras as "payment" for fixing some of them. Picked up a lot of cameras that way, had good luck repairing 75% or so.

I've not used a flash on a 35mm or Digital RF/SLR in a long time. Flash on my Polaroid SLR690 and SLR680 (Retrospekt rebuilt)- yes.

This is taken about 20 years ago, with my Contax IIIa and 1934 5cm F2 Sonnar. C41 B&W, ISO 400. Window light. I converted this lens to Leica mount about 15 years ago. The Contax IIIa has a 50/1.5 Zeiss Opton on it...



Note to self (invent time machine first) The HM9 is great wide-open, save the money on the Flash, buy faster film, open the drapes on the Picture Window in the Living Room.

 

[xkaes]

Where? Never heard of that. Do you have a link?

regards,
chris

I have two of them. I got them years ago from Solar Arts in Colorado Springs. They are not the only place that sells them. Do a search for solar button cell charger.