seeking opinions - system switch conundrum

[Ike]

Greetings APUG - first time poster.

First off, let me say: What a wonderful community this is! Outstanding to see such strong support left for film formats. I love film - love the look of film - love the smell of new films. I work in "high-tech" and the dials, knobs, mechanical noises, and delayed gratification are all a world of refreshment.

I have a Canon Elan 7 body camera that I've been using for about 3 years, and a handful of medium quality zoom lenses. The Elan 7 itself has been a great camera to learn with. The light weight, large'ish body (compared to rebel), rear thumbwheel and index wheel are intuitive and efficient. What I'm bummed out about is flat looking results, poor contrast, less than sharp images with the mediocre glass, and the outrageous cost of anything wearing the red collar.

Enter a Minolta SR-1 with a 55mm prime I bought in NYC. I shot a roll of BW and was literally blown away with tack sharp images, great DOF, and a level of detail that I've never seen with my Canon images. I'm still in love with it, and learning to use an old Luna Pro meter as it's companion is not only very accurate but fun. Here's one of my test images from the first roll:

After a few rolls of BW and E6, I'm completely spoiled with the quality of the old Rokkor glass for what seems like literally pennies on the dollar. It's still manual, though, and it can be difficult to use as a walk-around camera, or doing things like taking pictures of children in motion with no built in meter or AF.

Would a Minolta Maxxum 7000, 7xi or Dynax 7 fit the bill? It seems like the old Minolta glass is very high quality and trading in the $100's for many of the great lenses, while Canon "L" stuff for me is simply unobtanium.

Should I ditch ol' trusty? I think the Elan 7 is a fantastic little camera but the image quality is leaving me cold. My only concern is what I'm giving up in the easy controls of the Elan, and relatively quick AF. I like to shoot in aperture priority so of course I've grown accustomed to adjusting the exposure with the thumb wheel. Something I would be gaining with the Minolta is a real spot meter. For high contrast stuff I've actually begun using my Luna Pro with the canon. Maybe this wouldn't be necessary with the Minolta? Another side of me thinks maybe I'm being a bit hasty comparing Canon's consumer grade zoom's with a prime lens anything. Will the Minolta zooms (thinking of the 35-80, and the famed beercan) be any livelier than my 28-105 IS usm?

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

cheers,
-ike

 

[Sirius Glass]

ike,

Consider that while the Minolta SR [SR-1, SR-7, SRT-101, ...] were not as rugged as the Nikon F family, the Minolta glass in the MC and MD lenses were sharp and had great contrast due to the optical design, the glass and the lens coatings. This was a factor in Minolta teaming with Leica to build cameras and lenses.

The MC and MD lenses are not auto-focus but they focus smoothly and are well built. The best part is that you can collect a set of these prime lenses for very little money. That alone beats the auto focus feature.

I sold my Minolta equipment after my girl friend won a brand new auto focus 28mm to 300mm zoom lens. Yes, the auto focus is nice to have, but if you are starting to build a complete system for yourself, take a look at the MC and MD lenses at www.keh.com. They have a return policy that beats dealing with eBay and they can serve the equipment that they sell.

Steve

 

[Eric Rose]

I hope you are not comparing Canon zooms with Minolta primes. Not a fair comparison IMHO. My wife shots Canon FD primes exclusively and her images are tack sharp, contrasty and have great colour fidelity.

Years back I started out with a Minolta SRT 101 only because David Hamilton used one (long story). Anyway when I started using Nikon gear I found that their lenses were way better than the Minolta stuff I had been using (primes). The contrast being the biggest difference.

If it were me I would invest in some GOOD Canon prime lenses and keep using your Canon camera.

Welcome to APUG. The people are great and the knowledge vast.

 

[cdowell]

Hey Ike -- Welcome! I don't know anything about glass compared to the great folks on this forum, but I'll weigh in by simply saying that I've come to think of both auto-focus and in-camera metering as pretty overrated. When I got into photography I bought an AF Nikon to replace my manual focus (although I'll admit that kids won't sit still). Now I use the manual focus. And as far as metering, nothing provided a bigger gain to my results than my switch to a ambient light meter. Letting the shadows BE shadows gets you out of the snapshot look in a hurry.

 

[Ian Grant]

Ike, like Steve and Eric have idicated I suspect that it's the zoom lenses that let your Canon down, one major problem with the Canon EOS system is that the autofocus prime lenses are quite expensive and not that common second-hand, and unfortunately older FD Canon lenses are incompatible.

It's surprising what seems acceptable today compared with the superb optics that were available with older Minolta's like the SR-1, and it's similar with other manufacturers. Back in the 70's no-one would have dreamt of buying an SLR with a lens with a max aperture of f3.5/5.6, but that's Canon's standard with current cameras, in those day's an f2 50-55mm prime was a budget lens.

I'd get a couple more lenses for the Minolta and keep shooting.

Ian

 

[Rol_Lei Nut]

What's important in any brand/camera line is to *choose wisely*!!

Every line has its better and not-so-good lenses (even Leica and Zeiss). Find out which the stellar lenses are, compare prices and then decide.

A few comments:
I seriously dislike auto-everything (therefore Canon EOS & everything it stands for). I wouldn't exclude that the "wonders" of AF had something to do with your results.
Minolta MD had a more limited range of lenses (and stellar ones) than other brands
Minolta Dynax: No idea.... See auto-everything comment
Olympus OM had some jewels but the really good ones seem to be very expensive now. Unfortunately many non-jewels as well.
Rolleiflex is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart
Leica is an "eccentric" choice and still tends to be more expensive than others (note the "tends": You can still spend far more on EOS glass and have far less..)

Nikon, Canon FD, Contax and Pentax seem to be good choices in your case, but again, choose wisely!

 

[Yeeski]

Before making such a drastic change, I would first do a direct comparison of the two cameras you have. Load each with the same film and take (as close as possible) identical shots (i.e., same subjects, exposure settings, lighting conditions, processing, etc.). To see if your technique and the Elan's autofocus have any effect on your pictures, take shots with and without a tripod, and shots with your Elan 7 focused manually as well as automatically.

 

[Jeff Kubach]

I would go with the Canon EOS primes. BTW welcome to APUG.

Jeff

 

[Ken N]

Buy one Canon 50mm F1.4 lens. Start comparing images with your zooms. Ebay everything that isn't in the neighborhood of quality to the 50mm lens.

It's better to have one fantastic lens of limited focal length than 20 zooms of unusable quality.

 

[mjs]

To address your question directly, I'm very happy with my pair of Minolta 7xi's but they eat batteries. On the other hand, I bought a 9xi last year for next to nothing and it's a superb camera which is gentle on the battery (and has a flash which may be visible from the Moon!) I took it out in a snowstorm on New Year's Day and had a blast with it. You might try one of those, if autofocus is important to you. I also use manual focus Minolta cameras, including the SRT-101, and they're just excellent cameras with superb lenses. Keep in mind, though, that almost every camera maker put out some excellent lenses as well as some, ah, not so outstanding ones. The ones which were highly regarded are going to cost more than the lesser designs. One of Minolta's strengths, at least to me, was that since they never really got a high-profile "professional" following they were always more affordable than Nikon or Canon, and in a lot of cases that's still true even for old glass. For example, Minolta put out a very high quality 28-135mm f/3.5-4.5 zoom which will still set you back at least a couple of hundred bucks, along with lesser quality zooms with f/5.6 apertures which sell cheaply and may not be much different than the Canon lenses you're unhappy with.

In other words, you need to do some research regardless. It will take some looking to learn what the better lenses are, and then you can track them down. We all have our favorite lenses (and cameras!) but you may choose something different.

 

[Ike]

Thanks all the warm welcome and comments.

Given the feedback here, it doesn't seem that the Maxxum system has anything more to offer over my Canon EOS, with the exception of being a bit smaller.

I suppose I should hang on to the Elan 7. I do have a big flash unit for the Canon, and when used with my Tamron 28-70mm constant aperture zoom it's a perfect setup for things like family events, parties, and the like. The Tamron is reasonably sharp, and I have to admit that switching over to Portra seemed to help with the colors in these kinds of settings. Also - this is where I need the AF because I wear large'ish glasses and am just not quick enough to catch people in the act with fully manual equipment.

b) sell my other canon zooms and get a 24mm and a 50mm prime. In doing more research about the Minolta zoom lenses, it seems like the quality I'm looking for is in primes .. which I've known all along, but haven't done anything about it to date

c) pickup a couple more primes for the SR-1 and use it for Velvia and other goofy pursuits, such as processing with "coffeenol".

d) blow the real money on what I really want ... a Voigtlander Bessa-II.


cheers,
-ike

 

[Ike]

To address your question directly, I'm very happy with my pair of Minolta 7xi's but they eat batteries. On the other hand, I bought a 9xi last year for next to nothing and it's a superb camera which is gentle on the battery (and has a flash which may be visible from the Moon!) ... SNIP

Thanks for the feedback on the 7xi - it does look like a great little camera. Before buying the SR-1 I did find a nice MD mount XD-11 and strongly considered it, but thought it was too close in functionality to my Canon and was getting away from the spirit of using vintage equipment with an external light meter. I found myself grabbing for the Minolta a lot more than my Canon, which got me to my current dilemma. I think there's a strong chance I'll end up with an XD-11 or an x-700, anyway after getting a couple more lenses.

cheers,
-ike

 

[Sirius Glass]

Ike,

The last Minolta I owned was a X-700. I even bought one for my daughter when she needed a camera that was manually settable for school and she was ecstatic with it.

Steve

 

[flatulent1]

Ike, Canon's EF 50mm f/1.8 is a cheap cheap lens (plastic body, $80+/- at B&H) with stellar optics. Shoot a few rolls with it, and keep an eye on their return policy.

Some of us have several systems; it really isn't an either/or situation. I have EOS, FD, Minolta MC/MD, and even (God help me) Nikon. They're all good. But for sheer bang for the buck, you can't beat Canon FD or Minolta MC/MD.

 

[polyglot]

I have Minolta AF gear and it's great - the primes are on par with their MD stuff and the better Takumar lenses; the G-series optics are as good as (and for wides, much better than) Canon L stuff. I would assume that if you bought decent Canon primes (whether EOS or FD) then you should get results about as good; you just need to make sure you get the better lenses. Don't buy the consumer-grade f/3.5-5.6 zooms, get f/2 or faster primes.

Good EOS and MAF lenses are expensive because they're compatible with digital SLRs and therefore in high demand. It's worse with Minolta than Canon because Sony (who bought Minolta) are pumping out bodies at a crazy rate compared to the number of Minolta lenses that were sold.

I second the recommendation that you go buy an AF 50/1.4 and ditch the slow zooms. If you like it, go that way. If it doesn't cut the mustard, try the Minolta offerings some more. They do have a slightly different look (often softer and with better bokeh) and the early lenses are colour-matched across the whole range so you can shoot chromes with different lenses without changing filter packs and have them come out identically balanced - important if you're doing commercial stuff.

 

[cooltouch]

I've been shooting with EOS cameras and EF zooms for twenty years. One particular cheap zoom, which was the kit lens that came with the original EOS Rebel -- plastic mount and the whole deal -- has always been surprisingly sharp. So sharp, in fact, that I've had quite a few photos published that I took with that lens. Yet another, more recent, and allegedly better quality EF zoom that was purchased several years later was always soft. So I dumped it. Right now, I have a small selection of EF zooms, which I've kept because I was able to verify their sharpness using A-B tests with my EOS DSLR. Even though they are nothing special one would think, I'll put them up against most anything out there in terms of achievable results.

Something else to consider is how well your Elan 7 is behaving. Do you know for certain that it's focusing accurately? Have you checked its meter for accuracy? And really, it's only fair to compare the Elan with other cameras using the same identical film.

My sole remaining EOS 35mm is an ELan IIe I've owned for about five years. I've kept it because it focuses reasonably quickly, has a decent suite of features, takes excellent photos, and I just happen to like the whisper drive.

 

[Mark Fisher]

If you decide to keep the Canon, consider the 85mm f1.8....it is not too expensive and it is perhaps one of the most amazing lenses I've ever used. The shallow depth of field is quite amazing along with the sharpness. I have a set of photos on flickr that show some samples. Most are lith, but a few are conventional.

 

[Laurent]

If you decide to keep the Canon, consider the 85mm f1.8....it is not too expensive and it is perhaps one of the most amazing lenses I've ever used. The shallow depth of field is quite amazing along with the sharpness. I have a set of photos on flickr that show some samples. Most are lith, but a few are conventional.

I can only add to this. My 85/1.8 is the most used lens of my 35mm system, it's plenty sharp and fast and I just love it.