XD-11 program mode question

[Theo Sulphate]

After doing the usual internet searches, plus looking at the manual, I still am not certain how the XD-11's "program mode" works. Minolta never advertised it as a program mode - they merely stated that the selected shutter speed in shutter-priority mode would be automatically adjusted under certain conditions.

I don't have an XD-11, but am thinking of getting one for several reasons. I think it may be the first SLR offering both shutter and aperture priority. They certainly achieved that in an elegant manner and they did it in 1977.

Since there was an initial XD/Leica R relationship, is the XD program similar to that of the R5, R7, or R8? On my R8, the program mode works like this:

Select Program mode.

Set minimum aperture on lens (e.g. f/22).

Choose the slowest shutter speed at which you want the lens to remain at its widest aperture. The camera will evaluate the light level and keeps the lens wide open while trying to select an appropriate shutter speed

-- do not reply; editing underway --

 

[Theo Sulphate]

(continued from above)... from the very slowest up to and including your set speed. If none of those speeds will produce the correct exposure, the camera will begin using faster speeds while stopping the lens down.

For example, you can bias the camera to using small apertures by selecting a slow shutter speed. If you select 1/30s for example, any light level where 1/30 and maximum aperture is too bright will then cause both apertures and shutter speeds to increase together.

To bias towards higher speeds, for example, using 1/500 will keep the aperture wide open unless the light level is too high, whereupon both shutter speed and aperture will increase together.

Anyway, is that the way the XD-11 program mode works?

 

[fstop]

RTFM

 

[Sirius Glass]

It is in the manual. Download one from butkis.

 

[RichardJack]

When the camera was released it was not called a program mode (forgot Minolta's term for it), then other manufacturers started releasing cameras that did the same thing calling it Program. It was more a idiots mode, trying to make it easier to use for people who didn't wanted to be bothered with shutter speeds and f-stops. If you had a MD lens with the second lug it worked pretty well. You were supposed to set everything to green. F16 or 22 was marked in green as was 1/125. You'd set the selector to S (also green) and you'd be in the Program mode. For moving subjects you could set the shutter speed higher and it would still work like a program mode camera provided there was enough light. For 1977 that camera was ahead of its time, Nikon later copied it with their FA (another excellent camera), and of course the Leica R4 & R5 were basically the same camera.

 

[Chan Tran]

The XD-11 was introduced as dual mode SLR and it doesn't have program mode. In shutter speed priority the shutter speed will change to achieve correct exposure if the aperture already reach the maximum or minimum value. This is not the same as program mode. Most cameras in program mode both aperture and shutter speed change together as the light level changes. I believe Minolta did this because they used to make aperture priority camera and in this mode the shutter speed has at least a 10 stop range. In shutter priority mode the aperture has only 5 or 6 stop range and Minolta feel that isn't enough.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

I did read the manual - I was looking to find something that wasn't there. The reason it isn't there is, as I've found on the MIR site, the shutter priority "program" mode is nothing at all like the R5 et al. as I described above.

Just for the record, on the XD-11 you select a shutter speed, the camera selects an aperture, if exposure is still not correct upon reaching either extreme of aperture, the shutter speed will be adjusted accordingly (the aperture staying at the extreme that was hit).

Leica's program mode for the R's (at least R5-R8) is quite different.

 

[Sirius Glass]

From way in the distant past [almost two decades] I remember that the XD-11 uses the fastest shutter [1/ISO] at f/16 and then opens the lens as the light dims.

 

[Cork]

The key operating characteristic of the XD-11/7 is the "final check" metering after the shutter release is pressed to adjust for any sudden lighting change. In aperture-priority, the shutter speed is adjusted - thus, the actual shutter speed may not be what you saw indicated in the viewfinder when you triggered the shutter. In shutter-priority, I believe the aperture is adjusted first and when the aperture is at either limit the shutter speed is adjusted from the selected speed.