Best camera i have ever used. Wedding pics are awesome as well as well, anything you snap. I've had this for 26 years and never had a problem. To date i cannot find any camera [film or digital] that compares with the quality of my X370!!
Strengths:
I have taught children and disabled adults to use this camera in 15 minutes. They were very comfortable with it and took great pics. There are sooooo many lenses to choose from its unreal.
Weaknesses:
loading film can be tricky.
Similar Products Used:
no. why? I have bought 5 more x370's for back up in case I ever need it.
The Minolta X-370 SLR, along with the Pentax K1000, may be one of the best beginners' cameras of all time. It is robust, reliable and has a huge selection of lenses and attachments. Its simple exposure meter and priority aperture control are suitable for novices and experts alike. I have been tracking them down in fleamarkets and hock shops for twenty years to give to my children, nieces, nephews and anyone I care about who expresses an interest in film photography.
Strengths:
Albinar, Minolta, Tamron and a dozen other lens manufacturers have made every conceivable glass for this camera, from an 8MM fisheye to mammoth F2.8 1300MM+ telescopes. Micrography attachments are available. While light, the camera will withstand considerable abuse. The shutter speeds to 1/1000 are adequate for everthing from lanscapes to football games. With reasonable care, it will produce images that rank with any other system on the planet.
Weaknesses:
The camera does not suffer fools well. It requires two S-76 constant voltage 1.3V mercury batteries, which are fairly, but not impossibly, rare. Radio Shack has recently reintroduced them. Novices who put LW44 or 76 1.5 alkalines in the instrument will experience chronic underexposures until the voltage drops with use. Then the shutter will no longer function, and the truly uninformed will attempt utterly unecessary repairs; usually destroying the focal plane shutter mechanism in the process.
Similar Products Used:
This camera is the baby sister to the X-570 and X-700 Minolta SLR's, which use the same basic mechanism, with more bells and whistles.
Customer Service:
Anybody who fixes SLR's fixes Minoltas. Spare parts and cameras that can be cannibalized are ubiquitous.
Im a photo student at Stives School for the Arts,
and i was using my Minolta x-370 for a project and
contest for our area. We were supposed to go to
The Woodland Cemetary
and take photographs for my class and the constest.
At fisrt we went with our class, and my
Minolta kept jamming up, after i would press the relase
button to take a photo it would jam, and the shutter would stay shut.
then the lever would not push back, it would not work!
so when we got back to our school i talked to my teacher about it,
and she took a look, and said she couldnt find anything wrong
except for maybe the fact that the flim may have jammed.
When i got my flim back i had 3 photos on my negatives the
others were blank. So i figured, it may have been that. But in order
for my to get an decent grade on that project and enter into
the contest, i would have to go back in my own time.
So, the next day was a weekend, i went
back to Woodland, and my camera was working "ok"
untill maybe after the 8th shot. Then, it begain doing the same thing again.but i wouldn't do anything, what-so-ever, i had to open it and ruin
a bit of my film to see if it was that, but it wasnt, so i had no choice but to quit takeing the pictures and
roll up my flim, after i did that i opened the camera, and tested it a bit more, and it still would not move,
and i found out the problem was the small shutter screen, it jammed up
and when i tried to straighten it out, it poped out the whole way,
and i should my teacher, and the same thing had happened to
another girl who had the same camera in my class.
I have a new camera now, and it works just fine.
In fall 2008 I plan to be a techincal photography major. I had wanted a professional grade digital camera. However, since a vast majority of the photography classes require a 35mm camera, I opted for one. This morning, my dad got out a camera case from one of the closets in our house, and he started pulling our the X-370 with two compatible lenses and lens cleaners. As it turns out, the man that had lived with my great-grandmother bought this camera brand new and it had never been touched since. It's a great camera, I think, for beginners. Since the camera is manual, I can mess around with the aperature and focal lengths and shutter speeds until I know how to properly manage it. I'm so excited to own an old manual camera in great condition!
Strengths:
Manual....I can learn how to work with it
Weaknesses:
It gets heavy with a 200mm lens attached to it--makes for less than sturdy hands and I don't have a tripod
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