Thank you so much, i was so busy putting away camera gear i didnt realize it had fallen out of my lap/pocket. It's been returned to its owner safe and sound!
Impulse purchased a broken RD-175 for decoration, then thought that was stupid and attempted to repair it. It seems to have life now but i need to get a PCMCIA to CF card in soon to fully test it. There also seems to be a bit of fungus somewhere in the optical extension part of the viewfinder, making things a bit hazy. Everything is sealed in plastic there though so ill just have to live with it for now.
Ive been using the PolaStrobe 600 flash unit with my Model 2 for a bit now, but I've run into an issue with the flash inconsistently firing. Upon closer inspection i realized that the contacts on the flash unit had been worn away quite severely by the contact fingers in the flash socket. I compared it to the contacts on a vintage ITT Flash unit thats seen similar use with an unconverted Model 1, and its scratched slightly, but not severely worn.
Is this a known issue with this flash unit? I feel confident with the tools i have i could attempt replating them, but i feel like it should last a bit longer than 7 months of use.
I know he got the point for it anyways, but i wanted to kinda mention that Mark wasn't entirely right.
While Konica and Minolta merged and then almost Immediately sold off their camera development (to Sony for those curious), they did in fact make TWO lenses after said merger, for their APS-C Digital Maxxum cameras, a 17-35mm F2.8-F4.0 zoom, and a 28-75mm F2.8 zoom. Nothing extremely remarkable, but still solid for the budding digital era. There may have also been a few rebrands of Minolta lenses allready made but those dont count.
Attached is a photo of my silly minolta collection, including said Digital Maxxum wayyy in the back.
Recently found a decently working 7D to match my 7, and figured id get a silly lens to pair it with. Its nice having 90% of the controls be so similar to the 7 and so easy to swap between the two. My only gripes so far are that the flash compensation on this body gets stuck at +2 sometimes(?) but compensating the ambient metering by -2 to -1 still gives good results! And the occasional FFB issue, but i knew what i was signing up for.
The lens itself is funky and the image circle is small even for a crop sensor, would probably recommend an SSM compatible 1.5x teleconverter to get a bit more coverage. It also helps if you take the hood off but then youve got a front element protruding out and ready to get scratched and dinged. The silent focus motor has me looking at more SSM lenses though my gods its so quiet and nippy compared to the screw drive.
(Bonus photo of all my "working" AF cameras at end)