Got an SLR and questions.

[donlfaulkner]

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but here goes....

Princess has a Minolta X700 35mm camera which hasn’t been used in years because of a problem with the shutter/film advance thingee (highly technical term). This past weekend I finally got the bottom cover off and fiddled around in there and got the film lever to advance. I had put batteries in a couple of weeks ago but that did not help. Well, I found that I had put one battery in backwards (senior moment) turned it around and now the camera works!!! She has two lenses [Gemini 1:2.8 28mm MACRO MC] and [TOPMAN MC ZOOM/C-MACRO 1:4.5 f=80-200mm] I have no idea what all this means but I am having fun with this "new toy". Can someone enlighten this old man?
There is also a Motor drive that I haven’t tried yet and a Minolta Auto 280PX flash that seemed to work for a while but will not flash any more. I may have killed it when I shorted two of the contacts together.
I miss the instant feedback of digital but I'm keeping a log of settings so I can sort of semi remember what I did when I get the pics back.

[Charles Putnam]

What's film?

Let's see....The first lens looks to be a macro with a maximum apeture (f-stop) of 2.8. Not sure of what the focal length is, as it's not noted.

The second is an 80-200 zoom with a maximum f-stop of 4.5.

The motor drive advances the film automatically. As I recall, these can go up to something like 5 frames a second, but don't quote me. As to the flash, try fresh batteries to see if that works.

Interesting find....

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by donlfaulkner

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this but here goes....

Princess has a Minolta X700 35mm camera which hasn’t been used in years because of a problem with the shutter/film advance thingee (highly technical term). This past weekend I finally got the bottom cover off and fiddled around in there and got the film lever to advance. I had put batteries in a couple of weeks ago but that did not help. Well, I found that I had put one battery in backwards (senior moment) turned it around and now the camera works!!! She has two lenses [Gemini 1:2.8mm MACRO MC] and [TOPMAN MC ZOOM/C-MACRO 1:4.5 f=80-200mm] I have no idea what all this means but I am having fun with this "new toy". Can someone enlighten this old man?
There is also a Motor drive that I haven’t tried yet and a Minolta Auto 280PX flash that seemed to work for a while but will not flash any more. I may have killed it when I shorted two of the contacts together.
I miss the instant feedback of digital but I'm keeping a log of settings so I can sort of semi remember what I did when I get the pics back.

For shooting film learn the Sunny 16 rules.....

[donlfaulkner]

Originally Posted by Charles Putnam

The second is an 80-200 zoom with a maximum f-stop of 4.5.

I'm going to show my complete ignorance here, but explain what the #s mean & how do I use this thing as more than a "light tube"

I'm studying "Sunny 16" as we speak/read. Soooo much to learn!! Much different from a P&S camera

Thanks for all the input!!

[Daniel Bates]

80-200 (mm) refers to the focal length of the lens, measured in millimeters. For the purposes of 35mm film photography, anything shorter (smaller number) than 50mm is a wide-angle lens. Anything longer is a telephoto. 80-200mm is a typical general-purpose telephoto zoom range.

The f/4.5 number refers to the maximum aperture of the lens. A smaller number means the lens lets more light through (it's weird and I can't explain it succinctly).

[donlfaulkner]

Thanks Daniel, for the info. There's not much on the internet about these lenses. This helps explain and will help me search more stuff on how to use what I have. On the "Gemini 1:2.8 28mm MACRO MC" the distance #'s go 1 up to 7ft and then infinity, under the "Macro" is 1:4.5 1:5 1:6 then comes the 1 ->infinity. Can't tell if "1:4.5 1:5 1:6" is ft or mm or meters. Playing with this lens it seems it will focus down to about 4 inches from an object.

[Imagebuffet]

Originally Posted by donlfaulkner

Thanks Daniel, for the info. There's not much on the internet about these lenses. This helps explain and will help me search more stuff on how to use what I have. On the "Gemini 1:2.8mm MACRO MC" the distance #'s go 1 up to 7ft and then infinity under the "Macro" is 1:4.5 1:5 1:6 then comes the 1 ->infinity. Can't tell if "1:4.5 1:5 1:6" is ft or mm or meters. Playing with this lens it seems it will focus down to about 4 inches from an object.

Aperture value is a indicated as a fractional number (of 1 divided by whatever number) that indicates how much light is admitted into the system through the aperture. It is a unit-less number. Although it is a fraction, it is often indicated, especially in modern days, using only the denominator (the bottom portion of the fraction), because the numerator is always "1." Older equipment is likely to indicate aperture using its fractional notation. Each increase in aperture size by a full f-stop doubles the amount of light entering the system. Common aperture values are 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16.

Very rarely, you might encounter a lens with an aperture value of 1. Such a lens allows much light through it. It would be a "fast" lens when used "wide open" this way. It also would have a shallow depth of field, as apparent depth of field decreases as the aperture opens (just like your eyes when they dilate).

As you zoom a lense out to larger focal lengths, the amount of light that can enter the system reduces, similar to a longer garden hose allows less water through it than a shorter one. Therefore, the greatest possible aperture at full zoom is less than the greatest possible aperture at minimum zoom. Lenses generally are marked by the aperture at minimum zoom.

Macro mode allows focusing on objects very close to the lens.

I can't tell from your description what the numbers mean that you provided. I'm expecting these to be aperture values, but it looks like other information is also indicated.

[johnastovall]

Actual you can encounter lenses with stops less than f/1.0 in television and cine lenses adapted to cameras. 0.95 and 0.85 are found in that world and the new Leica Noctilux is f/0.95.

[Big Dog]

Here, this should help:

http://www.angelfire.com/ca4/shikishima/manual/

You won't find much on those two lenses because they are cheaper, aftermarket lenses. However, you can find much about the Minolta X700 and Minolta lenses. You want to get the "MD" lenses, rather than the "MC". Both will work, but the MDs will give you full exposure automation.

Excellent camera.

[ggeen]

There is some good advise here but sometimes we forget to make things simple. It can be simple. Let us return back to grade school. You mentioned two apertures f1:2.8 and f1:4.5. If you remember waaaaaaaay back to grade school, you will remember that another way to represent fractions is like this f 1/2.8 and f1/4.5.

So your 28mm Macro lens may have a diameter of about 52mm. This was pretty typical. So your largest aperture setting is 1/2.8 that size -- or just a bit larger than 1/3 of the 52mm. The smallest aperture setting is probably arround f16 or f32.

The 80-200 is a general zoom lens with an maximum aperture setting of f4.5 or f 1/4.5. Zoom lenses vary widely in size.

Just remember the light triangle. film sensitivity (iso 100, 200, 400, etc) -> aperture setting (f-stop) -> and shutter speed.

[donlfaulkner]

Princess and I spent the day in Marshall playing with the Minolta and having a ball with it. Hopefully I've learned a bit from you guys, thanks! I'll post some pics for C&C when I get the film back