Gorgeous Minolta 7s

[retro]

I found this beautiful black Hi-Matic 7s at a flea market for $35.
It was on a seller's cluttered table, peeking out from its case.
It hardly has a mark on it. Everything works (it even had a
good battery in it) and the viewfinder is bright as can be. I
couldn't ask for a more mint example. I'm almost afraid to
use it!

I've never owned one of these before. It's a very nice camera
with bright-line finder, parallax correction, both auto and manual
modes and the meter works in both modes and has its cell within
the filter mount, 6-glass 45/1.8 lens that accepts 55mm filters.
Actually nicer than my GIII in some ways -- it's a bit larger, but
not by much really.

There's something about a pretty camera that I think inspires
pretty photos.

I see the chrome 7s cameras selling on eBay for almost nothing.
If I'd known they were this nice I'd have bought one sooner.

The only advantage of the GIII over this camera I can see is the
GIII is slightly smaller. But, the GIIIs have that foam seal mess to
clean up and replace. This 7s has very little in the way of seals
and they look OK as is (will test to make sure). Even if I have
to replace them, it's a lot easier than on the GIII. (Not that
I'm gonna sell my GIII --- it's great camera. I'm just saying.)

[reiki_]

I had one and it was way ugly and bulky an clumsy for me to use. IMHO of course.

[KenR]

This was my first "real" camera bought in 1970 (?). Did a great job teaching me about photography. Still have it, somewhere in the top of a closet. I wanted wide angle lenses and easier to control shutter speeds etc., but the camera itself never let me down.

[ray*j*gun]

Great bargins.....so are the Yashica's. Fast sharp lenses and hard to kill.

[howpow]

Hi Retro. Very nice find. I have a mint Chrome 7s which works perfectly and takes great photos. They are great cameras. I also have a G111 and I think you will find the lens blows the GIII away. The only negative I can find is the long and rather heavy shutter action , but hey, nothing's perfect.

[Armoured]

I have both 7S and 7SII. Can't comment on the lens difference (just yet), but 7S is a large and bulky monster compared to the 7SII (which has a lovely but flare-prone lens). Not that there's anything wrong with being bigger than your sibling...

[camera.bear]

Hey retro,

I also have a black Hi-Matic 7s and a silver 7sII. I perfer the 7sII by just the tiniest of margins. I like the 40mm focal length and the lens seems just a little bit sharper. The 4omm lens on the 7sII seems to have benifited from having lens technology improve from 1966 to 1977.

I have found the following info in the camera specs. The 7s has a 45 mm lens with a formula of 6 elements in 5 groups and lens barrel with a filter diameter of 55mm. The 7sII got a slightly wider 40mm lens that shrunk down to 6 elements in 4 groups with a filter diameter of 49mm.

I think that the 40mm lens was a more popular focal length at the time and it could be made smaller than the 45mm lens. A lot of consumer cameras with fixed lenses were being made with lenses in the 32mm - 38mm range.

Either way both the 7s and 7sII are great cameras to use.