Narrative: Minolta was a Japanese company that manufactured cameras from 1929 to 2003. It produced cameras for many film formats, from 16mm film to medium format. In the 1950s Chiyoda, as it was then called, ventured beyond production of cameras and binoculars into business services, especially photocopiers. Most branches of the company were related to optics: the copier branch, the exposure meter branch, etc. Minolta was succeeded by Konica Minolta after the merger with Konica in 2003.  On January 19, 2006, Konica Minolta announced that it was leaving the camera and photo business and that it would sell a portion of its SLR camera business to Sony as part of its move to pull completely out of the business of selling cameras and photographic film.

Mostly plastic with a metal lens mount; the tripod mount and film guides are plastic. Camera body was made in Malaysia: lens made in Sha Tin Rd, Hong Kong; camera flash made on 4 Bulkeley Street, Hung Hom, Hong Kong; battery and charger made in Guangdong, China; camera filter made in Haishu, Ningbo, Zhejlang, China; lense made in Saitama, Japan; imaging products and sports optics made in Finland, Italy, Switzerland, Norway or Belarus; distributed from Mexico City or Toronto. I acquired this camera in 2000 in Portland Oregon, mail order through B&H Photo Video (shipped UPS Ground) after doing a job with a borrowed camera for an insurance company. The additional zoom lense was purchased used through a camera store in Portland.

Type: autofocus SLR camera body
Year of release: 1998
Manufacturer: Minolta
ASA/ISO range: 25 to 5000 ASA DX-coded (6 to 6400 manually)
Film Format: 35mm
Modes: programmed modes for sports, landscape, portrait, macro and night, fully automatic mode, shutter preferred mode, aperture preferred mode
Exposure Metering: 14 field TTL measuring, spontaneously switchable to spot metering via central field
Focusing: 2 vertical AF-sensors and a central cross-sensor controlled by fuzzy logic system, switchable to manual focusing or single sensor usage. A focusing priority mode allows shutter release only after correct focusing
Shutter speed range: electronically controlled, 30 sec to 1/4000 sec
Viewfinder: pentaprism showing 90% of image
Lens Mount: Minolta A-Lenses bayonet
Flash: guide number12, selectable as autofocus support light
Weight: 350 g without Lens + Film + Cr2-Batteries
Dimensions: 135 x 90 x 58,5 mm