Minolta Maxxum 7000 Review – It’s Like Magic: In 1985 Minolta launched a camera which would truly revolutionise the 35mm SLR cameras. Others had done similar stuff in the past; Pentax defined the 35mm SLR, Nikon refined it.
Olympus shrunk the size and Canon had made it cheap but none had launched a camera that would completely alter the landscape in the way that the Minolta 7000 did…
That was then…
Through the 1970s camera makers had duked it out to develop new technologies to aid photographers – starting in the late 1960s developments had included self returning mirrors, automatic stop down and through the lens (TTL) metering.
Through the early and 1970s the holy grail had been automatic exposure so that the photographer only needed to set the aperture and the camera would decide on the shutter speed or vice versa. Finally Program mode where the camera would choose both aperture and shutter speed to take the 35mm SLR into the hands of the non-expert photographer. The final challenge to deal with was automatic focus (AF).
AF would prove to be a very tough nut to crack and both Pentax and Nikon struggled mightily along with Chinon to get this to work.
Pentax were first in the pool to release a commercially available product in the Pentax ME-F in 1981 but it was very far from perfect. Its AF was limited to a single 35mm-70mm zoom lens mated to an adapted ME Super body. In the Pentax approach all of the smarts were in the lens, the rangefinder system, the motors and the battery. The AF performance was poor under anything but absolutely ideal conditions and even under ideal conditions it was slow and the price was shockingly high at double the price for the ME-F that you would pay for the non-AF ME Super. The high price combined with the very poor performance consigned the ME-F to a production span of around 18 months. One of the shortest of any camera from one of the major players in 35mm SLR.
Next to jump in the pool were Chinon with their CE-5 in 1982. Chinon were very much a second tier company. They had been one of the third parties using the Pentax ‘K’ mount and they, like Pentax, opted for a similar approach of having all the smarts, motors and batteries in the lens while the camera body simply provided a focus confirmation relayed from the lens.
Chinon produced only two lenses for the CE-5, a 50mm and a 35-70 zoom. Both were large, heavy, expensive and now extremely rare. Like Pentax ,Chinon found price a problem and few takers for the CE-5 equipped with an AF lens and as a result most CE-5s were sold with a standard 50mm manual focus.
The final people to jump in the pool were Nikon with the F3AF which was really a specialised prism finder for the Nikon F3 mated to two lenses only. An 80mm and a 200mm. It was not successful but the idea of having the motors in the lenses and the smarts in the camera body would later bear fruit.
It must have seemed in 1983 with the failure of Pentax and surprisingly, some thought, Nikon to come up with the goods that the AF lark was probably never going to work out and certainly not at a price that would entice people to part with their hard earned money.
Minolta were almost a back number at that period who appeared to be more focused (pardon the pun) on the prosumer market after the failure of their high end gear to draw in the pros were noticeable by their absence in the AF debate raging on. Looking back that should have raised suspicions, after all Minolta were always the most pioneering of the big 5 manufacturers.
As things happened Minolta had been very quiet but also very busy and by 1985 they were ready to stun the world of photography…
Enter the Maxxum 7000
As 1985 rolled in Minolta released their killer product. The Maxxum 7000. The first commercially viable auto focus camera. But it was so much more than that. A camera with a reliable auto focus system that could operate under almost any conditions. An AF which was fast and reliable plus an integrated motor drive. The 7000 supported full manual, aperture priority and shutter priority exposure plus 6 zone metering, auto loading and a nice bright focus screen. In short it was everything anyone could want AND at a price point which made it a viable option. Pricing was slightly higher than most non-AF cameras but it was still in the right ballpark being around 50% more expensive than similar top of the range non-AF cameras and remember you were getting the motor drive thrown in.
The most shocking thing about the 7000 back then though was the fact that everything was managed by buttons and an LCD display. All of the traditional layouts so beloved of generations of 35mm SLR users was dispensed with. Almost the entire camera was made of plastic to get the price down and production speed up.
The secret of the 7000 was its very fast AF system combined with a whole range of lenses which were available from the start. Minolta chose to put ALL of the smarts in the camera body and drive the lens focus system from the body. This became known later on as Motor in Body (MIB). The huge array of lenses available right at the start coupled with lower cost lenses due to the lens not needing its own AF system, motors, electronics etc made the camera an almost instant hit. Right at release there were a huge array of lenses, flashes and accessories for the 7000. This had been the pitfall of every other manufacturer who had released an AF system – few lenses available.
The 7000 was so revolutionary it was scary looking but the fact it had come from Minolta was also quite shocking to many people not least Minoltas big 4 competitors (Pentax, Nikon, Canon and Olympus). After the 7000 nothing would ever be the same again. You can get a feel for the shock the 7000 created from this magazine cutting from its release.
In part Minoltas lead was recognising that they simply had to ditch their SR mount in favour of the new ‘A’ mount needed for AF. Pentax and Nikon both tried to make AF work using their respective ‘K’ and ‘F’ mount systems which had hampered development. Minolta boldly just ditched compatibility and started from scratch. Canon would eventually do the same with their EoS system 2 years later recognising that their FD mount was never going to work for them with AF now on the table.
Why I hated the 7000 (and still do)…
When the 7000 arrived I had a natural aversion to it. I hated the press button options, found it clumsy and slow to manage and I hated the LCD display arrangement preferring the feel of metal and rotary controls that clicked. On top of that I hated the plastic feel of the whole camera and while I had a good look at one in a shop at the time I just rejected it out of hand.
One of my Uncles bought one when they were new and as he was a very skilled wildlife photographer I can remember feeling shocked when he told me he had invested in the 7000. Something like the shock you may feel if a relative told you he was going to South America to fight with Marxist rebels in the jungle or maybe the shock you would feel if a relative told you that they were a serial killer and had been burying bodies in your backyard.
My Uncle back then let me play around with his Maxxum and some of its lenses but I have to say the whole thing left me cold so I retreated back to my world of cameras made from metal and just passed it off as something that was interesting but definitely not my cup of tea.
And so I passed by the whole AF thing until years later when I used a Canon EoS for a while.
Recently though I came across a 7000 in a junk shop that looked like it might be a runner so I picked it up for cheap. I was curious to see if the intervening 40 years would have changed my mind. The camera turned out to be a full runner after a few minor repairs and I felt for £10 it would be an interesting thing to see how I felt about it today – I did the same thing with another camera I hated back then – the Canon AE-1.
To be honest I still found the 7000 cumbersome, fiddly, awkward to use, uncomfortable in the hand as it was back then and of course it’s still made of plastic and looks just as horrible now as it did then. Back then its weird angular styling made it look futuristic, today the same blocky styling looks dated and very much 1980s. For me cameras have to look beautiful as well as function perfectly.
In fairness to it the short ‘A’ series lenses in 50mm and 28mm still focus VERY fast. So fast in fact it’s easy to think the camera has ignored you when you press the button, it’s a near instant response. Its AF and Program mode still delivered and the camera does function well but it just feels like a toy in the hands. For all those reasons I still reject it though I can certainly see its appeal to many folk both today and of course back then in the used to be when it was frankly amazing from a technology standpoint.
Buying one today…
I cant say with any great surety what the issues arising from old 7000s are today as I don’t work on them. As ever light seals are an issue and the two lenses I acquired both had haze caused by vapouring lubricants which was easy to clean.
The most common faults I see online are the internal lithium battery failing which is easy to replace. I did it on the one I had. There is a small metal plate in the battery compartment. This can be removed to get to the standard sized lithium coin cell behind it.
Beyond that the most commonly failing issue are the LCD displays which can bleed from age. If anything much more than that is wrong the camera is seldom economic to repair.
Being first is no guarantee of success…
Minolta were all set to most likely dominate the camera market for a few years but the 7000 proved to be a legal minefield. First off Exxon sued Minolta over the Maxxum Logo. The double ‘XX’ was considered an infringement of Exxons logo. Minolta agreed to change the logo and then got sued by Honeywell who claimed a patent infringement on the phase detection AF system used by the 7000. This patent battle ended with Minolta having to pay the largest ever legal settlement up to then to Honeywell. The huge bill pretty much caused Minolta to collapse.
In truth the technology used in the 7000 had a fatal weakness which was eventually exposed. Minoltas idea of having the motors in the body (MiB) while smart to keep the price of lenses down would prove problematic when large lenses were used. The relatively small motor in the camera body just couldn’t make a long heavy lens focus quickly enough. Nikon found the same issues later. Eventually the market would shift to Motor in Lens (MiL) technology as Canon perfected the small but powerful motors needed and would reduce the costs of the lenses. The final outcome would be the smarts in the camera but the motors in the lens.
The 7000 turned out to be something like Samson smashing down the temple – The AF revolution created and perfected by Minolta would bury many manufacturers, create huge set-backs for others but would also be the root cause of the demise of Minolta.
As so often happens it’s the pioneers who get the arrows in their back and as I have opined before being first is easy, staying in front is much harder.
Mel is one of the driving forces behind High 5 Cameras and writes all our articles.
Starting serious photography back in 1972. Over the years she got to shoot film with most of the major brands in 35mm and large format as both a studio photographer and content provider for websites in the early life of the web. These days she is rediscovering photography and has become the GOTO person for knowledge on camera repair advice.