Minolta Maxxum 600si

Minolta Maxxum 600si
Manufactured from 1995 to 1999 by Minolta Camera Co. of Osaka, Japan. A Minolta autofocus SLR. Many people refer to this camera as a �classic��not because it�s old, but because it feels like it, and I mean that in a good way. While many manufactures had abandoned dials and knobs and replaced them with displays and up/down buttons, Minolta introduced a camera that had large knobs for setting the camera functions. The popularity surprised Minolta and they were hard to find the first two years and commanded full retail to obtain. The camera has an electronically controlled metal focal plain shutter (vertical travel) and allowed for speeds to be set from 30 seconds to 1/4000 of a second. It offers Program auto exposure, Aperture preferred auto exposure, Shutter preferred auto exposure and full Manual. It made full use of Minolta�s dedicated flash units and offered both normal exposure compensation and flash exposure compensation settings as well. The viewfinder was bright and shows the focus area�which can be set from wide to spot�and a digital readout of speed and aperture with mode. The metering area used ether a 14 segment honeycomb fuzzy-logic metering array or spot metering or both (i.e. �center weighted�). The camera has a built in 2fps motor drive. It also had a very cool feature using the motor drive: You can set the camera to take a bracket set. So, for example, when you press the shutter button (and hold it) the camera takes one picture at the setting it�s meter says it should, then one picture one-stop lighter and then one picture one-stop darker. All from one press of the shutter release. Very cool�

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