I think this camera must have in part been aimed at the inexperienced section of the market, because there is a ‘P’ (for Program mode) button just above the on-off switch to return the camera to it’s ‘auto everything’ mode. It felt as if the aperture buttons on the side of the lens barrel were not in the best place for my fingers, but I may have had a better experience if I had used my thumb rather than fingers. However, I nearly always shoot in aperture priority mode and found I had slight problems making aperture adjustments with the camera. The top plate (shutter speed) buttons fall nicely under the fingers whilst the camera is at the eye and I had no problems with these. To adjust the exposure during the process of taking a picture there are two buttons for aperture and two buttons for shutter speed. Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr showing LCD display The modes offered are Program mode, Shutter priority, Aperture priority or Full manual control. There are a variety of exposure modes on this camera which are selected by pressing and holding the mode button on the top plate and adjusting using the shutter buttons. The handbook for this camera is available on-line from this link. Power for the camera is supplied from 4 AAA sized batteries fitted in a battery chamber in the grip. Although there is an iso button, the camera has a DX coded film chamber so normally that function can be ignored. On the side of the lens barrel is a switch to switch the focus between auto or manual focus. There are top plate switches for exposure compensation, iso, drive mode and exposure mode, and an AE lock button. The camera I bought has a 35-80 mm f/4.0-f/5.6 lens fitted, but the camera can accept any autofocus or manual focus lens with the minolta bayonet fitting. Even the shutter button has a touch sensitive control to turn on the metering system as you first touch it. There are several exposure modes, a neat in-built lens cap, motorised film advance, auto-focus and a good information display. In a similar way to my Minolta Dynax 5, this seems to be a very advanced camera for it’s day. The Minolta 7000 was introduced by Minolta in about 1985 and is a 35 mm film SLR. Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr top view.Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr bottom view.Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr with lens removed.

Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr showing aperture adjust buttons.Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr showing LCD display.Minolta 7000 autofocus 35mm slr front view.

Minolta camera review